As of: February 9, 2024, 11:49 a.m
By: Felix Durach
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Russia relies on Iranian kamikaze drones in the Ukraine war.
New publications will now show the costs of drone purchases.
Moscow – Iranian Shahed drones have played a central role for Russian forces in the Ukraine war.
The drones can attack in swarms and thus overload the modern Ukrainian air defense systems.
If they hit, the aircraft can cause significant damage.
Above all, the kamikaze drones should be very cost-effective - especially in comparison with the defense systems.
But what does President Vladimir Putin really pay for the drones?
A report published at the weekend could shed some light and shows high costs.
Russia is apparently paying several billion euros to import Iranian Shahed Kamikaze drones.
© IMAGO/Sobhan Farajvan
Important weapon in the Ukraine war – How much does an Iranian kamikaze drone cost?
In its situation report from Tuesday (February 6), the US think tank Institute for the Study of War (ISW) refers to documents that were published through a hacker attack.
For a drone in the standard version Shahed-136, Russia pays the regime in Tehran 193,000 US dollars (approx. 180,000 euros) per unit with a quantity of 6,000.
According to the documents, Moscow and Tehran had already agreed on the delivery of 6,000 drones as well as the associated hardware and software in 2022.
Cost: $1.75 billion.
The hacker group Prana Network apparently managed to hack the servers of the Sahara Thunder company over the weekend.
Sahara Thunder is classified as a suspected front company for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.
The documents also reportedly show that Iran initially demanded a price of $375,000 per drone.
The Russian military blogger milinfolive on his Telegram channel cited, among other things, political risks for Iran and a lack of alternatives for Russia as the reasons for the high starting price.
Falke instead of Shahed: Will Russia soon build its own kamikaze drones?
However, Putin and the Kremlin could significantly reduce the price of the drones if they relocated the production of the drones to Russia.
Then a drone costs 165,000 US dollars.
According to a report by the Russian news agency
Tass,
Moscow is already implementing corresponding plans.
The Russian drone will be made “entirely from commercial components” and will be called the Falke.
According to the
Tass
report, the drone will be used as a “pseudo cruise missile” or “decoy target” in attacks on Ukraine.
In its management report, the ISW pointed out that the authenticity of the published documents could not be independently verified.
However, the terms used in the document are consistent with other reports related to Iranian drone production.
Kamikaze drones in the Ukrainian war – overloading the air defense as a goal
During the war, Putin's armed forces used Shahed drones primarily to attack military and civilian infrastructure in Ukraine.
The kamikaze drones are used in large numbers and in combination with rockets and cruise missiles.
The few modern air defense systems owned by Ukraine are intended to be deliberately overloaded.
The Western Patriot systems can only engage up to 50 targets at the same time.
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As the ISW further reports, Russia has also ordered other drones in addition to the Shahed-136.
This includes the improved drone version Shahed-238, which costs between 900,000 US dollars (approx. 835,000 euros) and 1.4 million US dollars (1.3 million euros), depending on the version.
And the Shahed-107 drone, which is intended for explosives and reconnaissance, is priced at 460,000 US dollars (427,000 euros).
In total, the US think tank estimates that Russia will spend $4.5 billion a year on Iranian drones.
(fd)