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Russia is close to completing a phased shipment of drones, medicine and food to Iran, according to western intelligence reports that detail Moscow’s efforts to keep its embattled partner fighting.
Senior Iranian and Russian officials began secretly discussing delivering drones days after Israel and the US attacked Tehran, two officials briefed on the intelligence said. The processing of deliveries began in early March and was expected to be completed by the end of the month.
Moscow has close ties with Tehran and has provided its ally with crucial support including satellite imagery, targeting data and intelligence support, people familiar with the matter said.
The shipments of weaponry such as drones would be the first evidence Moscow has been willing to provide lethal support to Iran since the start of the war.
Asked about Moscow sending drones to Iran, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said: “There are a lot of fakes going around right now. One thing is true — we are continuing our dialogue with the Iranian leadership.”
A senior western official said Moscow was stepping in to shore up not only the Iranians’ fighting capabilities but also to underwrite the broader political stability of Tehran’s regime.
In public Moscow has highlighted provision of humanitarian aid since the conflict began, saying last week that it has sent more than 13 tonnes of medicine to Iran through Azerbaijan and is planning to continue the shipments.
Iran has made firing one-way attack drones across the Middle East a core element of its military strategy. It has fired more than 3,000 such drones, which it is able to produce cheaply, since the outbreak of fighting.
Russia has been producing one-way attack drones based on Iranian designs for use in Ukraine since 2023. They have been modified to enable them to evade air defences and carry heavier payloads.
Antonio Giustozzi, senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, said of the Iranians: “They don’t need more drones. They need better drones. They are after the more advanced capabilities.”
Giustozzi said he had heard independently from sources within the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps that discussions on drone deliveries had been opened with Russia in the immediate aftermath of the US and Israeli strikes on Iran.
One of the western security officials said they had not established the precise class of drones Russia agreed to send to Iran this month. They added Moscow would only be in a position to deliver models such as the Geran-2, which are based on the Iranian Shahed-136.
Israel last week targeted a key military transfer route between Russia and Iran on the Caspian Sea with strikes, people familiar with the matter said.
Nicole Grajewski, a professor at Sciences Po university in Paris who studies the Russia-Iran relationship, said Tehran could want to reverse engineer the drones to help improve its indigenous systems.
The advanced Russian weaponry could also improve the effectiveness of Iranian drone strikes, especially if Tehran did not have the time to integrate that technology into its domestic systems, she added.
Grajewski said: “The Russians dramatically improved the Shaheds, including modifications to the engines, navigation and anti-jamming capabilities. So these systems are already more advanced than the ones Iran was producing domestically.”
Tehran has also asked Russia for more advanced air defence capabilities and agreed a deal last December to deliver 500 man-portable Verba launch units and 2,500 9M336 missiles over three years.
Russia has declined, however, Iranian requests for the S-400, one of Moscow’s most advanced air defence systems, current and former western officials said.
The Kremlin likely views such a step as risking an escalation of tensions with the US. Iran’s military would require extensive training and instruction to use the complex S-400, meaning Russian crews would in effect be targeting US jets under combat conditions, they added.
Russia and Iran signed a strategic partnership agreement last year that fell notably short of committing the sides to the other’s mutual defence.
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