Russia and Iran deepen weapons partnership amid wars in Ukraine, Middle East

KYIV, Ukraine – Russia has begun sending Iran upgraded munitions, satellite imagery and targeting data used against American forces in the Middle East, part of a broader military partnership that also includes a covert program to help Tehran develop supersonic and hypersonic cruise missiles, according to intelligence assessments made public this month.

Tehran and Moscow have been deepening their military relationship since the 1990s, but the partnership accelerated sharply after 2022 when Iran first began supplying Russia with Shahed attack drones for use in Ukraine .

The Kremlin has since negotiated a license to build the Iranian-designed drones on Russian territory and has rapidly learned to replace and often upgrade most of the weapon’s components with locally sourced and Chinese parts.

Now, as Iran wages its own war against the United States and Israel since the spring, Russia’s upgraded technology is flowing back into Tehran, according to the Institute for the Study of War .

“If confirmed, this would represent a complete technological feedback loop in which Iranian‑designed drones supplied to Russia were enhanced through extensive wartime use before being returned to Iran in a significantly more capable configuration,” ISW analysts found.

That exchange marks a shift toward a more interdependent military partnership between Russia and Iran that is already endangering American forces deployed throughout the Middle East and beyond, according to American and Ukrainian officials – including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who said he had given evidence of the alliance to the White House in March.

“There’s definitely some action there,” Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, told a Senate hearing in April when asked whether Russia was actively supporting Iran’s war effort against U.S. forces.

Iran shipped its first Shahed‑136 and Shahed‑131 drones to Russia in mid‑August 2022, six months into the full‑scale invasion of Ukraine, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies .

About two months later, a Russian defense‑industry delegation traveled to Iran to finalize a $1.75 billion deal authorizing production of the drone on Russian soil at the Alabuga Special Economic Zone in Tatarstan – initially assembling Iranian‑supplied kits, then increasingly substituting Russian and Chinese components.

Over the next four years, Russian engineers turned the imported design into a seemingly different weapon, swapping the original Iranian engine for Chinese turbojets, adding mesh-network radios and air-to-air missiles, and ultimately introducing entirely new jet-powered airframes (on the Geran-4 and Geran-5) so that the drone no longer resembles its original propeller-driven design.

“The country that has most thoroughly mastered the Shahed is not the one that built it,” CSIS researchers found. “Russia has used its license‑built variant, designated the ‘Geran,’ as a base platform for unprecedented wartime iteration.”

Russian missile specialists have been helping Iran develop ramjet propulsion systems for supersonic and hypersonic cruise missiles since 2023 through a covert program codenamed C430L, according to a Financial Times investigation published Sept. 1.

The two countries formalized their partnership by signing a 20-year strategic treaty in 2025 covering joint military exercises, intelligence-sharing and defense-industrial cooperation, according to Reuters .

Russian-provided targeting intelligence “raises concerns that future Iranian drone attacks could become substantially more sophisticated than previous campaigns,” according to ISW.

Satellite imagery from early September shows the construction of at least ten new facilities at Alabuga, according to ISW, and Ukrainian intelligence says Russia plans to produce thousands of additional Geran drones and decoy munitions in September alone – with jet-powered models on track to make up roughly 80% of all drone attacks by November, according to RBC-Ukraine .

Those production figures would give Russia ample capacity to continue supplying both its own war in Ukraine and Iran’s long‑range strike campaign against American aircraft carriers and warships in the Middle East for several more months.

“Iran’s development and operationalization of this technology would likely improve its ability to threaten US land and naval assets in the region,” ISW concluded, warning of threats to U.S. bases, command centers, logistics hubs, ammunition depots and naval infrastructure.

Katie Livingstone is the Ukraine correspondent for Defense News and Military Times. Based in Kyiv, she has covered Russia's full-scale invasion since its first days. She is a former Fulbright fellow whose award-winning work has appeared in outlets across Europe and the U.S.

乌克兰基辅——根据本月公布的情报评估，俄罗斯已开始向伊朗提供升级后的弹药、卫星图像和用于攻击驻中东美军的目标数据，这是双方更广泛军事合作的一部分，该合作还包括一项秘密计划，旨在帮助德黑兰开发超音速和高超音速巡航导弹。

自 20 世纪 90 年代以来，德黑兰和莫斯科一直在加深军事关系，但自 2022 年伊朗首次开始向俄罗斯提供用于乌克兰的“沙赫德”攻击无人机以来，两国的伙伴关系急剧加速发展。

此后，克里姆林宫与伊朗谈判获得了在俄罗斯境内建造伊朗设计的无人机的许可，并迅速学会了用本地和中国制造的零部件替换和升级该武器的大部分组件。

据战争研究所称，自今年春季以来，随着伊朗对美国和以色列发动战争，俄罗斯升级后的技术正在回流到德黑兰。

ISW 分析师发现：“如果得到证实，这将代表一个完整的技术反馈循环，即伊朗设计的无人机提供给俄罗斯后，经过广泛的战争使用得到改进，然后以更强大的配置返回伊朗。”

据美国和乌克兰官员称，这一交流标志着俄罗斯和伊朗之间的军事伙伴关系正朝着更加相互依存的方向发展，这已经危及部署在中东及其他地区的美国军队的安全——其中包括乌克兰总统泽连斯基，他表示自己在3月份已向白宫提供了有关这一联盟的证据。

“那里肯定有一些行动，”参谋长联席会议主席丹·凯恩将军在4月份的一次参议院听证会上被问及俄罗斯是否正在积极支持伊朗对抗美军的战争时表示。

据战略与国际研究中心称，伊朗于 2022 年 8 月中旬向俄罗斯运送了首批 Shahed-136 和 Shahed-131 无人机，当时距离其全面入侵乌克兰已经过去了六个月。

大约两个月后，一个俄罗斯国防工业代表团前往伊朗，最终敲定了一项价值 17.5 亿美元的协议，授权在俄罗斯鞑靼斯坦共和国阿拉布加经济特区生产无人机——最初组装伊朗提供的组件，然后越来越多地用俄罗斯和中国的零部件替代。

在接下来的四年里，俄罗斯工程师将进口的设计改造成了一种看似不同的武器，用中国涡轮喷气发动机取代了原有的伊朗发动机，增加了网状网络无线电和空对空导弹，并最终引入了全新的喷气动力机身（在 Geran-4 和 Geran-5 上），使得无人机不再像其最初的螺旋桨驱动设计那样。

战略与国际研究中心（CSIS）的研究人员发现，“最彻底掌握‘沙赫德’坦克技术的国家并非其制造国。俄罗斯利用其获得许可生产的衍生型号‘格朗’，作为前所未有的战时改进型坦克的基础平台。”

据《金融时报》9月1日发表的一项调查显示，自2023年以来，俄罗斯导弹专家一直在通过一项代号为C430L的秘密计划帮助伊朗开发超音速和高超音速巡航导弹的冲压发动机推进系统。

据路透社报道，两国于 2025 年签署了一项为期 20 年的战略条约，正式确立了伙伴关系，该条约涵盖联合军事演习、情报共享和国防工业合作。

据 ISW 称，俄罗斯提供的目标情报“令人担忧，伊朗未来的无人机袭击可能会比以往的行动更加复杂”。

据 ISW 称，9 月初的卫星图像显示，阿拉布加至少正在建造十个新设施；乌克兰情报部门表示，俄罗斯计划仅在 9 月份就生产数千架额外的“格朗”无人机和诱饵弹药——据 RBC-Ukraine 称，到 11 月，喷气式无人机将占所有无人机袭击的约 80%。

这些生产数据将使俄罗斯拥有充足的能力，可以继续为自身在乌克兰的战争以及伊朗对美国在中东的航空母舰和军舰的远程打击行动提供物资，持续数月之久。

“伊朗对这项技术的研发和应用可能会提高其威胁美国在该地区陆地和海军资产的能力，”ISW总结道，并警告称，美国基地、指挥中心、后勤枢纽、弹药库和海军基础设施将受到威胁。

凯蒂·利文斯通是《防务新闻》和《军事时报》的乌克兰特派记者。她常驻基辅，自俄罗斯全面入侵乌克兰之初便开始报道此事。她曾是富布赖特学者，其获奖作品发表于欧洲和美国的多家媒体。