Gold for Drones: Massive Leak Reveals the Iranian Shahed Project in Russia

A massive leak of thousands of internal emails and documents from an Iranian company connected to that country's Defense Ministry has revealed a wealth of information about Tehran's close cooperation with Moscow on suicide drones.

The leaked documents show that since the war in Ukraine began, Russia has purchased at least 6,000 Shahed 136 drones and received extensive aid in setting up local production lines for the drones, while paying for these deals in part with several tons of gold ingots. Now, Russia is seeking both to buy and to manufacture thousands of more advanced drones.

The Iranian-made Shahed 136 has become one of the most lethal weapons in Russia's arsenal. Thousands of these suicide drones have been launched at civilian targets in Ukraine, as well as vital infrastructure like power plants. In December, Ukraine said that Russia has launched some 3,700 suicide drones at its territory.

Last week, Ukrainian intelligence said that Russian soldiers are trained to operate Iran's Shahed 136, Ababil-3 and Raad drones in Syria. The trainers, it added, are provided by both Hezbollah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.

The Shahed 136 is also well known in the Middle East. Iran has provided these drones to Yemen's Houthis, who used them to attack Saudi oil facilities, and to Iraq's Kata'ib Hezbollah militia, which has launched them at American bases.

Iran itself has used them at least twice to attack commercial ships owned by Israeli businessmen – in July 2021 (when two crew members were killed aboard the Mercer Street) and this past November. But so far, no Shahed 136 is known to have been launched at Israel.

In early February, a collection of documents was leaked by a group of hackers called the Prana Network. It's not clear who is behind this group, and it's also hard to know how credible the leak is. But experts who spoke with Haaretz tend to trust the authenticity of the documents.

The bottom of the website where the documents were published bears the familiar motto "We are anonymous. Expect us." That is meant to imply that Prana Network is connected to Anonymous, a well-known group of hacker activists.

The leakers said they obtained the documents by breaking into the Sahara Thunder company's email servers. That company was exposed as a front for Iran's Defense Ministry.

The thousands of leaked documents contain a great deal of information about Iran's oil trade and the fleet of ships the company operates.

Haaretz also examined many documents that reveal Russia's enormous efforts, starting in 2022, both to buy suicide drones and to manufacture them itself so as to win its war with Ukraine.

The documents include summaries of visits to Iran by Russian delegations, contracts, details about the necessary equipment and raw materials and a 214-page presentation that includes clear pictures of the production process for the drones' bodies. Some of the documents are negligently hidden under the codename "Dolphin 613 Motorboat."

"Moscow has succeeded in setting up a production line for the drones' body," a senior Ukrainian intelligence official told the RBC news agency earlier this month. "Russia is interested in achieving full independence in the process, and it's already manufacturing the drone's body, warheads, engines and navigation systems. Our assessment is that it's already putting together assembling drones on its territory."

Experts have estimated the cost of a Shahed 136 drone at between $20,000 and $50,000. But based on the leaked documents, Russia is paying much more than that.

Iran initially demanded $375,000 per drone, but in the end agreed to a price of $193,000 apiece in a deal for 6,000 drones, putting the total price at almost 1.2 billion. And since the deal also includes setting up a production line, the final price was $1.75 billion. But according to the documents, Russia expects the cost of a drone to drop to $48,000 once it is able to manufacture them independently.

Russia began using Iranian drones on the battlefield in Ukraine in August 2022. In January 2023, it signed a deal to buy thousands of additional drones and also to set up a production line in Russia. The documents include photos of two receipts from February – a payment of 1.78 tons of gold ingots, worth $104.3 million, and another payment of two tons of gold the following day.

These weren't the only payments. In November 2022, Russia reportedly paid Iran $145 million – partly in cash and partly in kind, in the form of advanced Western anti-tank and aerial defense missiles that came into their possession.

The factory in Tatarstan

The production line was set up by the Alabuga Special Economic Zone, a company jointly owned by the Russian government and the Republic of Tatarstan, an autonomous region of Russia.

It's about 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) from the Ukrainian border – beyond the 600 kilometer range of Ukraine's Storm Shadow missiles. It lies next to the Kama River, which links up with the Volga, permitting transportation by ship directly from Iran through the Caspian Sea.

The industrial zone is home to a carbon fiber and fiberglass factories. Both materials are important in drone manufacturing and are mentioned in the leaked documents.

The documents reveal difficulties in recruiting skilled workers for the production line, in part because possible candidates for employment there have decided not to relocate to the area. Independent Russian media outlets have reported that the Shahed production line operates 24 hours a day with three shifts and also employs minors at low pay and difficult working conditions.

Western intelligence agencies spotted the Iranian-Russia program in real time. Israel, for example, provided NATO and Ukraine with intelligence on the joint drone program before the production line was established. That information led to the imposition of sanctions on all of the Russian companies involved in the production even prior to the signing of contracts.

According to the documents, a delegation of experts from Alabuga toured Iran in November 2022 and visited all of the plants in the manufacturing chain of the drones.

In a leaked report summarizing the visit, it was claimed that every plant in Iran has two replacement sites to ensure that production is not disrupted in the event of an aerial attack and that the final assembly and quality inspection are carried out in a secret tunnel under the mountains near Tehran.

In March 2022, hundreds of drones were destroyed in an attack in western Iran that was attributed to Israel. In January 2023, what was described as a plant for the production of advanced weapon systems in the Iranian city of Isfahan was hit in another drone attack attributed to Israel.

It was later reported that members of a Russian delegation that was in Iran at the time remained at their hotel out of concern that the plant that they were due to visit would be attacked.

A report on the visit of another delegation in advance of setting up the plant in Russia projected that if it would run 24 hours a day, it would be able to produce 310 drones a month.

The report stated that the delegation was unable to visit important production lines and that there wasn't full information available regarding some of the electronic systems, including the Nassir, which helps the drone overcome GPS disruptions and regarding the Sadra, an inertial navigation system that enables the drone to reach its target despite GPS disruptions. According to the Ukrainian intelligence service, these are precisely the fields that Russia has been having difficulty addressing.

Jet Shahed, smart Shahed

Iran is continuing to develop advanced versions of the Shahed and a delegation from Alabuga was given a preview on a visit in December of last year. The Shahed 238, which the Russians refer to as the M237, is equipped with a jet engine and flies at 600 kilometers (370 miles) per hour, compared to 170 kilometers per hour for its prior version, which has a piston engine.

Both carry a 50 kilogram warhead, and according to the leaked materials, one of its advanced models is equipped with a homing device that can down aerial targets such as enemy drones.

Its cost is estimated at about $1.4 million, and the documents show that Russia is interested in purchasing about 700 of them. It's not clear whether such a deal has already been wrapped up, but it was recently reported that in Ukraine, at least two jet Shahed drones were downed.

Unlike drones whose targets have to be selected in advance and that use satellite navigation, another advanced model, the MC-236, which has been presented to the Russians, enables the operator to maintain constant contact with the drone and to aim it at targets even after it has been launched using an optic homing device. According to the documents, the model has a $900,000 price tag and Russia is interested in about 2,000 of them. Iran also presented its new Shahed 107B model to the Russian delegation, which can be used for reconnaissance, photography and espionage and costs about $500,000 per unit, as well as the Shahed 107C which can also perform suicide missions.

One of the more bizarre sets of presentation materials that were leaked deal with a plan to convert an old Soviet biplane – the Antonov An-2 – into drones. The Antonov An-S made its maiden flight in 1947, but hundreds of them are still flying.

The converted drone would overcome Ukraine's aerial defense network. Azerbaijan has already used the Antonov An-2 as bait to help create confusion and to uncover Armenia's aerial defense network.

When satellite photos showed 42 such planes at a Russian military airbase near the Ukrainian border, experts thought Russia was planning to make similar use of them.

The leaked presentation reveals the plan that the Russians were pursuing. The Antonov An-2 is to tow an intelligence drone or a suicide drone with cables. The Ukrainian aerial defense would spot it and intercept it. The spy drone would then identify the source of the fire and the attack drone would destroy the target. It's not known whether the plan was ever brought to fruition.

Liza Rozovsky and Tomer Ra'anan participated in preparing this article.