Experts say China-linked groups have repeatedly hacked Russian companies and government agencies in search of military secrets since the war in Ukraine began
So many US policymakers, in both parties, kept saying, “Russia and China are allied! Oh no!” — They were either morons or liars. — Take your pick. — #uspol #cdnpoli #ukpol #auspol — www.nytimes.com/2025/06/19/w... Cynthia Brumfield / @metacurity.com : “Allies have been known to spy on one another, but the extent of China's hacking activities against Russia suggests both a higher level of mutual distrust and a reluctance by the Kremlin to share all that it is learning on the battlefield in Ukraine.” — www.nytimes.com/2025/06/19/w... Mastodon: David Ho / @davidho@mastodon.world : This is better than Trump and Elon fighting. — https://www.nytimes.com/... LinkedIn: Isaac Stone Fish : I've been talking about this for years—glad to see an excellent piece in the New York Times reporting on China's malign influence and hacking operations into Russia …
Context & Ripple Effects
The report adds a notable counterpoint to the public framing of Beijing and Moscow as closely aligned: China-linked operators are reportedly pursuing information that Russia has not shared. It follows coverage of China’s evolving state-sponsored hacking approach, which increasingly drew on private-sector capability.
The Ukraine war has also made cyber operations part of the wider military contest, as shown by the US, NATO, Ukrainian, and tech-sector cyber partnership that helped constrain Russian offensive activity. This reporting suggests battlefield-derived intelligence is valuable even among nominal partners.
First-order effects
- Russian companies and government agencies targeted by the campaign face an immediate espionage and network-security problem, particularly around military-related information.
- China-linked groups could obtain operational or technical insights from Russian systems without relying on formal military or intelligence sharing.
Second-order effects
- The reported activity gives the Kremlin an incentive to compartmentalize Ukraine-related intelligence more tightly and to harden networks used by military-linked agencies and firms.
- It complicates the practical relationship between the two states: cooperation can continue while each side treats the other as an intelligence-collection target.
Third-order effects
- If this pattern persists, strategic alignment will look less like intelligence integration and more like transactional coordination bounded by persistent cyber espionage.
- The episode reinforces cyber access as a standing instrument of state competition, including between governments that share some geopolitical interests.
The trend: Cyber espionage is increasingly exposing the limits of geopolitical partnerships, as states pursue independent access to dual-use and battlefield intelligence even while cooperating publicly.