Iranian Drones in Ukraine Project Tehran’s Power Beyond Mideast, Testing U.S., Europe:Dion Nissenbaum and Benoit Faucon
Wave of Russian attacks highlights how sanctions failed to stop Tehran from building a drone army that can arm proxies and friendly governments.
Russia’s expanding use of Iranian drones in Ukraine poses an increasing threat for the U.S. and its European allies as Tehran attempts to project military power beyond the Middle East.
In recent weeks, Ukrainian officials say, Russia has launched more than 300 Iranian drones that have targeted military units, power plants and civilian buildings in the capital, Kyiv. The Ukrainian military said it has shot down more than 70% of the drones, but Ukrainian officials are asking the U.S. and NATO allies for more help to counter the threat. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization has vowed to rush hundreds of drone jammers to Ukraine as part of a deepening effort to shore up Ukraine’s air defenses.
The wave of attacks has made Iran Moscow’s most important military ally in its faltering campaign in Ukraine and highlighted how Tehran has created one of the world’s most successful drone fleets despite years of Western sanctions.
“Drones have become the spearhead of Iranian power projection globally,” said Dr. James Rogers, an associate professor of war studies at the University of Southern Denmark. “Iran has one of the oldest and, arguably, one of the most efficient drone programs in the world.”
While the international community focused for years on trying to constrain Iran’s nuclear program, Tehran methodically built an army of drones that reached across the Middle East. Iran and its proxies have been accused of carrying out attacks on everything from U.S. forces in Syria and commercial ships in the Arabian Sea to Israeli cities and Saudi Arabia’s oil industry.
A drone flying over Kyiv during a Russian attack last week.PHOTO: SERGEY SHESTAK/SHUTTERSTOCK
Since 2015, Iran and its proxies have fired nearly 1,000 drones in attacks that have killed hundreds of people in Yemen, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Ukraine and the Gulf of Oman, according to the Saudi military and the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, which collects and analyzes information on protests and violence around the world. Besides Russia, Iran has also sold its drone technology to friendly governments, including Venezuela, Syria and Ethiopia, according to the U.S. Department of Defense.
Iranian and Russian officials have repeatedly denied that Tehran has provided Moscow with drones to use in Ukraine. “We strongly reject the baseless accusations of some countries about Russia using Iranian drones in the war against Ukraine,” Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said in a televised address on Wednesday.
Flying Killers
Iran is exporting sophisticated, low-cost drones in the Middle East and now in Ukraine’s frontlines.
MOHAJER-6
He invited Ukrainian officials to hold a bilateral meeting with Iran to present any evidence on the claim Iran drones are being used in the war. Earlier this month, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the Russian army only used domestically produced equipment.
Ukrainian investigators dissecting the downed drones used to target civilians and soldiers maintain that they are Iranian in origin and that key parts powering them are made in America, Europe and Asia, according to an analysis viewed by The Wall Street Journal.
The Western-made components that guide, power and steer the drones touch on a vexing problem world leaders face in trying to contain the expanding threat: Although Western nations have imposed expansive sanctions on Iran, the Middle East nation is able to rely on a loosely regulated global supply chain to build its drone fleet.
Ukrainian investigators have traced Iranian drone components back to U.S. companies, including Texas Instruments Inc., the Dallas-based technology giant. Ellen Fishpaw, a Texas Instruments spokeswoman, said the company is investigating reports that its products were used in the weapons.
“We do not support or condone the use of our products in applications they weren’t designed for,” she said.
Iran’s emergence as one of the world’s most adept purveyors of deadly drones has been decades in the making. Its origins stretch back to the 1970s, when American defense contractor Textron Inc. helped set up a plant in Isfahan, central Iran, to make military helicopters when the country was ruled by Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, a U.S. ally.
The plant is now run by Iran Aircraft Manufacturing Industries, a military-controlled company, according to Iranian corporate records, Iran’s semiofficial FARS news agency and European security officials.
Iran developed its first crude surveillance drone in the mid-1980s, during its war with neighboring Iraq, after the Shah of Iran was toppled by a revolution and the country was isolated economically. The program was overseen by then-President Ali Khamenei, now the country’s supreme leader, the Fars news agency said.
One of its biggest advances came in 2011 when Iran recovered a downed American Sentinel stealth drone. Weapons experts say that Iran was able to reverse engineer the U.S. technology to create its own version within three years.
Tehran has also established a domestic production strategy, insulating it more from sanctions and spurring its acquisition of parts from a global array of suppliers. In 2018, an aircraft-modeling company in Germany received a routine order for miniature-plane engines from China. Two years later, the device resurfaced in the debris of an explosive drone that Iran-backed rebels used to target civilians in Yemen, according to a January report by the United Nations sanctions panel on Yemen.
Weapons experts also say Iran was able to reverse engineer an Israeli drone captured by its Lebanese ally, Hezbollah, to develop another surveillance drone.
These weapons experts say that Ukraine is now bearing the brunt of Iran’s advanced drone industry, turning the country into a test bed for its weapons.
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Russia has asked Iran to supply 2,400 of the Shahed-136 suicide drones to use in Ukraine, according to Ukraine’s intelligence services and President Volodymyr Zelensky. Ukrainian forces have also brought down a larger Mohajer-6 Iranian-made drone that is capable of carrying two bombs.
How quickly Iran can supply so many drones remains an open question. Bernard Hudson, a former Central Intelligence Agency operations officer who is now president of Looking Glass Global Services, a drone consulting firm, estimates that Iran can make about 100 drones a month.
Ukrainian officials have warned that the two types of Iranian drones are just the beginning of Iranian support for Russia. They say Iran plans to send Russia both cruise and ballistic missiles that it can use in Ukraine.
Norman Roule, a three-decade veteran of the CIA and now a consultant at the U.S.-based advocacy group United Against Nuclear Iran, warned that the combination of drones and missiles one day might be used against Western powers.
“This Ukraine conflict provides Iran with a unique and low-risk opportunity to test its weapons systems against modern Western defenses,” Mr. Roule said. “We rightfully disparage Russian battle performance, but Iran likely also uses this engagement to sharpen the skills of its military.”
Write to at Dion.Nissenbaum@wsj.com at benoit.faucon@wsj.com
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