As we all know, although Iran has suffered from Western sanctions for many years, the country's military industry has developed quite well, especially in terms of drone . This may be the inspiration brought by the US drone swaying over its head. Just now, Russia, which is fighting next door, has begun to import a large number of drones to Iran due to its scarcity of arsenal. However, when selling drones to Russia, Iran may not only want money, but also new Western weapons seized by Russia.
Recently, according to the Moscow Times cited security sources, Russia has secretly handed over 140 million euros (about 8.6 billion rubles) of cash and seized Western weapons samples to Iran in exchange for drones used in the Ukrainian war. According to them, a Russian Il-76 transport aircraft landed on the Iranian capital Tehran on August 20. In addition to 140 million euros of cash, the transport aircraft also has new Western weapons seized by the Russian army in Ukraine, including the US "Jaberlin" anti-tank missile system and "Stinger" surface-to-air missile system, as well as the NLAW anti-tank missile from the UK. This deal can be regarded as a "sky-high contract" for Russia.
reported that Iran has shown strong interest in these weapons for this "grace gift" from Russia, because these weapons can help Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps replicate Western technology to develop its own similar weapons. In return, Iran handed over 160 drones to Russia, including 100 Shahed-136 Kamikaze suicide drones. In addition, according to another source, Iran has also agreed with Russia on a 200 million euro drone supply agreement.
It is not difficult to see that since the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, the Russian army's poor performance has no longer matched the status of a military power in the eyes of many people. Due to the lack of integrated detection and attack drones and precisely guided munitions, the Russian army often can only rely on attack aircraft or armed helicopter to fire shells to eliminate Ukrainian ground targets. Such tactics also provide many good opportunities for Ukraine's individual air defense missiles. Even at the beginning of the conflict, the embarrassing phenomenon of the Ukrainian army shooting down 10 Russian aircraft in one day.
Therefore, in order to solve the shortcomings of the weapon ammunition database , Russia began to privately import a large number of drones to Iran and use them to attack Ukraine's civil infrastructure. At first, when the West revealed that the Russian army used Iranian drones on the Ukrainian battlefield, both Russia and Iran denied it. However, after the Ukrainian army shot down an Iranian Shahd-136 drone, Iranian Foreign Minister Amir Abdullahian confirmed to the outside world for the first time recently that Iran has indeed provided drones to Russia, but claimed that these did not occur during the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, but before the conflict broke out.
(Shahd-136 drone shot down by the Ukrainian army)
implicitly means that Iran does not know that war will break out between Russia and Ukraine. Even if the Iranian drone causes great trouble to Ukraine, Iran cannot blame me. After all, Iran is not a prophet and cannot predict what will happen later. This time, Iran is obviously no longer satisfied with money when selling drones to Russia privately, but instead focuses on new Western weapons seized by the Russian army.
From an objective perspective, this is a win-win cooperation between Russia and Ukraine. For Russia, under Western economic sanctions, the Russian economy has been seriously affected. At this time, taking out some of the seized Western weapons for Iran to study, which can not only save a lot of money, but also get Iran's drones. Why not do it? For Iran, using its super imitation technology to study new Western weapons is more attractive than cash. Maybe it can also use this to imitate its own "domestic" similar weapons or to restrain advanced Western weapons to enhance its own national defense strike capabilities.
Of course, Iran's strategy is not empty talk, but because of its own super strong reverse imitation ability.Public information shows that in December 2011, Iran successfully captured a US-made RQ-170 Sentinel unmanned reconnaissance aircraft and completed the imitation work in 2014. Two years later, in 2016, Iran's domestic version of Sentinel unmanned aerial vehicle, Shahd-191 unmanned aerial vehicle. It has now been used to reconnaise the military targets of Israeli . There has been no reports of being shot down yet, indicating that it has passed the stealth performance and can at least have a high survivability under Israel's air defense missile system.
In short, if the report is true, this deal will definitely have great benefits for Iran. After obtaining new Western weapons, Iran, the "counterfeit king", may really make Iran, a "counterfeit king", imitate similar weapons and ultimately use them on the West.
