July 29, 2022
The Biden Administration says the Islamic Republic is planning to supply Russia with “several hundred” drones to use in its war with Ukraine, showing that Russia’s arms supplies are running short.
In Tehran, the new spokesman at the Foreign Ministry, Nasser Kanani, declined to either confirm or deny what the Biden Administration reported. But a few days later, Foreign Minister Hossain Amir-Abdollahian said Iran would not supply Russia with any weapons because it opposes the war with Ukraine, just like it opposes all wars.
Kanani went on to accuse Washington of hypocrisy for opposing such a weapon sale when the US has long flooded the Middle East with weapons.
But Washington did not criticize the drone sale to Moscow. It simply cited it as evidence that Russia’s military is having difficulty keeping the war going.
It appeared Kanani had not read what the US said and just responded ideologically.
Kanani also accused Washington of “lying” by saying Iran “supported the massacre of Ukrainians.” But the US said nothing of the sort. Again, it was focused on Russia’s shortage of weapons. Kanani said, “Lying is a common practice among US politicians for turning reality upside down for evil purposes.”
The announcement of the drone sale was made almost as an afterthought by Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser to President Biden, in answering the very last question at a news conference July 12.
Sullivan said, “I would also point out, when I talked about the severe costs that Russia has had to endure on the battlefield as it tries to grind out territory in the east, this is coming at a cost to the sustainment of its own weapons.
“And I’ll just give you one example before I leave, which is an example that I think is pretty newsworthy and noteworthy, and that is that our information indicates that the Iranian government is preparing to provide Russia with up to several hundred UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles, the military term for drones], including weapons-capable UAVs, on an expedited timeline.
“Our information further indicates that Iran is preparing to train Russian forces to use these UAVs with initial training sessions slated to begin as soon as early July. As of July 26, the White House said it had not yet detected the appearance of any drones in the air over Ukraine.
Sullivan said nothing critical about Iran and his comments were not focused on Iran but on Russia’s shortage of military equipment. Kanaani did not seem to understand that at all.
A few days later, the US said that Russian military officers had visited the Kashan Air Base June 8 and July 5 to examine drones.
Then, Foreign Minister Hossain Amir-Abdollahian denied flatly that Iran would sell any weapons to Russia. He repeated the denial in a number of interviews and statements. But other officials continued to speak of the drone sale as if it was well underway. It appeared there was a conflict between the Foreign Ministry, which views the sale as harmful to Iran’s interests, and other parts of the Iranian system that want to curry favor with Moscow.
The Guardian of Great Britain reported as far back as April 11 that Iran was helping Russia with weapons. It said that Iran had shipped to Russia one of its Bavar-373 anti-missile systems. They are a copy of the Russian S-300. The Guardian also said that Iran had returned to Russia one of the four S-300 systems it bought in 2016 from Russia.
The Guardian also said that RPGs (rocket-propelled grenades) and anti-tank missiles in the possession of Hashd ash-Shaabi, one of the Iraqi Shiite militias backed by Iran, were transported to Iran through the Shalamcheh border crossing on March 26, where they were received by the Iranian military and taken on to Russia over the Caspian Sea. The Guardian said it was told that by a commander of the Iraqi militia branch that controls the crossing.
The newspaper also reported that Hashd ash-Shaabi had dismantled and sent two Brazilian-designed Astros II rocket launcher systems to Iran on April 1, according to a source within the organization.
All that suggests Russia is starving for equipment to keep the war going. But it also suggests that the Islamic Republic has cast its lot fully with Moscow, which is not what it tells its own people. Publicly, the Islamic Republic has blamed the West for provoking the Russia-Ukraine war, but has claimed it advocates a peaceful settlement of this conflict and has said it opposes this war as it opposes all wars—a non sequitur given that it supports Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in his war and the Houthis in their war, not to mention its own refusal to accept for almost six years a UN-proposed ceasefire in its war with Iraq.
Meanwhile, the Islamic Republic announced that it had a created a “fleet” of warships—both surface and sub-surface—capable of carrying drones. It didn’t say how many ships were in the fleet, beyond saying that one ship carried 50 drones. State media made it sound like this was a major technological development. But it isn’t. Most US ships carry drones and it requires no new technology to put a drone of a ship.