Iran has a direct route to send weapons and drones to Russia - CNN
Iran has the ability to supply weapons to Russia, including Shahed drones, via the Caspian Sea, which provides a direct route between the countries.
This was reported by CNN.
According to experts, as cooperation between Moscow and Tehran deepens, the Caspian route is used to transport drones, bullets and mortar shells that the Russian government has purchased from Iran to support its full-scale military aggression against Ukraine.
According to monitoring data, ships in the region are increasingly becoming "dark", indicating a growing desire to conceal the movement of goods, the publication says.
In 2022, Lloyd's List Intelligence data revealed a September spike in the number of gaps in the Caspian ship tracking data. This happened shortly after Kyiv and Washington claimed that Moscow bought drones from Tehran last summer.
Last fall, Russia increased its use of Iranian drones, including against critical energy infrastructure in Ukraine.
"There is no risk to Iranian exports in the Caspian Sea across country borders - they don't have the ability or motive to ban these kinds of exchanges," said Martin Kelly, a senior intelligence analyst at security company EOS Risk Group.
The route through the Caspian Sea, which Iran can use to transfer weapons and drones to Russia (photo: cnn.com)
It is noted that Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan are other countries with ports on the Caspian Sea, and, the analyst adds, this is "an ideal environment for this deal to meet no resistance."
Large-scale attack by the Shaheda on Ukraine on May 28
On Sunday night, the Russian invaders launched a massive drone attack on Ukraine, and the enemy sent most of the Shaheds toward Kyiv. Ukrainian air defense shot down all of the enemy's attack drones, causing destruction and fires in some areas, and one person was killed.
On the morning of this large-scale attack, the spokesperson for the Southern Defense Forces of Ukraine, Natalia Gumenyuk, suggested that Russia could have received a new batch of Shahed kamikaze drones from Iran.
These Shahed-129/191 drones are unmanned aerial vehicles capable of carrying precision munitions and can also be used for surveillance.
According to an investigative report obtained exclusively by CNN in early 2023, Iran appears to be modifying the drones so that their explosive warheads can cause maximum damage to infrastructure in Ukraine.
As a reminder, according to the updated data from the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, on the night of May 28, air defense forces eliminated 58 of 59 Shahedin.
It was also reported that on May 24, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy called on the Iranians to stop slipping into the "dark side of history" by providing Moscow with drones.
