The average price for a kilometer of fiber-optic cable critical for Russian battle drones has more than doubled in China, with some spot markets putting the increase as high as 400 percent, a major Russian business magazine reported on Thursday.
Loaded onto a spool and unwinding behind a drone as it flies in battle, this high-tech component is made primarily of pure silicon. It is calibrated for ultra-fast data transmission between the drone and its operator and is impervious to jamming.
The fiber-optic-controlled attack drone is an experimental military technology first used by the Russian and Ukrainian armies in late 2023. By 2025, it had become a deadly weapon capable of finding and destroying a main battle tank as far as 40 kilometers away from the operator.
A year on, Russian military demand for tens of thousands of fiber-optic-cable-equipped strike drones has driven the market price of a kilometer of standard fiber-optic cable sold in China from 16 yuan ($2.33) in January 2025 to 40 yuan ($5.83) in January 2026, Russian magazine Vedomosti reported – although a global rise in demand for fiber-optic cable due to its use in artificial intelligence technologies may also have played a role.
Together, Russia and Ukraine probably consume 50-60 million kilometers (31-37 million miles) of fiber-optic cable in a year, with Russia alone absorbing about 10 percent of global production.
China is responsible for roughly 60 percent of global fiber-optic cable output, with the US, South Korea, Japan and Italy producing smaller quantities.
Both Ukraine and Russia have small domestic fiber-optic cable manufacturing industries but, even in peacetime, capacity has never met demand. In wartime, both countries have had to import the cable in order to sustain their use of fiber-optic-controlled drones in combat.
The Kremlin’s access to non-Chinese cable is limited by the sanctions placed on it by Western nations, which have effectively shut down Russian access to American, Italian, and Japanese markets.
Although Russia is still able to purchase cable via intermediaries, it remains “100 percent dependent” on Chinese imports, Vedomosti reported.
Ukraine does not manufacture the key component of fiber-optic cable, a glass-based material called optical fiber. Roughly the diameter of a human hair, optical fiber is designed to transmit light signals from one end to the other with very low loss, enabling the accurate transfer of data as far as the cable made of the optical fibers can stretch.
Kyiv’s inability to produce optical fiber has forced it to rely wholly on cable imports to equip its drones. Ukrainian manufacturers import from both Chinese and Western manufacturers – although most order Chinese fiber-optic cable through middlemen in the Gulf States, because that is thought to be the least costly means of delivering fiber-optic cable to Ukraine at scale.
Until early 2025, Russia operated a single optical fiber factory, the Optic Fiber Systems JSC in Saransk, a city in Russia’s upper Volga region. At full capacity, the plant produced approximately four million kilometers (roughly 2.5 million miles) of optic fiber a year, The Moscow Times previously reported.
Two Ukrainian raids on the factory took place in April and May 2025. After flying through some 1,400 kilometers of Russian airspace undetected, Ukrainian drones detonated multiple warheads at the site.
The May 7 attack set fire to parts of the factory, and it was forced to halt production. Nearly a year later, as per The Moscow Times, the facility is still offline.
Wendell Weeks, CEO of major US fiber-optic cable manufacturer Corning, said in a Jan. 28 interview with CNBC that he expected demand to remain high throughout 2026, driven by major cloud/AI operators like Meta, Google and Microsoft.
Weeks believes that global manufacturing capacity will be able to meet this demand.
“Almost every phone call I get from my customers is trying to see, how do we get them more?” Weeks said. “As far as the optical fiber market, I would say on a generic basis, it is our opinion that there is enough fiber in the world to meet demand.”
Kyiv’s calls for Beijing to stop indirectly arming Russia tend to center on Chinese dual-use components used by Russia to manufacture strike drones and missiles used to target Ukrainian civilians.
Following meetings with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Munich on Feb. 13, Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said that China could end Russia’s war in Ukraine quickly by applying its political and economic influence on Russia.
“China can play an important role in bringing about a just peace for Ukraine,” he told reporters.
At the same press conference, Wang said that China “supports all efforts conducive to peace,” is “objective and impartial,” and is “ready to maintain communication with Ukraine to play a constructive role in an early political settlement.”