September 23, 2022
The Islamic Republic shipped the first batch of its drone aircraft to Russia in August, according to US officials, but they say the Russians have found many of them are faulty.
A US official told Reuters that Moscow has faced “numerous failures” with its new fleet of Iranian-made drones.
And on September 13, Ukraine released photos of an Iranian Shahed-136 drone it said it had shot down. However, Ukrainian military officers also said the Iranian drones were doing serious damage, having already destroyed four self-propelled howitzers and two armored infantry vehicles.
On September 23, Ukrainian Presidetn Volodymyr Zelensky, however, said they had a field day shooting down a total of eight Iranian-made drones.
All but one were identified as Shahed-136 models. The eighth was a larger Mojaher-6.
Zelensky announced also that he was booting out the Iranian ambassador and ordering Iran to reduce the size of its embassy staff—but he did not break diplomatic relations.
Pentagon spokesperson Brigadier General Pat Ryder said, “Russian transport aircraft loaded the UAV [unmanned aerial vehicle] equipment at an airfield in Iran and subsequently flew from Iran to Russia over several days in August…. Our information indicates that UAVs associated with this transfer have already experienced numerous failures.”
Iran has designed much modern military equipment, but appears to have a major problem with manufacturing standards. For example, the US says the Islamic Republic has succeeded in designing missiles that are very accurate. But a few years ago, when Iran fired 16 missiles at an Iraqi air base where Americans were stationed, 12 of the missiles hit US areas of the base while the other four were failures that fell short of the base when their engines stopped.
In July, the White House announced that it had evidence of a Russian delegation visiting Iran’s Kashan airfield twice this summer to inspect Iranian drones.
In August, US officials said Russian forces had begun to undergo training in Iran. “During the last several weeks, Russian officials conducted training in Iran as part of the agreement for UAV transfers from Iran to Russia,” an unnamed US official told CNN.
The deliveries are understood to include Iran’s Shahed-191, Shahed-129 and Mohajer-6 drone aircraft.
The Shahed-191 is a turbofan/piston-powered drone that looks like a reverse-engineered version of a Lockheed Martin RQ-170 Sentinel drone, which Iranian forces captured in 2011. It is an unarmed surveillance drone.
The Shahed-129 debuted nearly a decade ago and can reportedly carry eight bombs or missiles.
The Mohajer-6 can fire four munitions.
The US has said it believes Iran will deliver several hundred drones to Russia. Nothing has been said about the price. But the website 19FortyFive reported in mid-August that the two countries are working on a barter deal that would see the Iranian drones exchanged for Russian-made Sukhoi-35 jet fighters. It said Iranian pilots were already in Russia being trained on the Sukhoi-35, which is an updated version of the old Soviet Sukhoi-27. Two weeks later, the commander of Iran’s Air Force, Brig. Gen. Hamid Vahedi, said in an interview that procuring Sukhoi-35s is on Iran’s agenda.
Vahedi added, however, that the deal would have to be approved by the headquarters of the Joint Staff, meaning the Pasdaran will have a say. The Pasdaran have traditionally been interested in missiles and drones and not interested in seeing the regular Air Force siphon off money. The last time Iran’s military bought foreign jets was a third of a century ago in 1990 when it bought 18 MiG-29s and 12 Sukhoi-24s from the Soviet Union.
Published reports suggest Russia has offered the Sukhoi-35 at roughly $1 billion per dozen. It would take an immense number of Iranian drones to reach a billion dollars, which prompts some to doubt the stories about a barter deal.
A deal would give Iran its most modern military aircraft. Russia, in turn, is trying desperately to find some way to achieve superiority in the air over Ukraine, a goal that has eluded Russia ever since it invaded that country February 24. Russia has not done much work on drone aircraft, while Iran has invested much effort in the field.
The New York Times reported that Russia was buying millions of artillery shells and rockets from North Korea, with American officials citing that as further evidence that Russia is unable to produce what it needs to fight its war in Ukraine. The newspaper quoted US officials as saying China was adhering to US sanctions on Russia and not selling it weapons because China doesn’t want to see its huge trade with the United States trimmed for sanctions violations.