Wie Putin dem Iran die Blaupause für seine verheerendsten Angriffe liefert

Iran is using technical and tactical feedback provided by the Kremlin from the Ukraine war to maximise the strike rate of the drones it is using to cause havoc across the Middle East in response to [US-led bombing raids](https://inews.co.uk/news/us-israel-attack-iran-latest-updates-4265798?ico=in-line_link).

Iran has launched more than 1,000 Shahed 136 drones at targets ranging from a landmark Dubai hotel and housing in Qatar to Britain’s RAF Akrotiri base in Cyprus as Tehran seeks to widen the conflict by striking at multiple targets in US-allied Gulf states and beyond.

The deployment of the distinctive delta-shaped drones, which have a range of up to 2,000km and carry a 50kg warhead, represents a dramatic widening of their use to a second theatre of war after the Iranian-designed weapon became a mainstay of [Russia’s bombardment of Ukraine](https://inews.co.uk/topic/russia-ukraine-war?ico=in-line_link).

# Technical innovations flowing from Moscow to Tehran

Under a $1.75bn (£1.3bn) deal signed early in 2023, [Tehran](https://inews.co.uk/topic/iran?ico=in-line_link) has supplied Moscow with blueprints, technical advice, and components for the Shahed drone to help Russia build its own version at a purpose-built plant some 600 miles east of Moscow.

But intelligence sources and defence experts told *The i Paper* that the flow of this vital information has since been reversed, with Russian tactics from the Ukraine battlefield and [Moscow’s own technical innovations ](https://inews.co.uk/news/how-russian-kamikaze-drones-targeting-ukraine-contain-parts-made-uk-factory-4229578?ico=in-line_link)being passed on to help Tehran sharpen the performance of its drones.

Iran’s bombardment of its Gulf neighbours has copied a technique developed by Russia of combining the use of hundreds of Shahed drones with a smaller number of ballistic missiles to maximise aerial damage. It is widely thought that Moscow is using its drone production facility – known as the Alabuga Special Economic Zone (ASEZ) – to pool knowledge with its allies in China, Iran and North Korea, the so-called Axis of Resistance.

Daria Massicot, a Russian defence expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a US-based think tank, said: “Iran is using similar targeting tactics as Russia, launching hundreds of its Shahed drones against US bases and facilities, as well as bases and critical infrastructure of coalition nations in the Gulf. This is likely the result of shared learning between Russia and its partners.”

John Caves, senior research associate at the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control, which monitors Iranian military activity, said it would not be surprising if Russia was allowing technical information about how to optimise the lethality of drones to flow back to Tehran.

He said: “Passing along information about successful battlefield innovations is a low-cost, low-risk way for Russia to assist Iran.”