Iran used boats and a state-owned airline to smuggle the new-type, advanced, long-range armed drones to Russia, The Guardian reported on its website on Sunday, citing sources in the Middle Eastern country.
At least 18 of the drones have been supplied to the Russian navy, the newspaper said.
The news came after Russian officers and technicians made a visit to Tehran in November and were shown a full range of Iran’s technologies, according to The Guardian.
The 10-man Russian delegation chose six Mohajer-6 drones, which can fly up to around 200 km away and carry two missiles under each wing, as well as 12 Shahed 191 and 129 drones, which also have an air-to-ground strike capability, The Guardian reported.
Russia has so far heavily used the better-known Shahed 131 and 136 drones, deploying them in kamikaze raids against Ukrainian targets, according to experts.
The new, higher-flying UAVs are designed to deliver bombs and return to base intact, Iranian sources have told The Guardian.
The new drone deal highlights the growing closeness between Iran and Russia, which are both hostile towards the United States, since Vladimir Putin started his unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in February last year, The Guardian reported.
Wagner claims capture of Ukraine’s Krasna Hora
Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of Russia’s Wagner Group, said on Sunday that the private military company had captured the village of Krasna Hora, which lies just to the north of the embattled Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, the independent Russian outlet Meduza reported.
Prigozhin published a video purportedly showing Wagner fighters next to the entrance sign to Krasna Hora, according to news outlets.
Ukrainian authorities have not commented on the alleged taking of Krasna Hora, Meduza reported.
Meanwhile, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a US-based think tank, said in a report that footage published on February 11 showed Russian forces "walking freely in the eastern part of Krasna Hora and likely indicates that Ukrainian forces withdrew from the settlement.”
Russian forces face mounting casualties in Ukraine: UK
Meanwhile, Russian troops have likely had the highest rate of casualties in the past two weeks since the first week of the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine a year ago, according to the British Ministry of Defence.
In its latest intelligence update on Sunday, the ministry wrote that “lack of trained personnel, coordination, and resources across the front” are among the factors that had resulted in the sharp increase in Russia’s casualties.
“The mean average for the last seven days was 824 casualties a day, over four times the rate reported over June-July 2022,” the UK experts said.
IOC's Bach rejects Ukraine’s call to ban Russia from 2024 Olympics
The head of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), Thomas Bach, has rejected Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s call to ban Russian athletes from the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, The Guardian reported.
Speaking at the Alpine Ski World Championships in France, Bach said that Ukraine’s athletes “know how much we share their grief, their human suffering and all the effort we’re taking to help them” following Russia’s invasion in February 2022.
However, he stated: “It is not up to governments to decide who can take part in which sports competitions, because this would be the end of international sports competitions and world championships and the Olympic Games as we know it.”
Monday is day 355 of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
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Source: The Guardian, PAP, Meduza, understandingwar.org, UK Ministry of Defence