IEMZ Kupol, a subsidiary of Russian state-owned arms company Almaz-Antey, has developed and flight-tested a new drone model called Garpiya-3 (G3) in China with the help of local specialists, according to one of the documents, a report that Kupol sent to the Russian defence ministry earlier this year outlining its work.

In a later report, Kupol told the ministry that a factory in China is capable of manufacturing the G3 and other drone models, with the intent to deploy them in Russia's "special military operation," the Kremlin's term for its war against Ukraine.