“The errors we make in trials are detours the troops will not have to take,” a Chinese attack-drone technician was quoted as saying in an October 7 analysis by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (csis). He was describing tests his department is conducting using equipment Russia has recovered and knowledge it has accumulated during its war against Ukraine.

The tests are part of what csis calls China’s “systematic effort” to transform Russia’s wartime experience “into military advantage.” Beijing views the conflict as a “living textbook,” the analysis notes, and has mounted the most organized effort of any outside nation to study it and incorporate its findings into Chinese military doctrine.

And what China is learning from this “textbook” goes far beyond drones.

The csis analysis is based on nearly 100 Chinese-language documents, including journals from China’s aviation and missile conglomerates and the Central Military Commission’s primary publication. It shows that Chinese military researchers are also studying Russia’s experience with electronic warfare, battlefield communications, precision strikes and the integration of drones with conventional forces.

To extract lessons in all these vital areas, they are examining a vast array of captured and recovered equipment and scrutinizing combat footage to analyze both Russian and Ukrainian tactics, strategies and battlefield adaptations.

China is also closely watching how quickly technology evolves on the battlefield—and how quickly an advantage can disappear once an enemy adapts.

The goal of these efforts is to transform this “living textbook” into capabilities the People’s Liberation Army can deploy. That makes all that Russia is sharing from its war on Ukraine uniquely valuable to China—something military exercises and simulations cannot fully replicate. China can observe modern warfare in real time without paying the price Russia has paid in blood and equipment.

Moscow’s Motive

Russia, for its part, has strong incentives to share its hard-won battlefield lessons with China. In recent years, its military relationship with China has deepened dramatically, with the two nations conducting increasingly sophisticated exercises, sharing increasingly sensitive technologies, and expanding cooperation across air, land, sea, space and other emerging domains.

The Russians understand that helping China avoid mistakes they have already paid to learn ultimately produces a more capable and powerful military partner.

Russian forces are also beneficiaries of many innovations the Chinese make based on lessons learned from Russia’s experience. These include Chinese-made drone engines and electronic integrated circuits, as well as advanced counter-drone systems such as the Silent Hunter laser. China’s supply of these items to Russia turns the relationship into a two-way exchange of battlefield knowledge and military technology shaped by that knowledge.

This exchange has become clearly visible on the battlefield. Ukrainian intelligence documents from 2025 show that one of Russia’s most widely used drones, the V2U, relies on Chinese-made AI modules, lidar sensors, batteries and solid-state drives. Ukraine notes that the evolution of the Chinese components found in Ukraine suggests that the Chinese are continually refining the technology based on lessons learned by studying Russia’s battlefield experience.

Kings of the East

The Trumpet closely watches the strengthening Russia-China partnership and their increasing military power because biblical prophecy warns that a massive Asian alliance will emerge in the modern era and play a key role in a third world war.

Revelation 16:12 calls this bloc “the kings of the east.” Revelation 9:16 says it will field a force of 200 million soldiers. Ezekiel 38 shows that Russia will be at the head of this power, with China as its main ally. The increasing cooperation between these Asian giants—including Russia’s sharing of hard-won battlefield knowledge with China—shows that these prophecies are already in the early stages of fulfillment.

In the early weeks of Russia’s war on Ukraine, Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry explained:

The rise of Vladimir Putin, Russia’s invasions, a budding alliance between Russia, China and other Asian nations—these are all signs that Bible prophecies are true! Bible prophecy and an honest look at the world reveal that this is all building toward a nuclear World War iii! When nuclear bombs begin detonating, when a 200 million-man army mobilizes, when World War iii explodes, it will seem like this will literally be the end of the world, the end of life on Earth. And it would be, except for something else the Bible prophesies. The Bible forecasts not only the geopolitical situation we are facing right now and the resulting violent eruption but also what comes next: the precise events leading to the Second Coming of Jesus Christ!

To understand the details of the prophesied Asian bloc that is taking shape today, the dark future it is building toward, and the peace that will follow directly after, order your free copy of Russia and China in Prophecy.