Russian authorities are reportedly paying Iran roughly $4.5 billion per year to import Iranian Shahed drones to use in Ukraine.
A group of hackers from a hacking organization called the Prana Network claimed to have hacked into the servers of purported Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) front company Sahara Thunder on February 4 and published the costs per drone that Russia purchases from Iran.
The leaked documents suggest that Russia pays $193,000 per Shahed-136 drone in batches of 6,000 drones, which would total about $1.1 billion for all 6,000 Shahed-136 drones.
Russia reportedly pays $1.4 million per unit for one type of Shahed-238 drone and plans to purchase 677 of these upgraded Shahed drones per year, which would total about $947 million.
Another type of Shahed-238 reportedly cost about $900,000 per drone, and Russia reportedly plans to purchase 2,310 per year for just under $2.1 billion.
The documents claimed that the reconnaissance and attack Shahed-107 drones cost $460,000 each and that Russia plans to purchase 2,310, which would total about $1.5 billion.
A Russian milblogger justified the high cost due to the risk that Iran assumes by selling these drones to Russia and noted that the documents indicate that Russia plans to further localize production of Shaheds in Russia, which will reduce acquisition costs over time.
ISW is unable to confirm the authenticity of the purported leaked documents, but a milblogger’s claim that the documents refer to Iran as a ”friendly country” and refer to the Shahed drones in code as ”boats” is consistent with previously observed language about Iran and Iranian drone production in Russia.
Russian forces routinely use Shahed drones, which serve as both loitering munitions and as decoys to distract Ukrainian air defenses, and the massive expenditure on such systems is noteworthy.
