Russia's acquisition of inexpensive Shahed drones from Iran fuels security issues for Ukraine

Details related to a Russo-Iranian arrangement involving Shahed drones have emerged online, as acknowledged by the Militarnyj portal. This was made possible by hackers from the PRANA group who managed to infiltrate the servers of the Sahara Thunder company. The company was a façade for Iran's arms exportation endeavour, ostensibly selling Dolphin 632 motorboats but in reality, shipping Shahid drones.

The documents suggest that the Russians intended to manufacture 6,000 drones using a licence agreement by 2023. Iran had initially priced a drone for 23 million rubles (£262,642), but later reduced it to 12 million rubles (£137,142) or 18 million rubles (£205,714) in a downsized batch of 2,000 units. However, the collective agreement for 6,000 drones, inclusive of equipment delivery and training for Russians, stood at a significant 108.5 billion rubles (£1.24 billion).

The cost estimates for production with minimal component deliveries from Iran were predicted to set the Russians back by about 4.4 million rubles (£50,286), but additional costs such as licencing fees pushed the final cost up to 14.9 million rubles (£170,000).

A fascinating detail is that the Iranians declined to accept payments in rubles, instead insisting on payments in gold. Indeed, as verified in February 2023, the "Alabuga Machines" entity transferred 2,067,795 one-gram gold bars to the Iranian company, Sahara Thunder.

The Shahed-131/136 drones are rather basic designs, heavily reliant on widely available parts for hobbyist model-making, suggesting that components for their production are essentially ubiquitous. Their guidance system is not highly advanced since they use commercial GPS modules, which provide inadequate accuracy for attacking military targets but are precise enough for hitting, for instance, a populated area.

Within such a setting, the Shahed can cause significant damage, bearing a warhead of up to 45 kilograms. However, their true power lies in their wholesale usage because the Ukrainians have to take them down, thus depleting missiles for their anti-aircraft systems which could have been better utilised against sterner targets. Here, the unit cost of a missile, depending on the system, can reach as high as several hundred thousand pounds or even a few million.

This implies that the only effective method to take down Shaheds is with anti-aircraft artillery systems such as the Gepard, ZSU-23-4 Shilka, 2K22 Tunguska, or even squads of soldiers wielding machine guns, with a special emphasis on heavy-calibre designs like the Browning M2 or KPW.