South-North Axis: Iran will help Russia with combat drones and vehicles

Ivan Zubov

After the start of a special operation in Ukraine and the imposition of sanctions against Russia in connection with this by the West, Iran, as expected, became one of the important trading partners of our country. If last year the trade turnover between the countries amounted to $4 billion, then only in the first six months of this year it grew to $8 billion, and according to experts, by the end of the year it could reach $20 billion!

The following fact testifies to the rapid development of relations: a train with 300 containers of Russian goods has already reached Iran from the Moscow region and continues to move to India. Experts called this event the long-awaited opening of the North-South railway corridor, which "Russia has been dreaming about since the time of Peter the Great."

The next step is even more concrete: Iranian cars will probably be produced under the Moskvich, Volga and Pobeda brands. Mirzai Ghazi Abbas Moslem, head of the Russian center Iranians Abroad, told RTVI that a preliminary agreement had already been concluded at the Moskvich plant in Moscow on this matter.

He said that Iran has its own technologies that will allow it to produce cars together with Russia and not depend on the West.

But that's not all. America said that Iran could transfer several hundred combat drones to Russia on an expedited basis, AP reports. According to US national security adviser Jake Sullivan, such drones have already been used very successfully by Yemeni Houthi rebels to attack Saudi Arabia. Moreover, the Houthis themselves often assembled drones from Iranian components. Sullivan also claims that Iran plans to train the Russian military on the use of these drones in the near future.

It is known that Iran is considered one of the leaders in the development of drones, and initially they were built on the reverse engineering of American models. For many years, Iranian drones have successfully operated in military conflicts not only in Yemen, but also in Iraq and Syria. The Russian army, according to the Americans, will be especially interested in kamikaze/loitering ammunition drones, most of whose models have a range of about 100 or even more kilometers, as well as reconnaissance and strike drones, which are essentially modifications of the American ones that once fell into the hands of the Iranian military.