From Shahed to Geran: How Iran Helped Build Russia’s Drone War

When the wreckage of an unfamiliar delta-winged drone was recovered near Kupiansk in northeastern Ukraine in September 2022, the Russian name Geran-2 was painted on its remains. But the aircraft was not originally Russian. Ukrainian and Western investigators identified it as an Iranian-designed Shahed-136, marking the visible beginning of one of the most consequential technology transfers of the Ukraine war.

Iranian deliveries of finished drones have evolved into the transfer to Russia of manufacturing techniques, components, technical knowledge and ultimately the ability to mass-produce and modify Iran’s Shahed family on Russian soil.

Russia turned to Iran during the first year of its invasion as its stocks of expensive precision-guided missiles came under pressure and Moscow searched for cheaper weapons capable of striking targets hundreds of kilometers behind Ukrainian lines. Russian officials had inspected Iranian drones by June 2022, according to Western assessments, and the first transfers followed in August.

The Iranian system offered Russia an attractive equation. The Shahed-136 is comparatively simple and inexpensive being a propeller-driven, delta-winged one-way attack drone carrying an explosive warhead toward predetermined coordinates. Large numbers could be launched simultaneously, forcing Ukraine either to expend valuable air-defense missiles or risk allowing some drones to reach power plants, military installations and cities.

By autumn 2022, Russia was using Shaheds extensively. Attacks on Ukrainian electricity infrastructure helped make the distinctive noise of their engines — compared by Ukrainians to mopeds — one of the most recognizable sounds of the war.

The relationship soon went beyond the delivery of hardware. In October 2022, the United States said Iranian military personnel had deployed to Russian-occupied Crimea to provide training and technical assistance after Russian forces encountered problems operating the systems. Russian troops, Washington said, were conducting the strikes, while Iranian specialists helped them overcome operational and technical failures.

Tehran initially denied supplying drones for the Ukraine war. In November 2022, however, then-Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian acknowledged that Iran had provided Russia with a “small number” of drones, while insisting they had been delivered before the February invasion. Kyiv rejected that explanation, pointing to the growing number of Iranian-designed aircraft appearing over Ukraine.

By then, Moscow and Tehran were already moving toward a far deeper arrangement.

Western intelligence reported in November 2022 that the two countries had reached an agreement to manufacture Iranian-designed drones inside Russia. The planned cooperation reportedly involved transferring designs, components and manufacturing expertise rather than simply shipping completed weapons.

The center of the project became the Alabuga Special Economic Zone in Tatarstan, around 800 kilometers east of Moscow.

Leaked Russian documents later obtained by The Washington Post showed an ambitious plan to manufacture 6,000 drones, initially by assembling Iranian-supplied kits and gradually replacing imported parts with domestically produced alternatives. Russian engineers and workers traveled to Iran for training, while Iranian companies provided information on engines, electronics and production processes.

The U.S. Treasury subsequently described the arrangement as a $1.75 billion contract involving Iran’s Ministry of Defense and entities connected to the Alabuga program. Treasury records describe Iranian-linked companies supplying sample drones, components, raw materials and ground-control equipment while Russia developed its own production capacity.

The process amounted to a phased transfer of an entire weapons platform. At first, Iran supplied the finished product. Then came disassembled drones and components. Next came manufacturing documentation, technical support and training. Finally, Russian factories began replacing Iranian systems with Russian — and increasingly Chinese — alternatives.

By 2023, investigators were identifying Russian-manufactured versions of the Shahed-136. Engines, satellite-navigation systems, flight controllers and warheads were gradually substituted. Russian engineers also began altering the aircraft in response to lessons from the Ukrainian battlefield.

By September 2024, Ukraine said Russia had already launched 8,060 Iranian-developed Shahed drones during the conflict.

But the Geran program increasingly ceased to be simply an Iranian drone operated by Russia. Over the following years, Moscow modified its navigation systems to resist Ukrainian electronic warfare, introduced new communications equipment and heavier warheads, experimented with cameras and remote control, and developed jet-powered variants.

A September 2026 assessment by the Center for Strategic and International Studies found that Russia had transformed the original Iranian design into a continuously evolving family of weapons, incorporating Russian engineering and large quantities of Chinese commercial technology.

The evolution illustrates why the Iran-Russia drone partnership has mattered far beyond the number of Shaheds Tehran initially supplied.

Iran provided Russia with a relatively mature, combat-tested technology that Moscow could manufacture cheaply and improve quickly. Russia supplied the industrial scale Iran lacked.

Four years after the first Shahed wreckage appeared in Ukraine, Iranian drone technology has become embedded in Russia’s war economy, and the Geran has evolved from an imported emergency solution into one of Moscow’s central weapons for sustaining its long-range campaign against Ukraine.