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| Ukrainian Military Claims Successfully Downed Iranian Shahed Drone Used by Russia |
Kiev - Ukraine's military claimed on Tuesday for the first time that it found an Iran-supplied suicide drone used by Russia on the battlefield, pointing to deepening ties between Moscow and Tehran as the Islamic Republic's nuclear deal falters with powers. the world hangs in the balance.
US intelligence publicly warned back in July that Tehran was planning to send hundreds of bomb-carrying drones to Russia to aid its war in Ukraine. While Iran initially denied it, the head of its paramilitary Revolutionary Guards has boasted in recent days about arming the world's major powers.
The Ukrainian military's Directorate of Strategic Communications published images of the wreckage of the drone. It resembles a triangular, or delta-shaped, drone flown by Iran known as the Shahed, or "Witness" in Farsi.
Military officials and websites both say Ukrainian forces found the drone near Kupiansk amid a Kyiv offensive that penetrated Russian lines around Kharkiv on the eastern front.
The image shows that the Shahed drone had been shot down by Ukrainian forces and did not explode as planned, although little other information was soon released by Kyiv. An inscription on the drone identified it as "M214 Gran-2," which does not directly correspond to any known Russian armament.
Iran has several versions of the Shahed, which has overrun a US aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf, has been used by Iran-backed rebels in Yemen, attacked oil depots in Saudi Arabia and allegedly killed two sailors aboard an oil tanker off the coast of Oman in 2021. The triangular-shaped Shahed is believed to have a range of about 2,000 kilometers (1,240 miles), although Iran has offered few details.
Experts refer to such bomb-carrying drones as "roaming munitions." The drone flies to a destination, likely programmed before its flight, and either explodes in the air above the target or crashes into it.
Iran has grown closer to Russia as it faces crushing sanctions over the collapse of the nuclear deal in 2018 after President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from the accord. Negotiations over the deal, which saw Iran limit its uranium enrichment in exchange for the lifting of sanctions, have again hit a stalemate.
Ukraine and Iran also have strained relations, stemming from Iran's Revolutionary Guards shooting down a Ukrainian passenger jet in 2020, killing all 176 people on board.