IRAN HELPING RUSSIA COMMIT WAR CRIMES

The arrival of the Iranian drones helped fill a crucial gap in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

- JOHN DOBSON LONDON

Just before midnight on Friday 19 August, two Russian Ilyushin IL-76 aircraft took off from a military airfield near Moscow.

Their destination was Mehrabad International airport near Teheran. Satellite imagery, time-stamped 1.17 am Saturday 20th, shows the two aircraft parked close to two hangers on the airfield. Six hours later they had gone.

What was the purpose of the visit? What were they carrying? A clue came from the Biden administration. Speaking anonymously because of the sensitivity of the matter, an official said that one plane carried $150m in cash and a number of captured UK and US weapons to Iran in exchange for a large number of deadly drones for Russia's use in its war against Ukraine. Iranian scientists and engineers working for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, are well known for their ability to "reverse engineer" weapons systems obtained on the black market. They would have been particularly excited to receive

Russia's side of the barter, reported to be three much-wanted weapons: a British Next generation Light Antitank Weapon (NLAW)-a "fire and forget" lightweight shoulder-fired weapon; a US Javelin anti-tank missile; and a Stinger anti-aircraft missile.

These had all been shipped to Ukraine for their use against the invaders, but had "fallen into Russian hands".

For their part, the Iranians supplied Russia in excess of 200 unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), which included more than 100 Shahed-136 and Shahed-191 drones, nicknamed "kamikaze" drones because they are designed to crash into their targets and explode on impact. They are capable of delivering explosive payloads at distances of up to 1,500 miles. The rest of the load was the larger Mohajer-6 single-engine multirole UAVs, able to carry guided missiles or bombs.