The Ukrainian military shoots down Iranian drone supplied to Russia

Months of devasting casualties in Ukraine have forced the Russian military to rely on foreign governments for weapons. The Russian campaign has been going from bad to worse, and Moscow is trying hard to replenish its losses, which include over 900 unmanned aerial systems. As a result, the Russian forces have started deploying Iranian drones in the war.

Iranian drones over Ukraine

On September 13, the Ukrainian forces reported that they had shot down a Shahed-136 Iranian drone over Kupyansk, in the Kharkiv oblast which was liberated by the Ukrainian counteroffensive in the east a few days ago. The action verifies declassified U.S. intelligence that indicated that Moscow was intending on purchasing hundreds of unmanned aerial systems from Tehran.

In its daily update on the war, the British Military Intelligence stated that the Russian military “is almost certainly increasingly sourcing weaponry from other heavily sanctioned states like Iran and North Korea as its own stocks dwindle.”

Recent reports have indicated that the Kremlin has been turning to North Korea for artillery ammunition and rockets too in order to replenish its dwindling stocks. At one point during the battle for the Donbas, the Russian forces were spending about 20,000 artillery shells a day for weeks in an attempt to make up for their lackluster tank and mechanized infantry capabilities and break the Ukrainian defenses.

The Shahed-136 tactical unmanned aerial vehicle that was shot down has a range of about 1,500 miles and is designed for one-way attacks, meaning that it is expendable and used mainly for tactical strikes.

“The loss of a Shahed-136 near the front lines suggests there is a realistic possibility that Russia is attempting to use the system to conduct tactical strikes rather than against more strategic targets farther into Ukrainian territory,” the British Military Intelligence assessed in its latest update on the conflict.

Back in the summer, the U.S. National Security Council had come out with intelligence that Russian officials were visiting Tehran to assess the combat capabilities of Iranian drones.

“Our information indicates that the Iranian government is preparing to provide Russia with up to several hundred UAVs, including weapons-capable UAVs, on an expedited timeline,” a National Security Council spokesperson had said at the time.

“Our information further indicates that Iran is preparing to train Russian forces to use these UAVs, with initial training sessions slated to begin as soon as early July. It is unclear whether Iran has delivered any of these UAVs to Russia already,” the U.S. official had added.

Related: Breaking out of a POW camp on a Russian helicopter

The Iranian drone program

Iran has had one of the oldest unmanned aerial system programs in the world dating back to the 1980s after the Iranian Revolution ousted the Shah and took control of the country.  

The current Iranian unmanned aerial systems have the capability to conduct intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) and strike operations, with some drones having both capabilities.

The American Enterprise Institute, a think tank, had compiled a report on the Iranian program under its Critical Threats Project. The researchers identified eight primary Iranian unmanned aerial systems, each with several different iterations: Toufan, Shahed (the -136 version of which was the one shot down in Ukraine), Sadegh, Mohajer, Karrar, Hemaseh, Fotros, Ababil.

What follows is a short breakdown of the more important Iranian drones and their capabilities:

Ababil

Ababil-2

Role: Multirole (ISR and combat capabilities)

Range: 120-200 km

Launch system: JATO launcher, truck-based pneumatic catapult, and ship-based launcher

Munitions: n/a

Related: Drone boats are joining the Ukraine war. But will they matter?

Ababil-3

Role: Multirole

Range: 100-250 km

Launch system: runway

Munitions: Almas-guided anti-tank missiles; Ghaem-guided glide bombs

Ababil-5

Role: Multirole

Range: 480 km

Launch system: runway

Munitions: Almas-guided anti-tank missiles; Ghaem-guided glide bombs

Fotros

Role: Multirole

Range: 1,700-4,000 km

Launch system: runway

Munitions: Almas-guided anti-tank missiles; Ghaem-guided glide bombs; Heydar-1/2 cruise missiles

Hemaseh

Role: Multirole

Range: 200 km

Launch system: runway

Munitions: Ghaem-guided glide bombs

Karrar

Role: Multirole

Range: 800-1,000 km

Launch system: pneumatic catapult

Munitions: Azarakhsh guided missiles; Balaban guided bombs; GBU-12 laser-guided general-purpose bombs; Kowsar medium-range guided anti-ship cruise missiles; Shafagh laser-guided missiles; Simorgh cluster bombs; Yasin long-range guided glide bombs; 500-pound laser-guided MK-82 bombs

Mohajer

Mohajer-2/2N

Role: ISR

Range: Mohajer-2: 31-50 km; Mohajer-2N: 150 km)

Launch system: pneumatic catapult

Munitions: possible capability to launch RPG-7s

Mohajer-4

Role: ISR

Range: 150 km

Launch system: pneumatic catapult

Munitions: Hyrda-70 air-to-surface unguided rockets

Mohajer-6

Role: Multirole

Range: 200-2,000 km

Launch system: runway

Munitions: Almas-guided anti-tank missiles; Ghaem-guided glide bombs

Sadegh

Role: Multirole

Range: 200 km

Launch system: pneumatic catapult

Munitions: Adapted Misagh air-to-air missiles

Shahed-129

Role: Multirole

Range: 1,700 km

Launch system: runway

Munition: Sadid-guided glide bombs

Toufan

Role: One-way kamikaze attack

Range: 100 km

Launch system: JATO launcher

Munitions: n/a

Feature Image: A destroyed Iranian attack UAV Shahed-136 in Ukraine (Ukrainian Ministry of Defense)

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