In fresh days, Russians have been intensively attacking Ukrainian cities utilizing Iranian Shahed-136 drones. Meanwhile, more and more information is emerging to propose that shortly the Iranians can besides hand over their Fateh 110 and Zullikar ballistic missiles to the Russians.
At the outset, it should be noted that Iran's drone work is very advanced and has gone much further than akin work carried out in Russia. Most Iranian constructions are copies of American machines that the Iranians captured in neighboring Iraq.
Here, for example, we have the Yasir reconnaissance drone, which is simply a copy of the American ScanEagle. In 2013, the Iranians donated 1 copy of Yasir to the then commander of the Russian Air Force, Gen. Viktor Bondariev. Below is the photograph from the presentation.
Iranians follow US machines, but they are not “perfect digs”. Iranian constructions are subject to 1 rule – the production of Iranian drones must be independent of Western sanctions. As a result, this forces the resignation of more advanced components.
Iranian drones may not be miracles of technology, but – given their low production costs – are very successful machines. Low production costs mean that Iranian drones can be utilized massively as ‘drone swarms’ capable of breaking the enemy's p-flight defense.
The effectiveness of Iranian drones has already been proven in many battlefields, including Syria, Iraq, or Yemen.
Shahed 136 is the first Iranian drone to appear in Ukraine – it was shot down in mid-September under Kupansk. It is simply a comparatively fresh design, due to the fact that it was only presented in late 2021 – but it was most likely utilized earlier by Houthich.
Shahed 136 is simply a kamikaze drone (circular ammunition). According to the Iranians themselves, it reaches speeds of up to 185 km/h, and has a scope of over 2000 km. It's armed with a warhead of up to 50 kg. The actual performance of this drone (especially erstwhile it comes to range) may be smaller.
The exact number of Shahed-136 drones passed to the Russians is unknown, but most likely we are talking about hundreds, if not thousands of pieces. It is unofficially said that the Iranians have even allocated part of Shahed-136 production to exports to Russia. Similarly, Ukrainian intelligence believes.
The Shahed-136 drones were initially utilized by Russians mainly for attacks on Odessa. Since General Surovikin took command of the post (8 October), The Russians began utilizing Shahed-136 for intense attacks on Kiev, Lviv, Dnipro...
On 8 October, Moscow appointed General Surovikin as the commander-in-chief of the Russian invasion troops in Ukraine. According to any media, Sorovikin was selected due to his ruthlessness and successes in Syria. Let's see what it looked like in reality. pic.twitter.com/vQGqR4Nt6t
— Tomasz Rydelek (@PulsLewant) October 11, 2022The Ukrainian army claims that it manages to knock down most of the Iranian machines. It is hard to measure the reliability of these reports, but the fact is that Iranian drones regularly attack Ukrainian cities and hit critical infrastructure specified as power plants.
Appelle Kiev to supply further p-lot defence systems propose that the situation may unfortunately not be as good as the army is trying to present. A peculiar problem seems to be the “drone swarm” due to the fact that even if you manage to destruct any of the machines, 1 of the drones will hit the target.
Shahed-136 is not the only Iranian drone that the Russians usage in Ukraine. At the end of September, a Mohajer-6 reconnaissance and impact drone was knocked down under Odessa.
Still in the Ukrainian sky, however, we have not seen the most advanced Iranian machines specified as Shahed-191 or Shahed-129 (a copy of the American MQ-1 Predator). The Iranians most likely don't want to weaken their military capabilities.
Meanwhile, news appears that the Iranians will shortly open their ballistic rocket arsenal to the Russians as well. In particular, there is talk of supplies of Fateh-110 rockets (range approx. 300 km) and Zulfikar (approx. 700 km).
Iranian work on ballistic missiles is besides very advanced, the best example of which was the attack on American base Al Asad in 2020 – retaliation for the killing of General Solejmani by Americans.
Even Americans were amazed at the precision of Iranian rockets. The attack on the Al Asad base is likely to have been carried out by Fateh-110 missiles, which are now expected to hit Ukraine.
The end of the first part of the Iranian arms communicative for the Russians. In the evening I will add a subject in which I will effort to answer the fundamental question: Why? Why is Iran helping the Russians? (There has been talk about the US-Iran agreement just recently.)
