January 19, 2026: In 2025 Russia and China conspired to block Ukrainian access to Chinese drones and drone components. It didn’t work. The Chinese firms that produced drones and drone components were not willing to lose one of their largest customers. While the media reported that Ukrainian troops were short of drones, the shortage was never real, and Ukraine had already made plans to deal with the possibility of China helping Russia by cutting off Ukrainian supplies of drones and components.

The reality was that dozens of Ukrainian drone manufacturers and thousands of individual Ukrainians continued to make drones by obtaining the needed components from other suppliers. The Chinese suppliers were also not willing to give up selling components, or even drones, to Ukraine. There were trading companies that, for a small fee, would buy goods from Chinese manufacturers and then quietly sell them to a sanctioned customer. The markup was small because there were many of these trading companies and they competed on price as well as service.

And then there was the network of drone components suppliers Ukraine organized in European, American and Asian suppliers. The components needed for drones are used in many other commercial products. In short, the Russian sponsored Chinese drone blockade failed and cost Chinese drone and component manufacturers a lot of business.

The Chinese drone industry, long the largest in the world, tried to cope. Chinese drone manufacturers quietly and carefully defied their own government and continued to supply Ukraine with drone components, as well as some drones. China lost market share to the new Ukrainian and other drone components manufacturers worldwide but did all they could legally or illegally to maintain their status as the largest supplier in the world.