[🇷🇺] Cooperation Between Russia and China

[Saif]

Date of Event: Jan 2, 2025

Source : https://www.thedailystar.net/news/world/news/develop-ai-cooperation-china-3789791

Develop AI cooperation with China
Putin orders Russian govt, top bank

President Vladimir Putin has ordered Russia's government and the country's biggest bank, Sberbank, to build cooperation with China in artificial intelligence.

Putin's instructions were published on the Kremlin's website yesterday, three weeks after he announced that Russia would team up with BRICS partners and other countries to develop AI.

He told the government and Sberbank, which is spearheading Russia's AI efforts, to "ensure further co-operation with the People's Republic of China in technological research and development in the field of artificial intelligence".

Western sanctions intended to restrict Moscow's access to the technologies it needs to sustain its war against Ukraine have resulted in the world's major producers of microchips halting exports to Russia, severely limiting its AI ambitions.

Sberbank CEO German Gref acknowledged in 2023 that graphics processing units (GPUs), the microchips that underpin AI development, were the trickiest hardware for Russia to replace.

By partnering with non-Western countries, Russia is seeking to challenge the dominance of the US in one of the most promising and crucial technologies of the 21st century.

Putin said on December 11 that a new AI Alliance Network would bring together specialists from BRICS countries and other interested states.

Russia currently ranks 31st of 83 countries by AI implementation, innovation and investment on UK-based Tortoise Media's Global AI Index, well behind not only the United States and China but also fellow BRICS members India and Brazil.

On Tuesday, Putin told Russians in a New Year address that the country would move forward with confidence in 2025, though he offered no specific promises on the economy or the war in Ukraine.​

 

[Saif]

China, India, EU among Russia's main trading partners

US President Donald Trump is threatening to hit Russia's trading partners with tariffs of up to 100 per cent if Moscow does not end its war on Ukraine by the beginning of September.

www.newagebd.net

China, India, EU among Russia's main trading partners
Agence France-Presse. Paris, France 16 July, 2025, 05:40

US President Donald Trump is threatening to hit Russia's trading partners with tariffs of up to 100 per cent if Moscow does not end its war on Ukraine by the beginning of September.

Here are the countries most exposed to that ultimatum, if he follows through:

China

China is by far Russia's biggest trading partner, with annual import and export flows between the two totalling nearly $240 billion according to the Bruegel think tank.

That Brussels-based institute has been piecing together monthly trade figures for Russia since that country in April 2022 ceased publishing detailed figures as it came under sanctions for its all-out invasion of Ukraine.

China accounts for 48 per cent of Russia's trade flows, according to Bruegel.

In the year to May 2025, Russia exported $125 billion in goods including natural gas and oil, medical equipment and chemical products.

Its imports from China amounted to $113 billion, mainly steel, equipment, electronics and textiles.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian, responding to Trump's threat on Tuesday, said his country's position on Ukraine had always been ‘clear and consistent -- we have always believed that dialogue and negotiation are the only viable solution to the Ukraine crisis’.

China ‘firmly opposes all illegal unilateral sanctions and long-arm jurisdiction’, he said, adding: ‘There are no winners in a tariff war.’

India

India is Russia's third-biggest trade partner, with exchanges totalling $68 billion in the year to May, according to Bruegel.

Russian exports to India -- primarily fossil fuels -- accounts for 90 per cent of that. India is the biggest buyer of Russian oil in the world.

India's exports to Russia are essentially nuclear reactors, machinery and pharmaceutical compounds.

Yet clandestine exchanges are believed to greatly expand trade, according to several media reports. The Wall Street Journal, for example, has said that Indian shipping companies deploy a shadow fleet to transport sanctioned Russian oil.

Belarus

Belarus, a close ally of Russia's and itself under US and EU sanctions for helping Moscow in its war on Ukraine, relies heavily on Russian oil and gas for its energy needs.

Trade between the two amounted to $60 billion between January and October 2024, according to Russian customs figures.

But Belarus's exposure to the threatened US tariffs could be limited, given it exports just $21 million worth of goods to the United States, principally food products, according to the UN Commodity Trade Statistics Database.

EU and Turkey

Even though the European Union has slapped several rounds of sanctions on Russia, it remains a big buyer of Russian gas.

According to Bruegel, the EU is likely Russia's second-biggest trading partner, with exchanges totalling $71 billion in the year to May, or 14 per cent of Russia's total inflows and outflows.

The European Commission is seeking to reduce that trade, and has presented how it plans to phase out Russian natural gas imports by the end of 2027.

Turkey, not part of the EU, is Russia's fourth-biggest trading partner, according to Bruegel, which tallied $52 billion worth of exchanges last year.

Turkey largely imported Russian fossil fuels and exported electronics.​