A rift is reportedly emerging between allies Russia and Iran, after Tehran feels it’s gotten shortchanged in strongman Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine.
Moscow inked a $1.75 billion weapons deal with the Islamic Republic in 2023 — called at the time “a covert partnership” — to get the designs to domestically produce Iran’s infamous Shahed drones, which it had been importing since launching its full-scale invasion on Ukraine a year earlier.
But Tehran has been growing increasingly frustrated with the little backing it’s received from Russia since, CNN reported, citing a Western intelligence source.
The resentment hit a high note during the Islamic Republic’s 12-day war with Israel in June, when Tehran was expecting more than just words from its ally.
Russian officials condemned Israel’s attacked as “unprovoked and unacceptable” and offered to mediate the conflict — but did not provide any military support to Iran, despite the two countries’ partnership.
Left to fend for itself, the Iranian regime was badly battered and weakened during the conflict. The Jewish state carried out numerous devastating aerial strikes on the Islamic Republic and its nuclear facilities, killing more than 30 Iranian commanders, at least 11 of the regime’s top nuclear masterminds and sending the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei into hiding.
It showed Russia’s “purely transactional and utilitarian nature,” the intelligence official told the outlet.
“This explicit disengagement demonstrates that Russia never intervenes beyond its immediate interests, even when a partner – here an essential supplier of drones – is attacked,” they said.
The Shahed drones — also referred to as kamikaze drones — have since become the cornerstone of Moscow’s war machine, when hundreds of are often launched on Ukraine in a single evening.
To add insult to injury, Putin’s men have taken Tehran’s designs and developed better, cheaper versions — and failed to make some of its payments to Iran because of the Western sanctions placed on the Kremlin.
It is unclear how much Moscow has yet to pay its counterpart toward the deal.
Russia has also modernized the drones to make them more lethal and harder to bring down, according to Ukraine, leaving Tehran in the dark about the developments.
It’s also brought down the cost from $200,000 for one Shahed drone — to just $70,000.
Intelligence officials believe as much as 90% of Shahed production is now done inside Russia, and satellite images show the largest drone factory — in Alabuga, 600 miles east of Moscow — is continuing to expand.
