The developments in Iran do not solve the problem of attacks on Ukraine.

In Odesa, dining in restaurants with rooftops overlooking the sea, one can see the Ukrainian anti-aircraft fire shooting down the Shahed drones that Russia uses to attack the city. It makes a dull noise, like: Tunf! Tunf! Tunf! Tunf!

The theme these days is to explain one thing in Italian and to Italians: the Shahed drones used massively by Russia in Ukraine are indeed of Iranian origin, but Russia has been producing them itself for a long time.

A couple of details for everyone to understand:

The Shahed is a cheap kamikaze drone, costing more than a Fiat Panda but less than an Alfa Romeo. It has a flight radius of 2,500 km, no Italian city is at least 2,500 km away from Moscow. That is roughly the distance needed to fly from Turin to Palermo and back twice. It has a wingspan of three and a half metres, and as much as the word ‘drone’ makes one imagine something small, it is huge.

Russia produces its own drones, not buys them from Iran

Until mid-2023, Western sources estimated that Iran had already delivered at least 400 Shahed drones to Russia. This was followed by a contract worth around $1.75 billion to redeploy the production of 6,000 Shahed directly to Russia, at the Alabuga (Tatarstan) plant, to be completed by September 2025.

According to analyses, 4,500 of these would have already left the Russian factory by April 2024, even ahead of schedule. Almost 90 per cent of current production is now located in Russia, where these drones have been renamed ‘Geran-2’ for an initial intention to conceal their Iranian origin.

We are therefore talking about a transfer of technology, not a supply.

Story of an instrument of death

Initially, Russia worked on a contractual basis with the regime in Tehran, in a kind of ‘franchise’. There was a real commercial agreement based on a production licence. Some rumours speak of a contract of $1.5 billion for production rights alone, to which would be added the industrial start-up costs we mentioned earlier.

Over time, however, the Alabuga plant went from assembling Iranian kits to producing Geran-2s themselves and even modifying them to suit the Ukrainian theatre.

The components used are themselves produced in Russia, around 90% of the production process is now internalised. The remaining 10% is covered by a combination of mainly Chinese and/or Western components even.

Meanwhile, Moscow has transformed the Iranian-originated Shahed model into an ‘indigenous family’ of Geran drones. It has introduced structural and tactical modifications, made them more resistant to electronic warfare, doubled their explosive capacity and even painted them a different colour.

Russia and Iran have already fought over these drones

This industrial development has generated tensions between Moscow and Tehran. Iran provided the technology, the designs and the production licence. Russia realised and ‘improved’ them on its own, offering much less than it had agreed in return.

The Iranian media themselves speak of broken promises: no or very few Su-35 fighters, delays in the delivery of S-400 anti-aircraft systems and other aviation technology that Russia was supposed to provide in return.

The international media describe an ‘erosion of Iranian control’ over the Shahed: the drone is now produced, modified and potentially exportable by Russia without Iran being able to dictate conditions. This was already the case before the latest developments.

The bitter conclusion

The bitter conclusion is that the Ayatollah’s downfall will not alleviate the daily rain of Russian drones striking Ukraine. Even when there are no major ground offensives, Ukraine suffers attacks, sirens, blackouts, infrastructure damage and civilian casualties every night. At the worst times even 400 drones in a single day.

Unable to do anything else, Russia uses drones to turn the conflict into a low-intensity but continuous war, which it would like to leverage – but will not succeed – mainly on the fatigue of the civilian population.