It is unlikely Russia is buying destroyer engines from China
, as China's naval engines have been shown to be unreliable and technologically inferior to alternatives. Russia, for its part, has made significant progress developing its own naval engines since sanctions cut off its previous suppliers. Russia's need for new naval engines
Russia's domestic engine development was forced by Ukraine-related sanctions imposed after 2014, which cut off access to German diesel engines and Ukrainian gas turbines. These sanctions impacted Russian naval projects such as:
- Project 20385 corvettes: Originally planned with German engines.
- Project 22350 frigates: Russian-built frigates that originally relied on Ukrainian engines.
China's unreliable naval engines
While Russia has previously turned to China for naval engines for smaller vessels, the results have been underwhelming.
- For its Buyan-M corvettes, Russia had to use Chinese engines after losing access to German ones. The Chinese engines "seriously underperformed in terms of power, flexibility, and fuel consumption".
- Similar poor performance was recorded when Russia used smaller Chinese engines for its Karakurt-class corvettes.
Russia's progress toward engine self-sufficiency
Since 2014, Russia has heavily invested in its domestic engine manufacturing to reduce reliance on foreign components.
- A key breakthrough was the domestic production of the M90FR gas turbine, which is now installed on Project 22350 frigates. This has allowed Russia to replace the previously used Ukrainian engines on new ships.
- Russia has achieved a "major breakthrough" by beginning the batch production of these power plants, which are reported to be more reliable than the older Ukrainian designs.
Status of China-Russia military trade
While China and Russia have strengthened military ties, particularly since the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the flow of advanced military technology is mostly one-sided.
- Russia is currently dependent on China for dual-use components like semiconductors and machine tools to sustain its defense industry, which is under heavy sanctions.
- China has historically been accused of stealing Russian military technology, and both sides are wary of institutionalizing deeper technological cooperation.
- In the case of naval technology, Russia has been cautious about sharing its most sensitive technology, like submarine know-how, with China due to concerns about IP theft.
