A decree signed by Russian Defence Minister Andrei Belousov authorized a generals led delegation to train in nuclear, biological and chemical defense at People's Liberation Army facilities.
European intelligence agencies decided to go public with a secret Russian military delegation's Beijing training course that Moscow had kept quiet since November 2025. In an exclusive investigation published in July 2026, Reuters cites two European officials and a classified Russian internal document describing a three-week course in which People's Liberation Army officers trained Russian combat troops in nuclear, biological and chemical defense ahead of their return to the fight in Ukraine.
The exposure itself is the story. The training was authorized at the top of the Russian defence establishment: an internal decree signed by Russian Defence Minister Andrei Belousov in August 2025 cleared a Russian armed forces delegation to travel to China for exercises at PLA facilities. Colonel General Rustam Muradov, a senior Russian commander, led the delegation. At least four Russian and Chinese generals were directly involved. Roughly 200 Russian troops attended. The focus was not parade-ground pageantry but operational survival in a contaminated environment.
According to European officials and the classified documents seen by Reuters, the November 2025 syllabus covered chemical and radiation reconnaissance, ventilation contamination protection, and examination of a model nuclear reactor. The graduates were then sent back to fight in Ukraine, where Russian forces have operated in environments where radiological, chemical and biological hazards are an operational reality rather than a theoretical concern.
The course's subject matter is what makes this exchange different from the routine Russia-China military exercises that have drawn muted Western attention for years. NBC defense sits at the most sensitive end of military cooperation between two nuclear-armed states, and the trainees were not a parade unit. They were combat personnel. The July 2026 timing suggests a deliberate European intelligence release cycle rather than a passive disclosure, an attempt to convert "no-limits" rhetoric between Moscow and Beijing into documented operational capability that EU capitals now have to react to.
The other side is on the record too. Reuters reported that Beijing denied the allegations, that the Russian Defence Ministry declined to comment, and that a senior Russian lawmaker dismissed the story as "complete nonsense," with resyndication of the wire carried by US News, the Straits Times, and Internazionale. The classified document cited by Reuters also reportedly contains an internal Russian assessment that Chinese forces, despite their advanced equipment, lack recent combat experience. That caveat does not erase the leak; it sharpens what the leak actually shows.
EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas has publicly cited the training as evidence that Europe can no longer treat China as a marginal actor in the war, framing the disclosure inside the broader European debate over Beijing's role. The exposure is now a forcing function for a policy choice EU capitals did not face a month ago: whether to expand existing measures, which already target Chinese firms linked to Russia's defence industry, and accept the economic cost to a relationship in which China is a major trading partner. The Times of India has resyndicated the Reuters report, indicating that the document-based framing has now entered the Asian debate over the war as well.
The next test is whether the European release produces a concrete policy response, or whether the disclosure becomes another data point in a slow drift. Member states will weigh measures against Beijing in the coming weeks, and any new package would mark the first time the EU has acted on documented, not merely reported, China-Russia operational military cooperation. Watch for a formal Kallas statement, a Council follow-up, and any change in tone from capitals that have until now been reluctant to widen the China file.