As part of secret agreements Russia avoids bombing Chinese-owned facilities in Ukraine
Russia avoids bombing Chinese-owned facilities Ukraine, reports the Ukrainian news website Nashi Groshi (Our Money).
According to media reports, this is due to non-public agreements between Russia and China in which China promised to avoid taking any side in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
At the beginning of the invasion, Beijing allegedly managed to negotiate with Moscow a permission to continue to independently manage its interests in Ukraine, regardless of the outcome of the war.
It is reported that China believes that as a result of the war, the entire territory of Ukraine will fall under Russia’s control. That is why Russia secretly promised not to bomb Chinese infrastructure facilities on the territory of Ukraine.
For example, while the entire industrial zone of Mariupol was destroyed, the oil extraction plant Setelit, its separators, storage facilities for grain and sunflower, and the port facilities remained untouched. The plant was later set on fire by Ukrainian partisans when Mariupol was captured by the Russians.
Also, while Russians continue to indiscriminately shell Mykolaiv and have already destroyed the second largest grain terminal in Ukraine – Nika-Tera, owned by the Ukrainian oligarch Dmitry Firtash, the neighboring logistics complex of the Danube Shipping and Stevedoring Company in the Mykolaiv Commercial Sea Port remained unharmed.
These facilities in Mariupol and Mykolaiv belong to the same owner - the Chinese corporation COFCO.
The Ukrainian Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the Kyiv Stock Exchange, which are controlled by the Chinese state owned Bohai Commodity Exchanges, are also safe.
Until 2021, part of the Ukrainian company Motor Sich belonged to Chinese companies (in particular, Skyrizon). Chinese invertors are suing the Ukrainian government after it nationalized Motor Sich and, probably, will continue to fight for it.
According to the publication, "the agreement with the Russians, concluded through lawyer Oksana Karel, a representative of the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative, ensures that Chinese infrastructure will not be destroyed during hostilities and the investments will be preserved."
In turn, the Chinese authorities allegedly prohibit using the words "war" and "invasion" concerning Ukraine in the media and internal documents of state and private companies. The only term that can be used is "tension."
"This is a plan of a truly planetary scale, in which the Chinese, in order to assert themselves as a world hegemon, issued loans for the construction of ports, grain terminals, storage facilities, railways, roads. Grain, metal, ore, shipping containers are handled within the framework of the new Belt and Road initiative,” the publication notes.
China's ambassador to Kyiv, Fan Xianrong, told Ukrainian government, military and business representatives in March that China was not going to leave Ukraine and its investment plans would be preserved and possibly expanded regardless of how the war ends.
"As an ambassador, I can responsibly say that China will forever be a good force for Ukraine both economically and politically. We will always respect your state, develop relations on the basis of equality and mutual benefit," he said.
According to the newspaper, this promise will have even greater weight if Ukraine is under Moscow’s control because Russia's weakened economy will prevent the Kremlin from financing Ukraine's reconstruction and economic recovery. Thus, in fact, the Chinese offered the Ukrainian establishment their money and support in the event of Ukraine’s defeat or a hybrid peace agreement on Russia’s terms.