"As the military operation in Ukraine grinds on, some officials have become
convinced that Iran and Russia are building a new alliance of convenience.
WASHINGTON — The Biden administration has launched a broad
effort to halt Iran’s ability to produce and deliver drones to Russia for use
in the military operation in Ukraine, an endeavor that has echoes of its yearslong program to
cut off Tehran’s access to nuclear technology.
In interviews in the United States, Europe and the Middle
East, a range of intelligence, military and national security officials have
described an expanding U.S. program that aims to choke off Iran’s ability to
manufacture the drones, make it harder for the Russians to launch the unmanned
“kamikaze” aircraft and — if all else fails — to provide the Ukrainians with
the defenses necessary to shoot them out of the sky.
The breadth of the effort has become clearer in recent
weeks. The administration has accelerated its moves to deprive Iran of the
Western-made components needed to manufacture the drones being sold to Russia
after it became apparent from examining the wreckage of intercepted drones that
they are stuffed with made-in-America technology.
U.S. forces are helping Ukraine’s military to target the
sites where the drones are being prepared for launch — a difficult task because
the Russians are moving the launch sites around, from soccer fields to parking
lots. And the Americans are rushing in new technologies designed to give early
warning of approaching drone swarms, to improve Ukraine’s chances of bringing
them down, with everything from gunfire to missiles.
But all three approaches have run into deep challenges, and
the drive to cut off critical parts for the drones is already proving as
difficult as the decades-old drive to deprive Iran of the components needed to
build the delicate centrifuges it uses to enrich near-bomb-grade uranium. The
Iranians, American intelligence officials have said in recent weeks, are
applying to the drone program their expertise about how to spread nuclear
centrifuge manufacturing around the country and to find “dual use” technologies
on the black market to sidestep export controls.
In fact, one of the Iranian companies named by Britain,
France and Germany as a key manufacturer of one of the two types of drones
being bought by the Russians, Qods Aviation, has appeared for years on the
United Nations’ lists of suppliers to Iran’s nuclear and missile programs. The
company, which is owned by Iran’s military, has expanded its line of drones
despite waves of sanctions.
The administration’s scramble to deal with the
Iranian-supplied drones comes at a significant moment in the operation, just as
Ukraine is using its own drones to strike deep into Russia, including an attack
this week on a base housing some of the country’s strategic bombers. And it
comes as officials in Washington and London warn that Iran may be about to
provide Russia with missiles, helping alleviate Moscow’s acute shortage.
Officials across the Western alliance say they are convinced
that Iran and Russia, both isolated by American-led sanctions, are building a
new alliance of convenience. One senior military official said that partnership
had deepened quickly, after Iran’s agreement to supply drones to the Russians last
summer “bailed Putin out.”
The Biden administration, having abandoned hopes of reviving
the 2015 nuclear agreement with Tehran, has been adding new sanctions every few
weeks.
In the effort to stop the drone attacks, Mr. Biden’s aides
are also engaging an ally with a long history of undermining Iran’s nuclear
program: Israel.
In a secure video meeting last Thursday with Israel’s top
national security, military and intelligence officials, Jake Sullivan, the
national security adviser, “discussed Iran’s growing military relationship with
Russia, including the transfer of weapons the Kremlin is deploying against
Ukraine, targeting its civilian infrastructure and Russia’s provision of
military technology to Iran in return,” the White House said in a summary of
the meeting. The statement did not offer details about how the two countries
decided to address the issue.
But the fact that the administration chose to highlight the
discussion, in a quarterly meeting normally focused on disrupting Iran’s
nuclear capabilities, was notable. Israel and the United States have a long
history of operating together in dealing with technological threats emanating
from Tehran. Together they developed one of the world’s most famous and
sophisticated cyberattacks, using computer code that was later called
“Stuxnet,” to attack Iran’s nuclear centrifuge facilities.
Since then, Israel has made little secret of its attempts to
sabotage nuclear enrichment centers.
In a statement, Adrienne Watson, the spokeswoman for the
National Security Council, acknowledged the scope of the broad drive against
Iran’s drone program.
“We are looking at ways to target Iranian U.A.V. production
through sanctions, export controls, and talking to private companies whose
parts have been used in the production,” she said, using the acronym for
“unmanned aerial vehicles.”
She added, “We are assessing further steps we can take in
terms of export controls to restrict Iran’s access to technologies used in
drones.”
Years in the Making
Iran’s interest in drones dates back more than three
decades, as the country looked for ways that it could monitor, and harass,
ships in the Persian Gulf. The Mohajer I, a predecessor to one of the drones
now being sold to the Russians, made its first flight in 1986.
Progress was slow, but may have been aided in 2011 when the
Central Intelligence Agency took a stealthy, unarmed RQ-170 from the Pentagon’s
fleet in Afghanistan and flew it over Iran, in what appeared to be an effort to
map some of the hundreds of tunnels dug by the Iranians to hide elements of
their nuclear program.
A malfunction led to the aircraft landing in the desert, and
President Obama briefly considered sending in a Navy SEAL team to blow it up
before it fell into the hands of Iranian engineers, senior officials later
reported. He decided not to take the risk, and within days the Iranians paraded
the drone through the streets of Tehran, a propaganda victory.
But American intelligence officials later concluded that the
aircraft likely proved a bonanza for Iranian drone designers, who could reverse
engineer the craft.
It was not until 2016 that Iran announced it was beginning
to develop attack drones, some in cooperation with Russia. Many of the first
were placed in the hands of Iranian-backed militias, including Houthi rebels in
Yemen, and they were used most effectively in 2019 in attacks on two Saudi oil
processing facilities run by Saudi Aramco, the state-owned oil company.
American officials said the experiences in Saudi Arabia, and
the targeting of American forces in Syria and elsewhere, gave them an
appreciation of Iranian drone capabilities, and the challenge of dealing with
kamikaze raids in which a small explosive is secured in the drone’s nose. But
the aftermath of the invasion of Ukraine underscored that Iran knew how to mass
produce the aircraft, a particular worry at a moment when there are discussions
of opening an Iranian plant inside Russia.
The Iranian program has hardly been without its problems.
Deliveries so far have come episodically, as Russia and Iran retrofitted the
drones to operate in the cold of a Ukrainian winter. And Iran has run into
supply chain issues, a problem the United States is seeking to worsen.
Nonetheless, despite years of sanctions on Iran’s defense
sector, Iranian drones still are built largely with American and Western parts.
When photographs began to circulate of circuit boards from downed drones,
visibly packed with chips from American manufacturers, the White House ordered
a crackdown, including calls to the firms whose products had been discovered.
Almost all had the same reaction: These are unrestricted, “dual use” items
whose circulation is almost impossible to stop.
The administration is trying anyway.
In September, the Biden administration tightened sanctions,
specifically naming companies involved with building the aircraft for Russia.
That was followed by further action in November against companies like Safiran
Airport Services, a Tehran-based firm that it accused of shipping the drones on
behalf of the Russian government.
In November, the Treasury Department sanctioned two
companies based in the United Arab Emirates, a key U.S. ally, accusing them of
collaborating with Safiran.
Michael Kofman, the director of Russian studies at CNA, a
research institute in Arlington, Va., said that the sanctions were hardly an
instant solution.
“Export controls are going to have an effect, but you have
to be realistic about the timelines on which they will work,” Mr. Kofman said.
“Sanctions delay and make costly acquisition of components,”
he said. “But determined countries will get their hands on tech for narrow
defense applications, or adjust their weapon designs to what they can get, even
if it’s less reliable.”
As the war grinds on, the United States, Britain, France and
Germany are pressing the secretary general of the United Nations, Antonio
Guterres, to launch a formal investigation into whether Russia and Iran are,
together, violating the terms of a U.N. restriction on the export of
sophisticated arms from Iran.
Mr. Guterres has made clear that his top priority is
executing a deal with Russia over the export of Ukrainian grain, to alleviate
shortages, and his aides say now is not the time to risk that agreement with an
investigation whose conclusion seems predictable.
Tracking the Drones
Iran appears to be flying drones to Russian forces on cargo
aircraft, usually over routes that leave little opportunity to intercept them.
That means attempting to attack them on the ground — no easy task.
Until a little more than a month ago, American and British
government officials say, the drones were largely based in Crimea. Then they
disappeared for a number of days, reappearing in Russian-occupied areas of
Zaporizhzhia province. The movements have been tracked by American and
Ukrainian officials, some sitting side by side in military intelligence
centers. But the drones are highly mobile, with launch systems mounted on
trucks, and the Russians know they are being hunted — so they move them to
safer locations, which makes tracking and striking them a difficult
proposition.
“The change of launch site is likely due to Russian concerns
about the vulnerability of Crimea, while it is also convenient for resupply
from the weapons’ likely arrival point in Russia, at Astrakhan,” a British
military assessment earlier this month said.
There is growing evidence that the military relationship may
be a two-way street. Britain has accused Russia of planning to give Iran
advanced military components in exchange for hundreds of drones.
“Iran has become one of Russia’s top military backers,”
Britain’s defense minister, Ben Wallace, told Parliament last week.
“In return for having supplied more than 300 kamikaze
drones, Russia now intends to provide Iran with advanced military components,
undermining both Middle East and international security — we must expose that
deal,” Mr. Wallace said.
A number of American companies, including the Edgesource
Corporation and BlueHalo, both based in Virginia — have provided training or
technology to help detect and defeat the Russian drones, U.S. officials said.
Edgesource has donated about $2 million in systems,
including one called Windtalkers, to help Ukraine locate, identify and track
incoming hostile drones more than 20 miles away, while at the same time
identifying Ukraine’s own drones in the same air space, said Joseph Urbaniak,
the company’s chief operating officer.
The United States has provided Ukraine with other technology
to counter drones, most recently as part of a $275 million shipment of arms and
equipment the Pentagon announced on Dec. 9. But American officials have
declined to provide details on the specific assistance, citing operational
security."
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