Russia’s drone pipeline: How Iran helps Moscow produce an ever-evolving unmanned fleet

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Tehran’s role in supplying Russia with hundreds of long-range, kamikaze-style drones is long known. But what has gone largely unnoticed outside Ukraine is Iran’s central role in teaching Russia to produce these drones itself.

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Since probably about early 2022, Tehran has been providing drones and drone technology to Russia for use in Ukraine. Later that year, Russia and Iran signed the agreement to set up a production plant in Russia for Iranian-designed attack drones.

With Iranian blueprints and technology, a production plant in Tatarstan in western Russia now produces large numbers of drones originally designed by Iran. At this factory, Russia manufactures the Geran-2, Moscow’s name for the Iranian Shahed-136 strike drone.

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Russia uses the Geran and other longer-range Iranian and Russian models to purposefully target civilians and civilian infrastructure in Ukraine, including residential housing in Ukrainian cities. Russia has even targeted first responders and humanitarian distribution points, according to a United Nations account.

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Iran also benefits from this terror campaign. Reeling from the economic impact of sanctions, Iran will make an estimated US$1 billion to $1.75 billion from the deal for drones and the production facility. Russia is reportedly paying Iran a portion of the bill in gold.

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But the main beneficiary of this relationship is Moscow. Without Iranian support, Russia would face more difficult trade-offs on the battlefield. The lower-cost drones allow Russia to preserve its expensive advanced missiles for the most significant targets in Ukraine and to employ large swarms of drones to target Ukrainian infrastructure.

And with the ground offensive yielding little progress of late for Moscow, that could be crucial as the war enters its fifth year.