According to two sources familiar with US intelligence, Iran has dispatched military personnel to the Crimean peninsula that Russia has occupied in order to train and advise the Russian military on the use of Iranian-built drones that Moscow has employed to devastating effect in its conflict with Ukraine.
Many of what is thought to be a cache of hundreds of Iranian-made drones have been fired by Russia from Crimea in a fusillade that has increasingly targeted Ukrainian cities and energy infrastructure in recent weeks. The drones have been interpreted as a sign of Tehran and Moscow’s increasing closeness.
“Iran does not corroborate this assertion and rejects it,” a spokesman for the Iranian mission at the UN stated.
Vedant Patel, the chief deputy spokesperson for the State Department, stated on Tuesday that it is important to see the “deepening” of ties between Moscow and Tehran as “a significant threat.”
The trainers’ presence in Ukraine was first revealed by The Daily Mirror.
It was unclear right first how many trainers went to Crimea and whether they are still there. “Dozens,” according to a source briefed on US intelligence, of Iranian personnel had been dispatched.
US authorities have said that several of the drones had multiple malfunctions when Russia initially started testing and deploying them in Ukraine in August. Iranian people started flying to Crimea in recent weeks to assist Russia in operating the systems and attempting to address their issues. Russian agents had been receiving training on the systems within Iran.
Tehran has supplied two different kinds: the Mohajer-6, which may be used for both observation and missile transport, and the Shaheds, which detonate on impact and have a range of up to 1,000 miles.
After eight months of missile salvos and a punishing regime of Western sanctions, the US believes that Moscow has been cut off from the necessary materials for new weapons, and officials in the US have seen Russia’s reliance on these Iranian drones, particularly the Shaheds, as evidence that Russia is struggling to replenish its native stocks of munitions. The drones were allegedly sent to Russia by Iran.
According to Patel, the US would “continue to take pragmatic and tough efforts to make these weapons sales harder, including sanctions and export control actions against any connected entities.”
In a private UN Security Council meeting on Wednesday, the US, France, and the UK intend to tackle Iran’s drone deliveries to Russia, a US official informed AWN.
The transfer of the drones built in Iran to Russia, according to the US, France, and the UK, violates UN Security Council Resolution 2231, which limits some arms exports to or from Iran. It is unknown if they will bring up this particular issue during the meeting on Wednesday or if they would try to reinstate sanctions against Iran over the arms transfers.
