According to a statement from Ukrainian Air Force spokesman Yurii Ihnat, Russia launched more than 83 missiles in yesterday’s attack on Ukraine as well as 17 Shahed-136 “kamikaze drones” supplied by Iran. Of those 83 mostly long-range missiles, the air force claimed to have shot down 43. While these numbers cannot be independently verified, the missile attack was clearly far greater than we had seen in recent months.
There are many reports suggesting that the Kremlin’s stockpile of precision-guided missiles may be running low. With limited production capacity and sanctions preventing their immediate replacement, and Moscow already a customer of Tehran’s drones, Iran will supply Iranian-made ballistic missiles to be used by Russia in its war in Ukraine. Iran is in great need of foreign exchange, due to the sanctions imposed by the USA.
The idea of Iran moving ballistic missiles to Russia was briefly mentioned by Iranian state media over the weekend. In such a case Iran would act as Russia’s defense industry in terms of ballistic missile and munitions production. Iran essentially, in order to obtain high liquidity, is able to “play” with fire, because the allies of Ukraine (West) will be tempted to attack its facilities and its transport-logistics networks to Russia.
From drones to missiles
At the start of the Russian invasion on February 24 this year, it may have seemed far-fetched for Moscow to call on Tehran to supply it with weapons, especially for counterattacks on ground targets, precisely the kind of mission that Russia, on paper at least, , should have been covered by many different platforms.
However, Iran supplying Russia with “hundreds” of drones, including the Shahed-136 “kamikaze drone” and the larger Mohajer-6, shows that Moscow is willing (or has been forced to) turn to non-traditional channels to get fast has some features it desperately needs for its faltering businesses in Ukraine.
Tehran’s development of increasingly sophisticated, longer-range ballistic missiles is now a well-known and important factor in wider geopolitical issues in the Middle East. Along with cruise missiles and UAVs, Iran’s ballistic missiles are intended to have a deterrent effect, but they have also, and most notably for Russia, been used in action by Iran and its proxies.
Since Iranian ballistic missiles have traditionally been designed for regional conflicts, they also fall into the kind of range categories that would be useful to the Russian Armed Forces during their war in Ukraine.
The Qiam-1 SRBM, for example, has a reported range of 500 miles, which would allow Russia to strike targets across Ukraine. If the same missiles were deployed on the territory of Belarus, this would become even easier.
Other Iranian missiles, such as the Ghadr, which was derived from the Shahab-3 MRBM would offer an even longer range, reportedly up to 1,200 miles. This would give Russia the advantage of being able to base such weapons much further away from Ukraine’s borders. On the other hand, the inherent mobility of various road-mobile types of Iranian ballistic missiles would make them a very difficult target for Ukraine, which has very limited weapons capabilities anyway.
A drawback of some of Iran’s longer-range missiles, including the Qiam-1 and Ghadr, is that they still rely on liquid-fuel systems. These are not only more dangerous to use, but mean that the system takes much longer to get up and running.
In addition to ballistic missiles, Iran could potentially provide Russia with other weapons. In addition to more and different types of UAVs, Iran produces long-range cruise missiles, including some that are almost certainly derived from original Soviet technology.
Notable among them is the Quds-1, which is claimed to have a range of over 430 miles and is battle-proven during the notable attack on the Saudi Arabian oil well in September 2019.
Russia and Iran together in armaments
For Iran, which has long been in international isolation and under massive sanctions, mainly because of its nuclear program and its activities, including providing weapons and other support to proxy fighters, “injections” of liquidity (cash) from Moscow would also be very welcome.
Transporting the weapons to Russia would not be much of a challenge, with the possibility of transporting them by ship over the Caspian Sea. For Tehran, in addition to much-needed revenue, such a sale would provide another opportunity to demonstrate some of its increasingly advanced missile technologies in combat.
Iran has established sanctions-proof production lines for a variety of long-range missiles, and many of the types will be available almost immediately, as well as potentially easier to resupply in the near future.
Whatever happens, Russia has shown again that it is willing to launch long-range strikes against both Ukrainian cities and critical (civilian or dual-use) infrastructure. How long such campaigns could be sustained would depend not only on the stockpile of land-attack missiles (and the ability to replenish them), but also on the continued development of Ukraine’s air defenses.
However, it must be remembered that Ukraine’s improved air defenses will not stop all attacks, especially if Russia finds a new supply of weapons, and the only system the US has that would match ballistic missiles and area air defense is the Patriot not offered in Ukraine.
With Russian reserves running low, it is hoped that attacks like this week’s on population centers in Ukraine will become increasingly difficult for Moscow to pull off, but if Iran reaches a deal with Russia, it could complicate things dramatically. situation and could put everything from Ukrainian cities to military bunkers at greater risk.
