How Chinese, Iranian companies profit in Russia-occupied Ukrainian regions
Key takeaways
- More than a dozen Chinese companies operate in Donetsk and Luhansk, according to a Ukrainian monitor.
- Despite being inked in Moscow, the contract was not made with a sovereign nation.
- “I’m confident that the potential of our cooperation is huge, and we’re only beginning to implement it,” Solntsev wrote on his Telegram channel.
Why this matters: an international story with cross-border implications worth tracking.
More than a dozen Chinese companies operate in Donetsk and Luhansk, according to a Ukrainian monitor.
xwhatsapp-strokecopylinkgoogle Add Al Jazeera on Googleinfo. This image, supplied by a former Moscow-backed official in Ukraine's occupied Donetsk region, shows him with representatives of Chinese companies that struck a business deal with his separatist administration [Handout/Evgeny Solntsev via Telegram]By Mansur Mirovalev Published On 21 May 202621 May 2026Kyiv, Ukraine – In November 2023, representatives of two Chinese companies signed a deal to supply stone-crushing machinery for construction projects.
Despite being inked in Moscow, the contract was not made with a sovereign nation. It was announced by Evgeny Solntsev, then the “prime minister” of the “People’s Republic of Donetsk”, a resource-rich, war-ravaged statelet carved out of southeastern Ukraine by Russia-backed separatists in 2014.