Russian attack | Russia is buying airplanes from Iran and now maybe even missiles

Foreign countries|Russian invasion

Russian this fall, the Iranian-made Shahed-136 aircraft, which Russia has used by the hundreds, have been among the sowers of the war of aggression.

The targets of drone attacks have been, for example, electricity production and thermal power plants, but a considerable number of attacks seem to be mainly deliberate and random.

“Russia likely to continue drone attacks and missile strikes against critical infrastructure,” US think tank ISW evaluates on Tuesday.

“Russia’s dependence on Iranian-made systems, and thus on Iran, will probably increase.”

Russia and Iran are suspected of negotiating deals on Iranian missiles as well. White House Press Secretary John Kirby stated on Tuesday that the United States “is concerned about the matter”.

“The regime in Tehran has openly and willingly become an accomplice in the murder of innocent Ukrainians on Ukrainian soil,” Kirby said, according to news agency AFP.

American magazine The Washington Post reported in October that Iran would be supplying Russia with short-range Zolfaghar and Fateh-110 missiles.

From the point of view of Ukrainians, “short range” is not short. Zolfaghar missiles have a range of 700 kilometers and Fateh-110 missiles have a range of 300 kilometers. They could therefore attack practically the entire territory of Ukraine.

Iran’s arms deliveries to Russia raise the suspicion that Russia has exhausted its own missile arsenal. The war of aggression has already lasted more than eight months, and Russia has been firing missiles at Ukraine the whole time.

The depletion of Russia’s missile stockpile is at least mentioned by Ukraine’s military intelligence in its public statements.

Spokesman of the Air Force of Ukraine Yuri Ignat said a Canadian last Friday BNN Bloomberg according to which Russia would have only 13–15 percent of its missile arsenal left before the attack.

Ukrainian Pravda -lehti, on the other hand, wrote last week, citing Ukrainian security sources, that it will take five years for Russia to bring its own missile stocks to the level of last February, because the sanctions are slowing down production.

Ukrainian reviews is impossible to check. The exact size of Russia’s missile arsenal is hardly known by anyone other than the Russians themselves.

However, it is striking that Russia has to rely on Iranian weapons on such a large scale.

According to Ukrainian intelligence, the next shipment of hundreds of drones is to be shipped from Iran to Russia as cargo.

The planes are transported in parts, and they are assembled in Astrakhan, Russia, located on the northern coast of the Caspian Sea, according to the US news channel CNN.

Arash-2 aircraft, which are much larger and thus more destructive than Shahed-136 aircraft, may also be included in the next arms delivery. Larger drones can carry a heavier explosive load.

Russia and Iran have rubbed off on friendship for a long time, and this year, too, the president of Russia Vladimir Putin and Ibrahim Raisi have met repeatedly.

In the case of Iran, the interesting question is how it is able to maintain the large-scale production of quite advanced weapons, even though it is subject to strict Western economic sanctions.

Iran gets the components needed for missiles and drones from the black market or from technologically advanced countries that have not placed Iran on their sanctions lists.

Iran’s the roots of the drone program are in the 1980s, according to the American Washington Institute of Near East Policy in his analysis. The think tank is considered strongly pro-Israel.

According to the institute, the United States has closely monitored Iran’s drone program since 2002 at the latest.

The Shahed-136 aircraft used by Russia in Ukraine have been used in the past above all in the Middle East, for example against Iraq and Saudi Arabia.