FILE – Rescue workers put out a fire of a building damaged by a Russian drone strike on Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, June 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka, File)
Last week, Ukrainian drone hunters picking up the debris from Russia’s nightly assault on their cities found a weapon that stood out from the rest.
It had an advanced camera, a computing platform powered by artificial intelligence and a radio link, allowing an operator to pilot it remotely from Russia. It also contained new, Iranian-made, anti-jamming technology, according to a Ukrainian drone expert.
Most Russian attack drones are black, said Serhii Beskrestnov, an electronics expert more widely known as Flash. The new one, he told The Associated Press, was white.
Inside, there were no markings or labels consistent with Russian-made drones. Instead, the stickers followed a “standard Iran labeling system,” Beskrestnov said.
Experts who spoke to AP said the labels are not conclusive proof but the English-language words are consistent with how Iran marks its drones. It is quite possible, they said, that it was sold by Iran to Russia to test in combat.
Moscow has pummeled Ukraine almost nightly with Iranian-designed drones throughout the course of the war, now in its fourth year. They swarm above Ukrainian cities, their moped-like sound filling the air, as air defenses and sharpshooters take aim. While some carry warheads, many are decoys.
Russia is improving its drone technology and tactics, striking Ukraine with increasing success. But the U.K’s Defense Ministry said Israel’s strikes on Iran will “likely negatively impact the future provision of Iranian military equipment to Russia,” since Tehran had supplied “significant quantities” of attack drones to Moscow.
Israel’s military would not comment on what it struck. Although it has carried out sweeping attacks across Iranian military facilities and the U.S. bombed nuclear sites, the impact on Iran’s drone industry is not yet clear.
The anti-jammer in the latest drone discovered in Ukraine contained new Iranian technology, suggested Beskrestnov. Other components in Russia’s drones often come from Russia, China and the West.
Although Russia’s drones are based on an Iranian design, the majority are now made in Russia.
And because much of the technology to make them, including the Iranian software and technical expertise, has already been transferred to Russia, the immediate impact on Moscow’s drone program could be limited, experts said.
However, if Israel struck facilities producing drones and components — such as engines and anti-jamming units — which are shipped to Russia, then Moscow could face supply shortages, experts suggested.
Moscow makes its Shahed — meaning “witness” in Farsi — drones based on an Iranian model in a highly secure factory in central Russia.
The Alabuga plant in the Tatarstan region took delivery of its first Iranian drones in 2022 after Russia and Iran signed a $1.7 billion deal. It later established its own production lines, churning out thousands of them.
The upgrades identified from debris in Ukraine are the latest in a series of innovations that began with Russia buying drones directly from Iran in the fall of 2022, according to leaked documents from Alabuga previously reported on by AP.
In early 2023, Iran shipped about 600 disassembled drones to be reassembled in Russia before production was localized. In 2024, the design was adapted.
Specialists added cameras to some drones and implemented a plan, revealed in an AP investigation, dubbed Operation False Target — creating decoys to overwhelm Ukrainian air defenses.
Alabuga also modified the Shahed to make it more lethal, creating a thermobaric drone which sucks out all the oxygen in its path — potentially collapsing lungs, crushing eyeballs and causing brain damage. The size of the warhead was also upgraded.
In at least one case, Iran shipped a jet-powered Shahed that Russia “experimented” with in Ukraine, said Fabian Hinz, an expert on Russian and Iranian drones at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.
Ukraine’s air force found two more examples of jet-powered Shaheds in May but it appears they have not been widely adopted.
That’s possibly because the Iranian design uses a very sophisticated jet engine that also powers Iran’s cruise missiles, Hinz said. That likely makes it too expensive to use nightly in Ukraine, he said, even if the engine is swapped to a cheaper Chinese model.
The electronics in the drone most recently found in Ukraine are also very expensive, Beskrestnov said, pointing to its AI computing platform, camera and radio link. It’s unclear why it was deployed but Beskrestnov suggested it could be used to target “critical infrastructure,” including electrical transmission towers.
Previous versions of the Shahed drone could n
Content adapted by the team from the original source: https://www.wsls.com/news/world/2025/06/25/drone-debris-found-in-ukraine-indicates-russia-is-using-new-technology-from-iran/
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