The Russian army has likely launched at least 71 Iranian-designed Shahed drones against targets across Ukraine since the start of March 2023, the UK Ministry of Defence claims.
According to the ministry, this could be the indication of the fact that Russia “started receiving regular resupplies of small numbers of Shahed OWA-UAVs”.
The ministry speculates that Russian forces are “likely launching Shaheds from two axes” — from Russia’s Krasnodar region in the east and from Bryansk region in the north-east. In a statement, the ministry claims that this “allows Russia flexibility to target a broad sector of Ukraine and decreases flying time to targets in the north of Ukraine”.
At the beginning of February, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing sources, that Russian and Iranian authorities had agreed to build a factory that could produce Iranian-designed drones on the territory of Russia’s Tatarstan — in the town of Yelabuga.
According to the plans, WSJ claims, the new factory could make at least 6,000 drones.
At the end of January, the US Department of Commerce added seven Iranian organisations to the black list for “for contributing to Russia’s military and defense industrial base through the production of Iranian unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), which are being transferred to Russia for use in Ukraine”.
