Russia Has Run Out of Iranian Shahed Suicide Drones

Ukrainian air defense forces have not reported sighting Iranian Shahed drones in over three weeks. They believe Russia has used up the first shipment and that additional deliveries may be delayed as Iran faces increasingly violent internal protests. 

The very cold weather in Ukraine may also be affecting the drones' performance and Ukrainian attacks on Iranian trainers in Crimea as well as its increasingly effective air defenses may also explain the drones' absence. JL

Howard Altman reports in The Drive:

As of Tuesday, Iranian-made Shahed-136 drones had not appeared over the skies of Ukraine since the middle of last month. “It’s been three weeks since Ukrainian air defenses have seen the loitering drones. The first shipment received by the occupiers is [gone], they ran out of them.” It's possible that the frigid conditions in Ukraine during winter also had an impact on their use. Icing conditions and chill may be beyond the drones' performance envelope. But Iran is also under a great deal of internal and international pressure as the result of domestic protests and global concern about its arms deals with Russia.
As of Tuesday, Iranian-made Shahed-136 drones had not appeared over the skies of Ukraine since the middle of last month and the reason is that Russia likely ran out of them, according to the Ukrainian Air Force.

“It’s been three weeks” since Ukrainian air defense forces have seen “the loitering drones of the Shahed-type,” Yuri Ignat, spokesman for the Ukrainian Air Force, said during a press conference Tuesday at the Ukrainian Media Center. “There are different thoughts and factors which indicate probably that the first shipment received by the occupiers is over [and] they ran out of them.”

 

Russia initially ordered about 1,700 of the Shahed-136 drones, said Ignat, with only about 400 arriving in Russia so far. Of those, he said about 350 were shot down by Ukrainian air defense forces. Those that managed to make it to their targets caused tremendous damage and terrorized Ukrainian civilians.

 

The Shahed-136 is a member of a family of designs dating back to around 2014. In addition to widespread use in Iranian service, they have also been transferred to Iranian proxies operating in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen. The small gas-powered flying wing-type drones - that can hit static targets by flying into them and detonating - began showing up on the battlefield in Ukraine around the middle of September. You can read more

While the idea that Russia ran out certainly makes sense, it's possible that the frigid conditions in Ukraine during winter also had an impact on their use. Icing conditions and just the very chilly atmosphere may be beyond the drones' performance envelope. Still, Ignat claims this is not the case, stating:

 

"So we are being asked if the weather conditions influence or types of dust influence so yes, the weather does influence all types of aerial projectors. But it's been three weeks that the Russians don't use them anymore. So we have reasons to think that the first shipment is done with."

On Nov. 1, a Ukrainian intelligence source told The War Zone that a new shipment of about 200 Iranian combat drones was expected to arrive in Russia within weeks. Ignat on Tuesday said he did not know why Iran hasn’t delivered more Shahed-136 drones to Russia. But Iran is under a great deal of internal and international pressure as the result of domestic protests and global concern about its arms deals with Russia.

While Russia may have run out of, or at least is running very low on, Iranian Shahed-136 drones, Moscow apparently still has the ability to produce new missiles, said Ignat, speaking a day after Russia fired about 70 of those weapons at Ukraine.

Some Russian missiles "were manufactured not so long ago,” said Ignat. “It is alleged that the manufacture [of the missiles] is still working. Maybe they cannot manufacture the missiles as quickly as they would want to, but they still have those parts, those components that Russia will find it hard to get anywhere else under sanctions.” Russia, despite those sanctions, still has the parts it needs to build and deliver Kalibr and Kh-101 missiles, said Ignat. 

about that in our coverage here. 

His statements line up with the results of an investigation released Monday by the Conflict Armament Research (CAR) group showing that Russian missiles launched against Kyiv on Nov. 23 were made just months earlier.

“CAR’s latest documentation shows that Russia is still able to manufacture guided weapons after months of sanctions,” the organization said in its report.

On Nov. 25, two days after a large-scale Russian missile attack on Ukraine’s power infrastructure, CAR field investigators in Kyiv “documented remnants of two of the missiles that hit the city. These missiles were Kh-101 air-to-surface guided weapons, a latest-generation model of Russian cruise missiles that entered into service in 2013. The remnants bore marks indicating that the weapons were produced between July and September 2022 and between October and November 2022.”

CAR previously documented the components of a Russian Kh-101, finding they are “heavily reliant on components and technologies produced by companies based in the United States and Europe. Most of the components of Russian weapons for which CAR could identify a year of manufacture were made between 2014 and 2021 .”

Ignat added that any future Russian missile wave won't come over the next day or so "because the missile route is programmed ahead. Intelligence is being gathered [from] space and air and land. They gather details about the location of our air defense systems. How to find a way around it. Where to find weak links. We understand that [Monday's attack] was not a spontaneous decision. It was prepared earlier."

But while Russia seemingly still has the capacity to produce some cruise missiles despite dire predictions otherwise, it is apparently burning through artillery ammunition at an unsustainable pace.

During its offensive in the Donbas about a month after launching its all-out invasion, "Russian artillery fired around 20,000 rounds per day, with their peak fire rate surpassing 32,000 rounds on some days," according to a recent report by the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI).  

While Haines could not provide a figure in a public forum for Russia’s current artillery burn rate, she said “it’s really pretty extraordinary...our own sense is that they are not capable of indigenously producing what they are expending at this stage. So that is going to be a challenge.”

It's questionable, anyway, how many additional artillery rounds Russia can produce domestically, which is one reason it has been surreptitiously obtaining some from North Korea. Given the importance of artillery in this conflict, any serious shortfall of rounds would prove disastrous for Moscow.