The drones supplied by Iran and used by Russia in the war in Ukraine have European components. The information was released by the Ukrainian government at the G7 meeting in August in a report analyzing airstrikes on cities in Ukraine and reported by The Guardian newspaper.
There is a 47page report presented by Volodymyr Zelensky at the G7 meeting of the world’s most industrialized countries in which Kiev concluded that drones with European technology were used in more than 600 attacks on Ukrainian cities.
According to the document seen by The Guardian, experts found at least 52 electronic components made by Western companies in the Shahed131 model and 57 parts made by Westerners in the Shahed136. The vehicles in question have a flight range of around two thousand kilometers and reach a cruising speed of 180 kilometers per hour.
The report presented at the G7 summit names five European companies as producers of the components in question, including a Polish subsidiary of a British multinational. “Among the manufacturers are companies based in countries that impose sanctions against Russia: USA, Switzerland, Netherlands, Germany, Canada, Japan and Poland,” the British newspaper quotes.
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The Kiev government points out in the report that Iran has already started diversifying production through a factory in Syria and believes that this production will be transferred directly to Russia. Nevertheless, “almost all of Iran’s imports came from Turkey, India, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Vietnam and Costa Rica.”
Not only do they not point out any irregularities to the companies concerned, but in statements to the Guardian they also defend themselves by saying that it is not possible to control the progress of all components. STMicroelectronics, for example, maker of a “microcontroller with integrated flash memory” present in one of the drones, argues that the company has more than “200,000 customers and thousands of partners around the world” and has not approved the use of Products outside of their intended use. Nevertheless, the export in question could not be stopped.
Several companies responded to the British newspaper and most confirmed that “it is difficult to control sales throughout the life of a product,” as Infineon pointed out.
Back in February, a report from Conflict Armament Research (CAR) said that Iran had modified the drones supplied to Russia so that they would cause maximum damage to targets in Ukraine.
According to the report, Iran may have modified drones to cause maximum damage to Ukraine’s infrastructure