The Russians have scaled up the production of clones of Iranian Shahed strike drones with a new factory in Izhevsk.
This is reported in an article by Matthew Bint (Former Visiting Graduate Researcher, DMAP) and Fabian Hinz (Research Fellow for Defence and Military Analysis), published on the website of The International Institute for Strategic Studies.
The 300th production facility of the Izhevsk Mechanical Plant, which was acquired back in 2019, is being referred to here. Initially, it was announced that the new site would produce equipment for nuclear power plants. The Shahed drones produced here, unlike the Geran-2 made in Alabuga, have the Russian designation Garpia-A1.
Izhevsk production line
There is evidence to suggest that Russia has established a second production line for Shahed 136 copies in the city of Izhevsk. In late 2023, Reuters reported that Russia was producing a new OWA-UAV that is externally almost identical to the Shahed 136 but which uses a Chinese copy of the Limbach 550 engine rather than the Iranian original. According to the report, this production line is operated by IEMZ Kupol, a subsidiary of Almaz-Antey that was previously involved in developing target drones. Shahed assembly at an undisclosed facility matches the unique design features of the OWA-UAV described by Reuters. The structure also corresponds with the layout of a newly acquired and refurbished Kupol facility in Izhevsk.
Vehicle presence at the facility, coupled with Ukrainian Military Intelligence reports linking new Shahed UAV serial prefixes to Izhevsk, suggests that the IEMZ Kupol plant is not only operational but may already be engaged in high-volume production.
