At first glance, Lu Yuguang presents himself with modesty. “I’m just a correspondent,” he claimed in a profile published in late May by RT, the Kremlin’s propaganda outlet. The Russia bureau chief of Phoenix TV — a Chinese television channel majority-owned by the Chinese state with more than 43 million followers on Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, and over one million subscribers on YouTube — Lu Yuguang displays his war trophies in his office. They include fragments of Ukrainian drones, Russian military insignia and memorabilia from his reporting on the Chechen wars in North Caucasus. In one of the many photographs hanging on his wall, he stands alongside Maria Zakharova, the spokesperson for Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The 64-year-old Russian-speaking maintains he has been active as a journalist for “forty years,” including nearly three decades covering Russia.  Since 2022, he has become one of the leading conduits spreading Russia’s narrative of the war in Ukraine to Chinese audiences. Often dressed in military-style clothing, he reports from occupied Ukrainian territories, from Mariupol to Donetsk and even from Kursk, in southwestern Russia, where Ukraine launched a military offensive in the summer of 2024.

His alignment with the Kremlin’s narrative is undeniable. In a video released in April to mark Phoenix TV’s 30th anniversary, he refers to the invasion as a “special military operation,” Moscow’s euphemism for its war of aggression. Ukrainian prisoners of war are portrayed as preferring captivity to combat, omitting the systematic torture inflicted on Ukrainians in Russian detention facilities documented by international organisations such as Human Rights Watch. He also openly boasts of his “good relationship with the Russian military,” which grants him privileged access to the front lines.

Such access is highly exceptional, given that the occupied territories are virtually inaccessible to independent journalists and the Ukrainian reporters who remain there have been arrested. Although  Lu Yuguang claims to be the only “professional” Chinese journalist working in these areas, RSF has established that several other members of Chinese and pro-Chinese media have travelled there since 2022.

Controlled access to the occupied territories

China does not officially recognise Russia’s occupation of Ukrainian territory, but this has not prevented it from establishing a presence there. According to an investigation by the independent Ukrainian outlet Realna Gazeta, Chinese companies are investing in the occupied territories — primarily in reconstruction projects — alongside Russia. In parallel, Beijing’s influence is also gradually expanding in the media sphere.

“Publicly, China maintains a rhetoric of ‘neutrality,’ but within the information space of these territories, Chinese actors primarily serve to reproduce or reinforce the Russian narrative,” explains Vira Yastrebova, director of the Ukrainian organisation Eastern Human Rights Group, which specialises in the Donbas region and published a 2026 report on the economic dealings of China and Iran in the occupied territories.

China’s presence also takes the form of press trips organised and controlled by the Russian authorities. In April, a nearly ten-day tour organised by SOVINTERN, a pro-Kremlin “international socialist movement” publicly backed by Russian President Vladimir Putin, brought around ten participants — presented as international reporters — from countries including Japan, Turkey and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the occupied territories. Among them were two Chinese bloggers. Although RSF could not establish any affiliation between these bloggers and Chinese state media, their participation was widely covered by local pro-Kremlin websites, complete with photographs and quotations. This was no coincidence. According to Vira Yastrebova, every visit by Chinese media representatives carries “propaganda value,” providing Moscow with a veneer of international recognition for its occupation of Ukraine.

Other members of the Chinese media have enjoyed similar privileged access. In 2022, Dmitry Maslak, Russian correspondent for China’s state broadcaster CGTN at the time, accompanied Russian forces during the siege of Mariupol. In 2023, a delegation led by Rao Jin, president of the nationalistic Chinese online outlet April Media, travelled to Donetsk and Crimea. He said he wanted to learn more about “life in Crimea,” claiming that Chinese audiences lacked “reliable information” because of the “ideological war waged by the West.”

More recently, the Institute of Mass Information (IMI), an RSF partner in Ukraine, profiled Zhu Haozheng, a freelance “war correspondent” who has travelled repeatedly to these regions since 2022. His reporting is clearly aligned with Kremlin messaging: he notably describes Ukrainians as “fascists,” echoing one of the Russian government’s favourite tropes. On the Chinese-language version of the Kremlin-controlled outlet Sputnik, he appears in a video filmed in Donetsk alongside Christelle Néant, co-founder of the pro-Russian disinformation site International Reporters.

“Even if limited in scale, the Chinese media presence in occupied Ukrainian territories represents a victory for Russian propaganda. Beijing provides the Kremlin with what it needs most: international legitimacy, the amplification of its media and help normalising the occupation. In return, Moscow opens the occupied territories to Chinese investment. Beijing and Moscow are advancing together politically, economically and in the information sphere to impose their narratives.

The Moscow–Beijing information axis

Within China, Kremlin-backed narratives have already gained significant traction. An investigation by Radio Free Asia (RFA) — the international public broadcaster funded by US Congress — found that Russian state media outlets RT and Sputnik had published hundreds of thousands of misleading posts on the Chinese social media platform Weibo, generating massive engagement.

By February 2025, Sputnik had nearly 12 million followers on the platform and had generated around 20 million interactions, while RT had approximately 2 million followers and had published more than 60,000 posts.

Their content consistently reinforces the Kremlin’s key messages. Russia’s invasion is framed as the “Ukraine crisis” while the blame for starting the war is shifted onto the United States and NATO. Meanwhile, independent media remain censored in China, leaving Chinese audiences trapped inside an information bubble that favours Moscow.

Seeking legitimacy in Beijing

Xi Jinping’s China is increasingly establishing itself as a preferred partner for media organisations operating in occupied Ukrainian territories.

Speaking to RSF, Andrii Dikhtiarenko, editor-in-chief of Realna Gazeta, who monitors China’s presence in these regions, has observed a clear shift since 2022. “Local propagandists are now travelling to China for exchanges of experience,” he said.

One example came in July 2025, when Evgueny Myrylev, head of the regional branch of the pro-Kremlin Russian Union of Journalists in the occupied region of Luhansk, attended the Beijing International Radio, TV & Film Equipment Exhibition, organised in part by China Media Group, the parent company of CGTN. Myrylev openly welcomed what he described as a first-ever visit by representatives from the occupied territories and presented the event as an opportunity to establish “future cooperation” in the media sector.

Although the concrete impact of such visits remains difficult to assess, a new trend is becoming apparent: beyond Moscow, pro-Russian media actors from the occupied territories are now seeking to bolster their legitimacy in Beijing as well.

“Since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Chinese regime has sought to present itself as a neutral actor and potential mediator, yet allows Kremlin narratives to dominate China’s tightly censored information space, integrating them into state media content. Beijing has also reproduced and amplified Russian propaganda through outlets such as CGTN while allowing Russian state media to disseminate their messaging freely within a globally coordinated propaganda apparatus that reaches countries and regions where China enjoys greater influence. The international community must show the same level of vigilance toward Chinese state media as it does toward Russian state media and prevent this propaganda from flooding the global information space.

Text by Pauline Maufrais in cooperation with Aleksandra Bielakowska.