On July 28, a Boeing 747 aircraft of the Iranian airline Fars Air Qeshm landed at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport. It is a private company engaged in passenger and freight transportation.
Fars Air Qeshm is known to have links with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. It was reported that Fars Air Qeshm aircraft were previously used to deliver weapons or weapons components to the Lebanese Hezbollah.
Israeli blogger Abu Ali, who tracks events in the Middle East, believes that a Fars Air Qeshm plane could deliver Iranian drones to Moscow.
There have been no official comments on this matter.
In recent days, after the visit of Russian President Vladimir Putin to Tehran, several more such flights from Iran to the Russian capital were recorded. Conflict Intelligence Team (CIT) experts note that we can really talk about the delivery of UAVs or the supply of parts and equipment for civil aircraft (the achievement of such an agreement was reported the day before).
Note that until today, not a single Iranian-made UAV has been seen and shot down over the territory of Ukraine, where the Russian army has been waging war since February 24, 2022.
A few weeks ago, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said at a briefing that the US leadership has information about Iran’s plans to transfer hundreds of drones, both reconnaissance and strike, to Russia. Sullivan also said that the US authorities are aware that Iran is ready to train Russian Russian specialists to operate these UAVs, and the training process will begin as early as July. The source of this information was not specified in Sullivan’s statement.
In recent decades, Iran has been actively developing its program of unmanned military aircraft, having achieved certain successes in this direction. Iranian strike UAVs are actively used by the Yemeni Houthis and other armed groups, in particular the Lebanese Hezbollah. According to experts, Iran surpasses Russia in the development and production of UAVs, but is significantly inferior to such countries as the United States, Israel, Great Britain, Turkey, and China.
Russia is currently experiencing an acute shortage of UAVs in the combat zone on the territory of Ukraine. It is known that even drones of the Ministry of Emergency Situations are used by the Russian military.
The Israeli authorities are concerned about reports of military-technical cooperation between Iran and Russia, including information about the imminent deliveries of Iranian UAVs for the Russian army.
Recall in this regard that the Russian army is actively using (including in Ukraine) Forpost UAVs, which are the “twins” of the Israeli Searcher MkII UAV. In particular, Forpost-R UAVs are used, developed on the basis of a licensed copy of the Israeli Searcher MkII drone.