Iran continues to supply Russia with drones as Russian stocks run out – White House

The United States sees signs of a deepening Russian-Iranian military partnership in Moscow's attempt to obtain new batches of Iranian-made Shahed drones, which it uses to attack Ukraine's infrastructure.

Source: John Kirby, White House National Security Council spokesman, cited by AP at a briefing on Monday 15 May, as reported by European Pravda 

Details: The US believes Russia is looking to buy additional advanced attack drones from Iran for use in its war against Ukraine after using up most of the 400 drones it had previously purchased from Tehran.

Quote: "Iran continues to provide Russia with one-way attack UAVs. Since August, Iran has provided Russia with more than 400 UAVs, primarily of the Shahed variety," Kirby said.

"Russia has expended most of these UAVs, using them to target Ukrainian critical infrastructure inside Ukraine. By providing Russia with these UAVs, Iran has been directly enabling Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine," he added.

According to Bloomberg, the White House spokesman says the United States will not only tighten sanctions against Iran and Russia to limit the transfer of drones, but also plan steps that will help governments and businesses understand how their components get into Iranian drones.

Officially, Tehran has admitted that it supplied Russia with a small batch of kamikaze drones before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. But the media have repeatedly described how Moscow obtains weapons from Iran.

According to Ukrainian estimates, Russia has already used more than 400 Shahed-136 drones in Ukraine and is thought to have ordered 2,400 such drones in total. Initially, they posed a problem for Ukrainian air defence, but in recent attacks, all or almost all of them have been destroyed.

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