US intelligence had reported that Russia was trying to acquire drones from Iran.
Later, the picture became clearer. Three U.S. officials told NBC News,
Russian cargo planes loaded up Mohajer-6 and Shahed-series unmanned aerial vehicles over
several days in Aug at an Iranian airfield and then ferried the drones to Russia.
The drones were quickly put to use albeit the fact that Russian faced some technical issues.
It has now emerged that one of these has fallen into Ukrainian hands.
In this video Defense Updates analyzes why the capture of Iranian-made Russian Mohajer-6 UAVs
in Ukraine is good news for the U.S. ? Let's get started.
It would have been hard to imagine that Russia would have to buy drones
from Iran when the invasion started on 24th Feb
But as with many aspects, Russia's military seems to be found wanting.
The Russian drone arsenal is limited especially when it comes to armed UAVs.
Iran has been turning out to be a prominent drone superpower in the Middle East and
has been using its drone technology in Gaza, Yemen, Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq.
Iran has UAVs ranging from small, light short-range systems to
medium to heavy UAVs for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR).
The Mohajer-6 UAV designed by Qods Aviation is capable of carrying a
multispectral surveillance payload and/or up to four precision-guided munitions.
It entered serial production in February 2018.
The Mohajer-6 has a rectangular fuselage, an upwards-sloping nose, twin tailbooms,
a top-mounted horizontal stabilizer, uncanted wingtips, straight wings mounted high and to
the rear of the body, and air intakes on the top and bottom of the engine.
The Mohajer-6 is controlled by two elevators on the horizontal stabilizer,
rudders on the vertical stabilizers, and two flaps per wing. Unlike other Mohajer variants,
it has a three-bladed propeller. The Mohajer-6 has a wingspan of 10 meters and is 7 meters long
It has a fixed, forward-facing camera for navigation and a gimbal on the chin for
a laser range finder and multispectral IR and visible light electro-optical imagery.
The Mohajer-6 has a max takeoff weight of 670 kg
or 1480 lbs and can carry about 150 kg or 330 lbs of armaments
It has a max speed of 200 km/h or 125 mph, an endurance of 12 hours, and a ceiling of
16,000-18,000 feet.
It is known that Iran has been using drones to harass US Navy warships.
A video released by the United States Navy last month under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)
has shown Unidentified Aerial Systems/Phenomena (UAS/P) swarms flying over and around the warship
USS Zumwalt in incidents that took place off Southern California in April 2019.
The incident occurred on April 24, 2019, at 8:30 pm Pacific Time, around 17 nautical miles
or 32 miles from the US Marine Corps base at Camp Pendleton in international waters.
These are part of a much larger series of incidents around US
warships and destroyers recorded in ship logs and other United States
Navy (USN) personnel testimonies, reported by The Drive last year.
These incidents have become subjects of major Congressional inquiries. Officials from the
Department of Defense (DoD) and the Department of the Navy have also appeared before lawmakers.
Unconfirmed reports state that Engineers from Dnipro,
involved in Dovbush UAV production, disassembled the Iranian kamikaze drone,
captured by Ukraine, and found an ALTERA/INTEL chip on the central processor made in the US.
With the capture of Mohajer-6, which will most likely be transferred to the US for
detailed examination like many other Russian systems, the US military will be in a much
better position to assess Iranian drone capabilities and ways to deal with them.