Exclusive: Iran to secretly help Russia build self-detonating drones for Ukraine war, Western intelligence officials say
After weeks of savaging Ukrainian cities with Iranian-made drones, Moscow has quietly reached an agreement with Tehran to begin manufacturing hundreds of unmanned weaponized aircraft on Russian soil, according to new intelligence seen by U.S. and other Western security agencies.
Details of the Iran-Russia deal were finalized in the early November meeting, which involved a team of Russian defense-industry negotiators who traveled to Tehran to work out the logistics, according to security officials from two countries that monitored the events. The officials agreed to discuss the matter on the condition that their identities and nationalities not be revealed, citing the need to protect sensitive and ongoing intelligence-collection efforts.
Multiple NATO countries, including the United States, also have seen the intelligence, but government officials declined to discuss the details. The White House declined to comment on the specific report of Russian-Iranian collaboration.
While Tehran has publicly declared its neutrality in the conflict, Iran has “prioritized increasing defense cooperation with other countries” in the two years since the expiration of a U.N. resolution restricting Iran’s ability to sell arms, said Mahdi Nourian, the mission’s minister-counselor.
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