Russian military aircraft secretly delivered €140 million to Iran in exchange for drones. This is reported by the British TV channel Sky News, citing a source in Western intelligence services. According to these data, on August 20, at the Tehran airport, the Russian side handed over to Iran the cash delivered by the Il-76 transport aircraft. In addition, US and British weapons seized in Ukraine were handed over to Iran, including NLAW and Javelin anti-tank systems and Stinger MANPADS. So the Russian side paid for the delivery of the first batch of 160 Iranian unmanned aerial vehicles. This batch included 100 Shahed-136 kamikaze drones and six large Mohajer-6 UAVs.
According to a Sky News source, in the past few days, another deal was agreed between Tehran and Moscow for the purchase of UAVs worth €200 million.
On November 8, Ukrainian intelligence reported that Iran supplied its drones to Russia after the start of the war in Ukraine. This is evidenced by the details of the drones, which were manufactured later than February 24, 2022.
“The propeller of the Mohajer-6 drone was only made in February of this year. It's just done. And it also took time to deliver it to the Russian Federation. That is, they were delivered this year, ”explains the representative of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine.
Iranian drone Mohajer is assembled from parts produced in different countries, most of them in the United States. The drone also has an Austrian engine and a Japanese camera. “We did not find any Russian elements here. One element has an inscription in Farsi (modern Persian has the status of an official language in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan),” the intelligence official said.
Russia regularly shells Ukraine with Iranian Shahed-136s, disguising them as its own drones with the domestic name "Geran-2". At the same time, both Russia and Iran deny the supply of drones. To prove that they are Iranian, Ukraine invited UN experts. However, the Russian Federation began to blackmail the UN with the rejection of the "grain deal" if the organization's experts decide to investigate the drones. In October, Israeli President Yitzhak Herzog showed US officials photos confirming that Russia was using the Shahed-136 in the war in Ukraine. He compared photos of the engines of Iranian ammunition and drones shot down in Ukraine – they turned out to be similar.
On November 5, Iran admitted for the first time that it supplied drones to Russia, but, as Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian said, the drones were delivered in small numbers and a few months before the war.