Iranian Drones’ Role in Ukraine War Risks Deepening Tehran’s Rift With West

Iran’s decision to send armed drones to aid Russia’s war in Ukraine jeopardizes years of engagement with the West and marks a risky gambit by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to disrupt an international system that he sees as stacked against Tehran, analysts said.

Siding with Moscow threatens to deepen Iran’s isolation at a time when Iran’s rulers are facing widespread internal unrest and an economy crippled by U.S. sanctions over its nuclear program. Already the European Union has imposed new sanctions on Iran in response to its supplying Russia with drones and crackdown on protests.

If Russia uses more Iranian weapons in Ukraine, stalled talks on reviving the 2015 nuclear accord that offered to lift sanctions on Tehran would face even dimmer prospects, Western officials say.

Mr. Khamenei sees intervention in Ukraine at a time when Moscow’s invasion is faltering as a way to strike back at American power somewhere other than on Iran’s own home turf, analysts say. Though Iran is historically wary of Russia, Mr. Khamenei has pressed for years to deepen ties with Moscow and Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose intervention in the Syrian civil war is credited with saving President Bashar Al Assad and bolstering Iran’s own position in the country.

“Khamenei has been cultivated by Moscow for years, and when they knock on the door saying we need your help, it’s very hard for him to say no,” said Alex Vatanka, head of the Iran program at the Middle East Institute, a Washington think tank.

The Iranian government has denied that it has provided Russia with arms for use in Ukraine and insists it isn’t involved in the conflict. Russia has also denied that its forces have used Iranian-provided drones in the country.

 “We have defense cooperation with Russia but sending weapons and drones for use against Ukraine is not our policy,” Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said Thursday in a phone call with European Union foreign-policy chief Josep Borrell.

The EU sanctions on Iran moved ahead Thursday when the bloc concluded there was clear evidence that Iran’s claim was untrue.

Western officials say a wave of armed drones manufactured by Iran struck Kyiv last Monday, destroying power facilities and killing at least eight civilians. Iranian personnel in Crimea are training Russian pilots and providing maintenance on Iranian-made drones, U.S. officials said Thursday, adding that Moscow is also seeking to obtain Iranian surface-to-surface missiles for use in Ukraine.

Though Tehran has exported its drones and missiles to friendly governments and proxies in the Middle East and Africa, it is the first time since the ruling clerics who came to power more than  four decades ago have intervened so far from Iran in a conventional conflict where neither of the combatants is an Islamic country.

Tehran’s moves are contentious within Iranian’s ruling circles, especially among officials who haven’t given up on reviving stalled talks on a nuclear deal with Washington that would lift crushing sanctions, Iranian analysts say. Also complicating matters are weeks of protests following the death of a young woman in police custody for allegedly violating the Islamic Republic’s female dress code.

“There is a faction in the regime that is against selling drones” to Russia as it would undermine any chance of reviving the nuclear pact and alienate the European Union, said Mostafa Pakzad, a Tehran-based consultant who advises foreign companies in the country.  “But these divisions over foreign policy on Ukraine and Russia feed into the weakening of the morale of the regime already worried over the uprising.”

Some senior European officials have been surprised by Iran’s decision to throw itself into Russia’s war, even though it gives Tehran the opportunity to demonstrate the military threat its drones and missiles technology could pose to Iran’s regional foes.

Some EU diplomats say further sanctions could follow if Iran continues to bolster its support for Russia.

In a statement Friday at the end of a summit, EU leaders said they condemn “the military support to Russia’s war of aggression provided by the Iranian authorities, which must stop.”

For the 83-year-old Mr. Khamenei, who serves as commander-in-chief of Iran’s armed forces and has close ties to its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, outreach to the West has long been secondary to his goal of positioning Iran as a regional power capable of contesting the U.S. for military and political influence.

Mr. Khamenei’s closest advisers have convinced him more recently that, “deepening his relationship with Russia is his best political insurance,” said an adviser to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

With nuclear negotiations now at an impasse, the Ukraine war gives Mr. Khamenei a chance to pursue something he has advocated for years: turning East, further loosening economic ties with the West and building ties with other anti-U.S. powers like Russia and China to offset the impact of Western sanctions.

At Mr. Khamenei’s urging, the IRGC in recent decades has built an extensive domestic drone and missile industry to counter archenemy Israel and the U.S. Iran has smuggled in parts from suppliers in Asia and the West to building assembly plants that now produce numerous different types of unmanned aircraft and highly-accurate ballistic missiles, which U.S. officials say may also be going to Russia.

Mr. Khamenei’s only public comment on the Kyiv attacks has been to taunt anyone who doubted Tehran’s capability of producing armed unmanned aircraft for export.

“When images of Iranian drones were published a few years ago, they would say they’re photoshopped,” Mr. Khamenei told a group of scientists in Tehran on Wednesday. “Now they say Iranian drones are dangerous. Why do you sell them or give them to so-and-so?”

Biden administration officials warned in July that Iran was preparing to provide Russia with drones for the battlefield in Ukraine, as well as training for its forces to use them. The deal appeared to accelerate after Mr. Putin visited Tehran for talks with Mr. Khamenei, his second foreign trip since he ordered the invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24. Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi has also met with Mr. Putin four times since the Iranian took office in August 2021.

As a smiling Mr. Putin looked on last July, Mr. Khamenei railed against the U.S. and its European allies, insisting that they needed to be stopped in Ukraine and calling for “increasing mutual cooperation” between Moscow and Tehran.

Within weeks of the two leader’s meeting in Tehran, Iran began training Russian personnel to use its advanced drones, according to the Biden administration. It also began transferring drones to Russia that are now being used in Ukraine, along with Iranian personnel who are training Russians in piloting the aircraft, according to U.S. officials.

In exchange for help in Ukraine, Iran has pushed for access to Russian weaponry in return. Iranian officials and advisers say the purchase of Russia’s newest generation Su-35 fighters tops their shopping list of military equipment. Despite its extensive arsenal of drones and missiles, Iran’s aging 1970s air force is no match for the country’s adversaries in the region.

But Russia has long been reluctant to deliver heavy weaponry due to concerns over international sanctions, a lack of large-scale banking channels, and concerns about alienating Saudi Arabia, which Moscow is eager to draw into a broader commercial and security partnership.