U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said during a press conference that the Iranian government is reportedly sending several hundred drones to Russia for use in Ukraine.
Sullivan made the announcement during an afternoon briefing at the White House, in which he said he was confident that, with Western support, the capital Kiev would remain under Ukrainian control.
He went on to address the consequences of the war for Russia, in particular its armaments.
“Our information indicates that the Iranian government is preparing to provide Russia with up to several hundred [unmanned aerial vehicles], including weapons-capable UAVs on an expedited timeline,” Sullivan said. “It’s unclear whether Iran has delivered any of these UAVs to Russia already.”
Iran will train Russian forces to use the drones as early as this month, he added.
“This is just one example of how Russia is looking to countries like Iran for capabilities that … have been used before we got the ceasefire in place in Yemen to attack Saudi Arabia,” Sullivan said.
According to sources consulted by POLITICO, the purchase of drones from Iran indicates that Russia would be desperate and out of options due to economic isolation. The experts consulted reiterated Sullivan’s classification of the number of drones as «substantial».
The bottleneck is production
The Russian military-industrial complex has managed to develop many advanced weapons technologies. In several areas it is behind the U.S. and Western powers, but in others it is not. It is even ahead in some areas, such as hypersonic weaponry.
In the case of drones, the Russian industry has a wide variety of models and types of systems to offer. Russian tactical unmanned aerial systems are broadly in the same league as their Western counterparts. However, the war in Ukraine is proving one thing, they don’t have enough drones.
The overwhelming losses of Russian materiel can be explained, in part, by an insufficient presence of drones to perform intelligence work ahead of army formations, which too often ended up falling into ambushes they could have avoided.
As the conflict progressed, videos began to appear on the net showing an increasing use of various types of unmanned aircraft by the Russian forces, in an attempt to emulate the tactics that had been used so successfully against them by the Ukrainians and their drones.
See also: First successful anti-ship mission of Bayraktar TB2 drone in Ukraine
But the increased use of UAVs by Russian forces also increased their loss to Ukrainian anti-aircraft defenses.
https://twitter.com/UW_Observer/status/1544155317101010949?s=20&t=XeztXsGwwOER4Bs4m9v47Q
Iran has several drone models to offer, many of them combat-proven, and sufficient industrial capacity to replenish the Russian UAVs lost so far.
The Iranian drone industry, coupled with Russia’s own, could begin to reverse the shortage of such essential assets on the front lines, further complicating the Ukrainian defenders.
