DAVID HAMBLING
The off-white hull of a captured drone lies on the floor of an undisclosed Ukrainian military facility, its triangular shape accented by the hardwood’s herringbone pattern. Investigators from the nonprofit Conflict Armament Research (CAR) are trying to learn more about this new weapon. Open compartments on the wings reveal wires, tiny motors, and circuit boards. Yellow, brown, and pink cables spill over the sides.
The investigators probe the drone with the care of medical examiners, delicately lifting flaps and tugging on electrical wires. On the tail is the name Geran-2—written in Russian Cyrillic characters as a ploy to disguise the drone’s true origin.
The attack drone is one of four types that Ukraine’s military has collected from various sites across the country. After removing the deadly warheads, they handed them over to CAR last November. In addition to the one lying on the wooden floor, Ukraine has also requested that the group investigate a smaller version called Geran-1, along with a reconnaissance spy drone that looks like the U.S.-made Predator and one other undisclosed model.
In the previous months, Ukraine had come under intense fire from swarms of drones like the ones now being inspected. Throughout fall and winter, Russia deployed the weapons against the country’s electricity distribution infrastructure. The drones crashed into substations and transformers, spreading blackouts across Kyiv and other cities. Some hit apartment buildings, killing civilians. They were unlike any other weapon Ukraine had thus far defended against—and they were devastatingly effective. More troubling was the fact that there appeared to be an unlimited supply of them.
The new aircraft had significantly longer range and looked radically different than any known Russian-made drone; its wing shape made it look something like a giant paper airplane. Unable to identify it, soldiers and citizens came up with their own names; they called it “the Dorito” or sometimes “lawnmower” for the motor’s distinctive whining.
All eyes turned to an unlikely source: Iran. Last July, U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan warned that he believed the nation had signed a deal to supply several hundred drones to Russia. Both Iran and Russia have denied the existence of an arms deal, but the distinctive shape of the drones is hard to overlook. The flying wings resemble the Iranian-made Shahed-136 drones that were used in 2019 by the Houthi—a breakaway rebel group in Yemen—and in 2021 by Iran to attack an ocean tanker off the coast of Oman.
Inside the Ukrainian warehouse, CAR inspectors sought to confirm that the Flying Doritos were indeed Iranian drones, signaling that Iran has established a robust drone pipeline into Russia. If true, the implication is even more disturbing: That somehow Iran has overcome harsh international sanctions meant to limit its access to Western technology and derail weapons development—and in doing so has become a drone superpower supplying its deadly weapons to countries around the globe.
The tail of a Russian kamikaze drone shot down near the Ukrainian town of Kupiansk. “Geran-2” appears written in Russian Cyrillic characters, but analysts believe this to be an Iranian-made drone.Wikimedia Commons
It wasn’t hard for the inspectors in Ukraine to nail down where the drones came from. Based in the United Kingdom, CAR tracks the movement of arms supplies and illicit weapons, sometimes by way of terrorist or insurgent forces. In Syria, it tracked the supply chains of 40,000 weapons used by Islamic State and found more than a third came from EU member states.
Now they used that experience to determine the provenance of these new drones. The inspectors disassembled the weapons using screwdrivers, scalpels, wrenches, and a digital camera, searching for anything that might reveal where a circuit board, motor controller, accelerometer, or fuel pump was made. Wiring harnesses made in China look different than those made in Germany. Tiny motors might have codes that identify their manufacturer. The inspectors learn a lot by examining the cable sleeves on electronic components, or the way a serial number is imprinted onto a metal piece. Sometimes they get lucky, like when they found that a technician assembling the weapon had left marks that signaled its origin.
Their investigations have revealed an overwhelming number of parts and systems that point to Iran. Many of the markings they found inside resembled those they found in Yemen, where Houthi rebels used Iranian-made drones against a coalition of forces led by Saudi Arabia. “The exact same brands and components,” says Damien Spleeters, deputy director of operations for CAR, who led the investigation.
While the CAR inspectors quickly confirmed the drone’s origin, something else puzzled them. These drones appeared more sophisticated than the ones they’d studied in Yemen; their guidance systems were more elaborate, and they contained other advanced electrical componentry. Iran’s defense contractors weren’t just pumping out fleets of low-cost attack drones, it appeared; they were also upgrading their quality. “There’s been quite a jump,” says Taimur Khan, CAR’s head of operations in the Persian Gulf.
Over the past four decades, Tehran, unable to field a reliable air force of its own due to sanctions, has turned to lower-cost, basic drones, many of which are knockoffs of American and Israeli craft. According to the military analysis group Oryx, Iran operates at least a dozen military models, each built in multiple configurations. In all, the group’s database includes 143 unique versions of Iranian drones.
The roots of Iran’s drone industry go back to its war with Iraq, which lasted from 1980 to 1988. Back then, the Iranian Air Force flew mainly U.S. aircraft that it had acquired in the 1970s, including the F-14 Tomcat and, for reconnaissance, the RF-4 Photo Phantom. But the international sanctions that followed Iran’s revolution in 1979 cut off access to vital spare parts and made it nearly impossible for the country to maintain its fleet of Western aircraft. By 1986, as many as 80 percent of the planes were inoperable.
Without a serviceable air force, Iran needed another way to gather intelligence on Iraqi forces. It turned to small remote-controlled aircraft that could be assembled in simple workshops using basic parts. A group connected to Isfahan University had been making radio-controlled drones for aerial photography, and they were soon recruited into Tehran’s war effort. In 1985, those drones and their operators formed the Raad battalion—the first drone squadron in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps. One operator described the group’s initial drone as a “toy” with wings made of plastic foam held together with glue, and carrying a cheap pocket camera. This toy, however, provided valuable intelligence on Iraq’s trench lines and troop movements.
Around the same time, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard formed the Qods Aviation Industry Company to manufacture more advanced, weaponized drones. Its first model, the Mohajer, carried small rocket-propelled grenades that weighed less than 10 pounds each. They inflicted little damage against Iraq, but the nation rallied around these homemade flying rocket launchers. The drone even became the basis for a successful 1990 Iranian movie Mohajer, which was produced as part of the country’s Holy Defense Cinema movement and portrayed a heroic Iranian drone operator blasting Iraqi positions.
Few other nations appreciated the potential of tactical reconnaissance drones at this time. The U.S. Army had developed an early drone in 1983, called Aquila, that was far more sophisticated than the Mohajer and had a laser designator and advanced autopilot. But the high cost concerned defense buyers, and the project threatened to compete with the Army’s new OH-58D helicopter. The Pentagon canceled it in 1987, just as the Iranian drone industry was taking off.
Iran never slowed down its drone production, and over the past 40 years it has updated the Mohajer several times while also developing new models. Analysts believe that Iran released the latest Mohajer-6 version in 2018 and exported it to several other countries, a fact confirmed by CAR when its investigators examined the four Russian-marked drones in Ukraine. One turned out to be the latest version of the Mohajer, giving defense analysts their first detailed look at the drone. As Iran’s drone industry has grown, so has its export business. In addition to Russia, the country’s drones have been bought by the armies of Ethiopia, Sudan, and Venezuela, as well as Hezbollah in Lebanon, Palestinian militant groups, and Iranian-backed Iraqi militia groups.
Nowhere were they deployed more prolifically than in Yemen, where the Houthi used them to attack airports, military bases, and oil installations. In 2019 the Houthi drone campaign against adversaries in Yemen and Saudi Arabia reached its crescendo, and in September of that year, the rebels launched a concerted strike against a Saudi oil-processing plant in Abqaiq. More than a dozen drones and multiple ballistic missiles struck the facility, setting it ablaze. The incident demonstrated for the first time how effectively a swarm of drones could penetrate an enemy’s air defenses.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and a fleet of armed Mohajer-6 drones—a successful model that Iran first developed in 1985.Alamy
Russia’s coordinated drone strikes in Ukraine are eerily similar. Even as CAR investigators were confirming the origin of incoming drones last fall, the attacks kept coming. Russia launched an estimated 400 kamikaze drones at Ukraine water and electric facilities between August and December 2022, usually in swarms of a dozen or more. Further attacks came in January and February. The Iranian-made Shahed-136 carried out many of them.
One of the most destructive attacks came on the night of October 4, 2022, when witnesses say they heard a high-pitched buzzing, like a motorcycle engine, that got louder as it approached. Then a horrific series of blasts rocked the barracks of Ukraine’s 72nd Mechanized Brigade near Kyiv. When it was over, three large three-story buildings had been reduced to rubble, with the survivors huddled outside in the dark. The walls of the barracks had crumbled, their roofs caved in. Glass from shattered windows spilled across the ground and columns of smoke drifted up from the ruins. In a stroke of luck, the brigade had been deployed at the time, and few remained in the barracks; Ukraine reported that only one person was injured in the attack.
Russian operators program the drones to fly low—sometimes just above city buildings—to stay under radar and avoid countermeasures that jam their radio frequencies. Typical air defenses, which rely on missiles that can cost more than $1 million each, are too costly to operate against swarms of Shahed kamikaze drones, which can be had for as little as $20,000.
Videos of early attacks show Ukrainian defenders shooting at them with Kalashnikovs, though with little success given the drones’ speed and unpredictable flight paths. They’ve had better luck destroying incoming drones using the twin rapid-fire 35mm cannons on the Gepard tanks provided by Germany. But Ukraine possesses fewer than 40 of them—not enough to stop the onslaught. Out of desperation, the country has resorted to pre-WWI Maxim machine guns, hoping to spray incoming drones with low-cost bullets.
“The counter-drone problem is a devilish one,” says CAR’s Taimur Khan.
With the Shahed, Iran has developed a new autonomous weapon that gives countries the means to attack across borders at a fraction of the cost of jets or missiles. At the start of its war against Ukraine, Russia’s primary option to attack inside that country had been its Kalibr cruise missile. But each of those costs an estimated $6.5 million. Compare that to the Shahed’s low cost and it’s easy to understand why militaries are embracing this new form of drone warfare.
The Shahed impresses in several other ways. Its wing shape gives it a range of up to 1,100 miles without requiring a jet engine; it’s built with readily available off-the-shelf components; and its low price means it can be launched in swarms to overwhelm defenses. Its small engine limits the weapons payload, but the nearly 70-pound high-explosive warhead is powerful enough to demolish a small building.
The Shahed flies slowly, propelled by a piston engine with a top speed of 115 miles per hour. These drones are not particularly stealthy, but their compact 8-foot wingspan makes them difficult to pick up on radar. When they fly in tight formation, they’re sometimes mistaken for birds.
Fragments from an Iranian-made Shahed-136 collected by a U.S. Navy explosive ordnance disposal team.Alamy
Despite their low cost, the Shaheds contain impressive electronics. The CAR inspectors have discovered that they use a more sophisticated satellite navigation system than earlier versions—one that combines signals from the Russian GLONASS as well as GPS satellite constellations. That redundancy makes it more difficult to electronically interfere with the drone’s navigation; if defenses block one system, the Shahed can still fly toward the target using the other.
The Shahed also carries an inertial measurement unit (IMU) that can be used to navigate in addition to satellite-guided systems. This “dead reckoning” device employs accelerometers to work out how far and in which direction the drone travels. IMUs lose accuracy after a few minutes, but that’s long enough to keep a drone on course if defenses interfere with its satellite guidance. The systems are common in more expensive drones, but rare in such a low-cost model.
Most surprising to CAR investigators, however, was the discovery that those advanced IMUs and navigation systems had not been produced by Iran. They had most likely been manufactured in Western countries, a finding CAR is working to verify. In fact, the only parts linked to Iran were the engines, and even those had been produced in China by an Iranian private company with links to the Chinese government, Khan says.
During its examination of the Shahed and Mohajer, the CAR team documented about 70 components that had been produced by 13 companies outside Iran. More than 80 percent came from the United States. Most had been produced in 2020 and 2021. Some came from the well-known electronics company Texas Instruments, which had to release a statement in November noting that “TI is not selling any products into Russia, Belarus, or Iran. TI stopped sales to Russia and Belarus at the end of February 2022, and we no longer support sales there.”
It became evident that Iran, in coordination with Russia, had been hoarding drone components from around the world. CAR’s Spleeters acknowledges that large-scale industrial smuggling is happening and won’t be easy to stop. “Control over the technology is kind of the key issue here, and it’s not going to be like a miracle solution that works suddenly,” he says. “It’s going to take a while because of those stockpiling issues.”
Conceived during war and built under the weight of crippling sanctions, Iran’s weapons industry has thrived on capturing enemy drones and copying their designs. One of the country’s earliest drones was an adaptation of the U.S. MQM-107 Streaker, which the U.S. and its allies used mostly for testing missile defenses. Iran had acquired them in the 1970s, prior to its revolution. In 2010 the country introduced the Karrar, a Streaker lookalike modified for attack missions that carried a 500-pound bomb.
The most famous theft came in 2011, when Iran captured a top-secret U.S. RQ-170 Sentinel stealth drone. Tehran claims it hacked the drone, hijacking its controls to land it on its territory. Iran rolled out a similar version, called the Saeqeh, in 2016. There are plenty more examples. Iran’s Yasir appears to be a clone of the U.S. Scan Eagle Drone that it modified to carry an explosive charge after it had captured one in 2012. Iran’s state media even flaunted it as an example of reverse-engineering a successful American design.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard shows off a captured U.S. stealth drone at an aerospace fair in western Tehran.Alamy
To slow down Iran’s expanding drone industry, the U.S. and its allies have levied additional sanctions against many of Tehran’s weapons-producing companies. In 2012, a new law made it illegal for U.S. companies to sell equipment to Iran’s leading drone producer, HESA—the company behind the Shahed family of drones, among others. The country’s top semiconductor producer, Iran Electronic Industries, has also been sanctioned since 2013. Both companies are subsidiaries of the Iranian military, operating under a branch called the Ministry of Defense Armed Forces Logistics. Around the same time, the German government discovered that two men with ties to Tehran had illegally exported 61 drone engines into Iran for use in the Ababil-3, a small combat drone made by HESA.
Those sanctions appear to have done little to stop the supply of parts and technologies making their way into Iranian drones. Vadym Skibitsky, deputy head of Ukraine’s military intelligence, has said he expects that Russia will soon take delivery of as many as 1,000 additional Shahed-131 and Shahed-136 drones from Tehran. Additional reporting from the Wall Street Journal in February revealed that Russia is completing work on a drone factory 600 miles east of Moscow, where it will produce as many as 6,000 new Shahed kamikaze drones. Those drones likely will be built with electronics and other components that Russia has already amassed, says CAR’s Spleeters.
Against incredible odds, Iran’s drone industry is pushing forward. In April 2022, HESA unveiled a new, jet-powered UAV, the Shahed-149. According to the commander of the Revolutionary Guard Aerospace Force, Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the drone can carry up to 13 missiles and has a range of 2,400 miles. It’s powered by a 750-horsepower jet engine and has advanced optical and infrared electronics packages that will allow it to fly at night, as well as provide thermal imaging and laser targeting. A photo of a prototype 149 in a spacious hangar reveals a sleek aircraft with a split-wing tail and long fuselage. A spherical optical array hangs from the nose, and mounting points for weapons can be seen under the wings. Estimates put it at 34 feet long with a 60-foot wingspan. It looks not unlike the American Reaper drone, which carries out long-range surveillance and strike missions. Iran claims the craft will also include a suite of new electronic jammers, which it is installing on many of its drones to make them harder to shoot down.
The Shahed-149 shows that Iran continues to advance its drone strategy, giving it more export options for allies in Yemen, Russia, and Palestine. But even as it develops more powerful drones, the country is also creating technology that will make kamikaze drones like the Shahed-136 even more deadly. Last year the Iranian Army Ground Force unveiled Mass Flight, a networked, AI-driven software that allows multiple drones to synchronize a mission, autonomously identifying targets on the ground and attacking them. If this works, it would make swarm attacks far more dangerous, giving operators the power to direct some drones to target counter-drone defenses en route and maximizing damage by the drones that make it through.
Even the current Shahed, unsophisticated but deadly, is changing global power dynamics. Iran’s ability to skirt sanctions and produce simple, economical drones gives almost any country or military organization the means to carry out long-range assaults against a perceived enemy. New sanctions that limit parts supplies into Russia and Iran might help slow production while armies develop better ways to defend against these swarming drones. And clearer component tracking from organizations like CAR could help stop the flow of parts at their sources. But so far, Iran has brushed off international law and pushed ahead with its vigorous drone-building program—one that shows few signs of slowing.
Russia may not have received enough Iranian drones to shut down Ukraine’s power grid this winter, but the war grinds on, production is ramping up, and the drone attacks keep coming.
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