Whether for airstrikes or reconnaissance – drones play an important role in the Ukraine war. According to US information, Iran now wants to deliver hundreds of drones to Moscow. The training of Russian soldiers on the aircraft is also planned.
The United States has indications that Iran wants to support Russia in a war of aggression against Ukraine. “Our information shows that the Iranian government is preparing to rapidly deploy several hundred unmanned aerial vehicles, including those capable of carrying weapons,” US President Joe Biden’s National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said in Washington.
Iran will also train Russians to use these aircraft, often referred to colloquially as drones, Sullivan said. According to US knowledge, such training could begin as early as mid-July. However, it is unclear whether such weapons have already been delivered. Sullivan interpreted the information as indicating that Russia’s progress in the war in eastern Ukraine was having an impact on maintaining its own weapons stocks.
The US has long accused Iran of supplying drones to its allies in the Middle East, including the Lebanese Hezbollah militia, the government of Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad and the Houthi rebels in Yemen. At the end of May, Iranian state television showed footage of an underground air force base of the Iranian military for the first time. More than a hundred “combat, reconnaissance and attack drones” are stationed at the base under the Sagros Mountains in the west of the country, it said.
Drones play an important role in the Ukraine war, whether for rocket attacks, dropping small bombs or reconnaissance of the enemy. Among other things, Ukraine is very successfully using Turkish Bayraktar combat drones against the Russian armed forces. The US and other states have also supplied drones to Ukraine.
