In August, cash and anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles that had been delivered to Ukraine by the United States and the United Kingdom were secretly flown by Russian military planes to a Tehran airfield.
Russia had handed Iran 140 million euros in cash along with certain samples of munitions confiscated from British and US supplies intended for use in Ukraine in exchange for dozens of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) deployed in Ukraine.
Three samples of weapons, including US Javelin anti-tank missiles, British NLAW anti-tank missiles, and British Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, were covertly delivered to a Tehran airport by Russian military aircraft early in the morning. An unidentified source provided information to Sky News on August 20.
The source claimed that although the weapons were part of British and American military aid to Ukraine, they later “came into Russian hands.”
The source said that this could help Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) research and copy Western technology.
They can be reverse engineered and used in future wars.”
The source added that Iran has provided Russia with more than 160 UAVs, including 100 Shahed-136 UAVs. These UAVs are called suicide UAVs because they explode when they hit the target.
In the past few days, Russia and Iran have also reached a new agreement on UAVs worth 200 million euros (£174 million).
Iran and Russia have not yet commented on the reports.
The Russian military has increased its drone strikes across Ukraine in recent times. Combined with conventional missile attacks, Russia targeted power plants and water supply facilities across Ukraine, including the capital, Kiev. The attacks caused widespread power outages in Ukraine, causing headaches for the Kiev air defenses to deploy expensive missiles to deal with much cheaper UAVs.
Russian military transport aircraft appeared in Tehran
Speaking of evidence of alleged Russian-Iranian activity, the source shared with Sky News satellite photos showing two Russian military transport planes at an airport in Tehran.
According to the source, one of the two Ilyushin IL-76 planes is believed to have transported 140 million euros (£122 million) in cash and Western weapons seized by Russia.
The first photo, dated 1:17 a.m. on August 20, shows two planes, marked with a red line, at Mehrabad airport in Tehran.
The second photo was taken at around 3:30 a.m., when one of the planes had moved to the facility on the side of the runway and the other had turned around.
In the final photo, taken about 3.5 hours later, both planes have departed.
The source said that one of the planes, or both, then left with the Iranian UAV.
According to the source, at least five Russian planes have transported UAVs from Iran since August 20 as part of an agreement between Moscow and Tehran.
The source cited a list of UAVs that Iran provided to Russia, including 100 Shahed-136 aircraft, 60 Shahed-131 UAVs and six Mohajer-6 UAVs.
Unlike the Shahed suicide drone that attacks by rushing at the target and exploding, the Mohajer-6 is an armed UAV that can drop or launch ammunition at the target.
Not only UAVs, Iran is said to provide ballistic missiles to Russia.
Mr. Vadym Prystaiko, Ambassador of Ukraine to the UK, said that if this information is confirmed, this will be a real threat.
Iran denies supplying Iran with missiles but admits it has supplied Russia with a “limited number” of UAVs, and this was done several months before the outbreak of the Russia-Ukrainian conflict.
Meanwhile, Britain, the US and Ukraine accused Iran of lying, claiming that the UAVs were transferred to Russia more recently. The exact amount is still unknown.
In July, the US said that Iran was then preparing to transfer to Russia hundreds of UAVs.
What will Iran do with Western weapons?
When asked why Russia has transferred to Iran weapons from Britain and the United States, the source said that this may be because Iran wants to use the ability to reverse technology to produce itself.
“We think that Iran has proven they have an effective reverse engineering system, as we can see with the UAV models that they reverse engineer from the UAV obtained from the US in 2011. It looks like Iran. also want to benefit from the current conflict in Ukraine by receiving Western weapons from Russia, which is considered useful for them in the future,” the source assessed.
Iran obtained an American RQ-17 reconnaissance drone in December 2011. In 2012, an Iranian commander claimed that the country had a copy of the aircraft model thanks to a reverse technology process.
Last month, Russia denied accusations that its military used Iranian UAVs to attack Ukraine, and emphasized that Moscow only used domestically produced UAVs during the operation in Ukraine.
