TheImmortal
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Full speech. Interesting how he informed the press, almost as an after though near the end. He said they believe that training sessions will begin in early July. If this is true, then training sessions are likely underway now. This might actually explain what those previous shipments from Iran to Russia were all about. If this is real, then this deal was likely signed months ago and it could be part of a broader deal for Iran to procure fighter jets, air defense systems and other hardware.
Now here's the thing. The Russians have a UAV industry of their own. They produce reconnaissance drones (Orlan-10), kamikaze (KUB-BLA), multirole (Orion), stealth drones (Okhotnik), but the issue here is that the Russians never produced UAVs on a large scale, except for the Orlan-10.
Regardless much of their preexisting stock has likely been depleted in Ukraine. Western backed sanctioned might have also disrupted their attempts to mass produce more in a timely manner. Iran currently has over 1000x UAVs in active service. Iran has also been subject to US sanctions for years now and so its entire supply chain and assembly lines are designed to function despite sanctions.
Can Russia produce UAVs and are they producing more for Ukraine ? Yes, but this is a time sensitive issue. The Russians should have invested more heavily in their UAV industry and right now they're wishing that they had, but regardless Iran's UAVs are battle tested and their only options now are China and Iran. Realistically the Chinese might be reluctant because of the threat of sanctions. Iran on the other hand is already being sanctioned by the west and so the west has no leverage in this regard.
If anything this is an excellent opportunity for Iran in more ways than one. Iran can earn extra revenue, cement closer military ties with Russia. Not to mention the fact that this would be a great advertisement for Iranian weapons and potentially an opportunity to test various platforms in a high intensity conflict involving the most powerful nations in the world . Iranian drones have already proven their worth in Syria, Ethiopia, Yemen, but this is a different kind of conflict
I have to say orlan-10 is garbage compared to Iranian scan Eagle. The camera is awful. It’s like Russia FLIR tech is way behind Iran outside of maybe their top of the line fighter jet.
We all know Iran attempts to reduce costs whenever possible, but Russia just builds crap these days.