Top United States (US) military, intelligence, and national security officials revealed that Washington has launched an expansive endeavour to stop Iran from supplying drones to Russia to use in the ongoing Ukraine war.
In a statement to the New York Times (NYT) on Wednesday, National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson affirmed, “We are looking at ways to target Iranian unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) production through sanctions, export controls, and talking to private companies whose parts have been used in the production.” “We are assessing further steps we can take in terms of export controls to restrict Iran’s access to technologies used in drones,” she added.
The Biden administration has recently accelerated its moves to deprive Iran of the Western-made components needed to manufacture the drones being sold to Russia after the wreckage of intercepted drones showed that "they were stuffed with made-in-America technology."
— Gurbaksh Singh Chahal (@gchahal) December 29, 2022
The effort was significantly expanded in recent weeks after the US realised that the drones being supplied to Russia by Iran had ‘Made in America’ components, which are “dual use” technologies that Tehran has been allegedly acquiring from the black market. Therefore, Washington wants to block Tehran’s ability to mass produce drones, specifically the “kamikaze” UAV. Washington also wants to provide Kyiv with defence equipment to shoot them down.
In this regard, the US Department of Defence announced $275 million in additional military support earlier this month, including Counter-Unmanned Aerial Systems equipment. US officials did not provide specific details due to operational security.
The US is also helping Ukraine target the Russian sites where the drones are being prepared to launch. However, Moscow keeps changing the launch sites, making it difficult to track and attack them.
The Ukrainian army has already destroyed 28% of the second delivery of Iranian drones transferred to russia. This means 70 of the 250 Shahed attack type UAVs that Iran delivered to russia over the past month, said Yuriy Ignat, the spokesman of the Air Forces
— Iuliia Mendel (@IuliiaMendel) December 28, 2022
Keeping this in mind, the US is trying to introduce new technologies that give early warning of approaching UAVs in order to better Ukraine’s possibilities of shooting them down with missiles or guns. In this respect, two American companies, Edgesource and BlueHalo, have provided training and technology to the Ukrainian military to help detect and defend against Russian drones.
In fact, Edgesource Chief Operating Officer Joseph Ubraniak revealed that the company has contributed about $2 million worth of systems, including the Windtalkers, to help Ukraine locate, identify, and track approaching drones more than 32 kilometres (kms) away, while also being able to identify Ukraine’s own drones in the same airspace.
Moreover, the US is also working with Israel to hamper Iran’s UAV production. In fact, last week, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan conducted a virtual meeting with his Israeli counterpart Eyal Hulata and other senior Israeli officials from the foreign, defence, and intelligence ministries. According to the US readout, the officials “discussed Iran’s growing military relationship with Russia, including the transfer of weapons the Kremlin is deploying against Ukraine, targeting its civilian infrastructure, and Russia’s provision of military technology to Iran in return.”
In September, the US Department of Treasury also announced new sanctions against three Iranian companies and an individual involved in building drones for Russia. Additionally, last month, Washington sanctioned Tehran’s Safiran Airport Services for shipping UAVs to Russia, and two Emirati companies for assisting Safiran by coordinating “flights between Iran and Russia, including those associated with transporting Iranian UAVs, personnel, and related equipment from Iran to Russia.”
And last week the US and Israel discussed Iran’s program at a regular strategic consultation. They have a long history of working together to take on technological threats from Tehran, most famously Olympic Games, the operation a decade ago to disable Iran’s nuclear centrifuges.
— David Sanger (@SangerNYT) December 28, 2022
It was in July that Sullivan first revealed that Iran “is preparing to provide Russia with up to several hundred UAVs” to use in its ongoing war with Ukraine. Now, top Western intelligence officials believe that Iran and Russia have “deepened” their alliance, with Moscow having reached an agreement with Tehran to manufacture hundreds of drones on Russian soil last month.
Officials familiar with the matter said the US and Western intelligence agencies believe Moscow and Tehran are “moving rapidly to transfer designs and key components that could allow production to begin within months.”
The officials noted the agreement signalled “a further deepening” of their alliance, as it would give the Russian military a long-term supply of precision-guided missiles. With Iranian help, Russia could “dramatically increase” its dwindling military arsenal and prolong the war, probably even giving the Russian military an upper hand over Ukrainian forces.
Additionally, earlier last month, Russian military aircraft reportedly transported $140 million in cash and an assortment of Western weapons captured in Ukraine, including a British NLAW anti-tank missile, an American Javelin anti-tank missile, and a Stinger anti-craft missile, to Iran in exchange for Iranian drones. Indicating that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) could use the weapons to study Western military technology and later copy it, the source said, “They will probably be reverse-engineered and used in future wars.”
Russia 🇷🇺 will soon deliver 24 Sukhoi Su-35 fourth-generation fighter jets to the mullah terror entity 🇮🇷, in exchange for more suicide drones and ballistic missiles. Meanwhile the real poverty rate in Iran exceeds 50%. pic.twitter.com/64SetaybP2
— Avi Kaner ابراهيم אבי (@AviKaner) December 28, 2022
Moreover, in October, the US alleged that Iran is “now directly engaged on the ground” in Crimea to assist Russian forces in conducting drone strikes across Ukraine that are killing civilians and destroying civilian infrastructure. National Security Council (NSC) Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby said that a “relatively small number” of Iranian officials have been training Russian forces and providing technical support in piloting Iranian drones “with better lethality” after experiencing “system failures early on.”
In addition, last week, Iran and Russia agreed to build a new 3,000 km-long trade route worth at least $25 billion along waterways and railways linked by the Caspian Sea in a bid to transfer goods by circumventing sanctions. The US has condemned the decision, with US Special Representative for Iran Robert Malley calling it “an extraordinarily damaging, reckless decision.”