Russia has run out of Iranian kamikaze drones - British intelligence
Russia considers them a useful decoy that can distract Ukrainian air defense
Russia has apparently exhausted its stockpile of Iranian kamikaze drones again and will be replenishing them. This conclusion was reached by the British Ministry of Defense based on the fact that the Russian Armed Forces have not attacked Ukraine with Iranian drones for about 10 days.
Source. This is stated in the report of the British Ministry of Defense on Twitter.
"The absence of drone deployments probably indicates that Russia has reduced its current stockpile. russia is likely to be looking to replenish its stockpile," British military intelligence believes.
Ukraine's armed forces reported that they shot down at least 24 Shahed-136 drones between January and early February 2023.
"Although this weapon does not demonstrate good results in destroying targets, Russia probably considers it a useful decoy that can distract Ukrainian air defense from more effective Russian cruise missiles," the intelligence service said.
The day before, Der Spiegel wrote that China is going to supply Russia with kamikaze drones, which it plans to use in the war against Ukraine. The newspaper emphasized that Moscow and Beijing are already in talks. They are talking about buying 100 drones.
According to Der Spiegel, the supplier is the Chinese drone manufacturer Xi'an Bingo Intelligent Aviation Technology. It has agreed to provide Russia with prototypes of its ZT-180 UAVs by April 2023. Military experts believe that their design will be similar to the Iranian Shahed-136.
Background. As a reminder, Biden warned China of sanctions if it supplies Russia with weapons.
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