Is Iran Seeking To Become A Bona Fide Arms Exporter With Russia Drone Sale?

As the Oct. 18, 2020, expiration date of the UN arms embargo against Iran loomed, there was substantial speculation that Tehran would seek to modernize its aged military arsenal by importing Russian hardware. A Pentagon report released the year before, for example, reasonably speculated that Iran might seek Russian Su-30 fighter jets, S-400 air defense missile systems, and T-90 main battle tanks.

Tehran, however, far from signaling what arms it might want to import, proclaimed its desire to export military hardware following the embargo’s expiration. As early as August 2019, a report in the Iranian press claimed that Russia had expressed its potential interest in buying Iranian drones.

Today, less than three years later, the White House’s claim that Russia is interested in acquiring Iranian drones – and that Russian officials visited Iran twice in June to look at different models, including the Shahed-191 and Shahed-129 – is, therefore, not all that surprising.

(A report by the Guardian in April even claimed Iran was already supplying Russia with munitions and military equipment — such as RPG’s, anti-tank missiles, and rocket launchers — from its militia proxies in Iraq and even donated one of its locally-built Bavar 373 air defense systems, Tehran’s answer to the Russian S-300, to Moscow.)

Such a sale could provide Russia a substantive number of armed drones at a time when Moscow has depleted vast quantities of its munitions. The White House’s claim that Iran “is preparing to provide Russia with up to several hundred” drones suggests, as has already been speculated by experts, that these could include a large number of loitering munitions — also known as kamikaze or “suicide” drones.

Russia may well urgently need hundreds of loitering munitions to bolster its firepower. Incidents such as its infamous firing of Kh-22 anti-ship missiles against the Ukrainian shopping mall in late June and using S-300 air defense missiles against land targets strongly indicate that there is substantial shortages in Russia’s stockpiles of ballistic and cruise missiles. Large quantities of cheap loitering munitions could serve as a substitute, albeit a far from perfect one.

And Tehran would likely happily accept Russian rubles as payment. During Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recent visit to Tehran, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said that countries should use their national currencies when trading to weaken the U.S. dollar. Furthermore, accepting Russian rubles would be beneficial for Tehran since, concurrent with the Iranian currency hitting record new low, the ruble has wildly exceeded expectations by hitting a seven-year high in June and becoming the world’s best-performing currency.

Iran would also like an opportunity to compete against Turkey’s famed homegrown Bayraktar TB2 drone, which got yet another publicity boost through its successful use in combat in Ukrainian service. If Iranian-built drones in Russian service perform marginally as well that could help boost sales.

Iran distinguishing itself as an independent exporter rather than an importer of military hardware would undoubtedly be a point of pride for the incumbent regime in Tehran. Rather than upgrade its aged conventional forces, especially its antiquated air force, Iran stubbornly pushed ahead with developing indigenous armed drones and ballistic missiles instead as part of its strategy of developing its asymmetrical warfare capabilities.

More generally, the relatively low price of Iranian weaponry makes it an affordable and even desirable option for pariah states and unpopular regimes around the world. Potential offers of technology transfers — Iran inaugurated a factory to build its Ababil-2 drones in Tajikistan in mid-May — could also sweeten any potential deals.

When Iran was an international pariah fighting Saddam Hussein’s Iraq in the 1980s, it turned to North Korea for help developing and building ballistic missiles, which gradually led to it fielding the largest, as well as the most diverse, arsenal of such missiles in the entire region. Tehran might offer similar services to countries like Putin’s Russia down the road, which would boost Tehran’s domestic arms industry and provide it with a source of revenue as it chafes under debilitating U.S. economic sanctions.

While time will ultimately tell, a sizable drone deal with Russia, if it does happen, could become the first significant step in Iran’s long-term goal of becoming a bona fide arms exporter.