The Washington Post reports that it has obtained secret documents on the production of combat drones at a plant in Tatarstan. Informs Mind.
The publication received the documents from a former employee of the company in Yelabuga, covering the period from winter 2022 to spring 2023. According to him, this employee wanted to disrupt production in this way and bring the end of the war with Ukraine closer.
The papers show that by the summer of 2025, the russian Defence Ministry intends to receive 6,000 drones, and initially it will only be the assembly of Iranian Shahed-type devices, but then the plant in Yelabuga plans to completely switch to its own production.
We are talking about the Geran-2 drones, which are based on (and in fact copies of) the Iranian Shahed-136. They are capable of carrying about 50 kg of explosives and are equipped with loudly rattling engines, which is why they were nicknamed 'flying mopeds.'
The West has long known about the multibillion-dollar military deal concluded between moscow and Tehran, and Iran itself has admitted that it supplied russia with a batch of drones, although it claims to have done so before the war began. However, new documents show that Iran has essentially sold russia a franchise to produce drones.
According to an analysis conducted by the American Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), the Shahed's production plan looks feasible in principle, but it has many shortcomings.
One of the main reasons is that, as the Iranians themselves admit in the accompanying documents, more than 90% of the microchips and electronics in the Shahed-136 are of Western, mostly American, manufacture.
Previously, these components were not classified as secret or military technologies and were relatively easy to access, but the situation has changed after the Americans imposed a complete ban on the export of such components to russia.
Нагадаємо: Нова атака дронів на Москву. Що відомо.
