Iran International
Despite global sanctions, Iran has imported at least $236 million worth of aircraft and drone engine parts over the past 10 years from countries including Turkey, the UAE, Germany and even Ukraine and the US.
Data by the Islamic Republic's customs organization, scrutinized by Iran International, show that around $26 million worth of items listed as prohibited under the US Treasury's sanctions against Iran was imported to the country only in the first eight months of the current Iranian year, which started on March 21.
Earlier in the month, the head of a top unit at the US Department of Homeland Security said that "sensitive" materials are showing up overseas -- in Iranian weapons. "The Iranian drones that are being recovered on the battlefield in Ukraine, that are being recovered on the battlefield throughout the Middle East, they do have sensitive US communications systems and they have sensitive microelectronics," Jim Mancuso, the assistant director of the Global Trade Division at Homeland Security Investigations, told ABC News. Iran, China and Russia are all "attempting to illegally acquire" US technology, he added.
Although Iran has numerous tools to circumvent the sanctions, including manipulating the documents about its trade of sensitive know-how, data about import and export of drone parts are still decipherable in the official customs documents.
The multifunctionality of parts used to manufacture drones as well as outsourcing the production of some parts to private companies and using intermediaries to buy the materials, have all contributed to the failure of efforts to prevent the development of Iran's drone industry. According to security and military experts, one of the main reasons Western countries have not yet been able to curb the flow of foreign parts to Iran’s drone program is the multifunctionality of imported parts as it is unclear whether a particular part is used in a civilian crop-dusting aircraft or a military drone.
In June last year, the US Department of the Treasury issued a guide on Iran's drone industry. The 11-page “Guidance to Industry on Iran’s UAV-Related Activities” warned traders about items used by Iran in the manufacture of drones that may be subject to US sanctions. A table of 13 categories of items used in the production of drones included engines, navigational equipment, and electronics. The table listed the Harmonized Tariff Schedule (HTS) code, used internationally in customs information, and every traded item assigned a standardized international tariff code.
According to Iran’s custom organization statistics, a total of $236 million worth of “aircraft spark-ignition reciprocating or rotary internal combustion piston engines”, otherwise known as HTS 840710, were imported into the country from March 2012 to November 2023. The import of such products hit its lowest point in 1395 (the Iranian year from March 2016 to March 2017) at around $300,000, but the figure has been on rise ever since.
Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the import of these aircraft propulsion parts increased significantly, with the figure in the eight months ending in November exceeding that of the entire previous year. Seventy-five percent of the total imports in the 10-year timespan originated from Turkey ($52.8 million), Hong Kong ($50.9 million), the United Arab Emirates ($43.7 million), and China ( $28.8 million).
In addition to these primary sources, many European countries are also among the exporters of such equipment to Iran, most from Germany, followed by Ukraine ($2.1 million worth) and Slovenia.
While Ukraine has been exporting to Iran, the situation has now flipped, with Iran supplying drones and missiles to Russia to be used in the war on Ukraine. Reuters cited six sources as saying that Iran has provided Russia with around 400 powerful surface-to-surface ballistic missiles. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said earlier this month that approximately 360 Iranian drones have been shot down in Ukraine since the beginning of January.
In February 2022, when Russia invaded Ukraine, Iran imported approximately $31,000 worth of parts and components of aircraft propulsion units used in drone manufacturing from Ukraine. Additionally, the United States also had a share in Iran’s procurement of drone parts, with more than $50,000 worth of equipment that took place in 2013 and 2018.
Iran went from being an importer to a global exporter, going from nearly none in 2020 to approximately $26 million in the first eight months of Iranian year 1402 (March to November 2023). Venezuela has been the first destination for the export of aircraft propulsion parts, with about $20 million worth of exports, which accounts for approximately 37% of the total exports of HTS 840710 items. Tajikistan follows with around $14.4 million, and Ethiopia with about $8.6 million.
Farzin Nadimi, a defense and security analyst and a senior fellow of the Washington Institute, said in an article in November 2022 that and Venezuela began their collaboration in the production of unmanned aerial vehicles in early 2000s. The collaboration progressed to the point where the Islamic Republic established a drone production line for Venezuela in 2012.
“I declare that the Account Number 380.8000.13637806.2 (in Iran’s Pasargad Bank) is under my name... and I can spend or transfer 50% of the available balance (12,394,806,106 rials equivalent of $295,114) immediately upon my request,” read part of a letter addressed to the Canadian Immigration Office by Es’hagh Ghalibaf, the son of Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf. In another document, he declared that he also has over $15,000 in National Australian Bank (NAB) and Australia and New Zealand Bank (ANZ).
While in many countries $300,000 might not be considered a huge sum, in Iran, where government employees earn around $200 a month, it raises questions as to how he has amassed such an amount. The Parliament Speaker, according to some reports, earns around $4,000 a month.
Earlier in the month, Iran International reported about Es’hagh’s five-year attempt to obtain Canadian residency, including paying at least $4,000 to a lawyer and numerous follow-ups by a Canadian citizen at the office of Pierre Poilievre, Canadian lawmaker and the leader of the opposition Conservative Party. Es’hagh’s court document revealed that Polivier's office made "repeated inquiries" about the progress of his application. His office told Iran International that he has not provided a recommendation letter in support of granting the visa.
After reports of the case went viral online, at least two petitions were launched asking the Canadian government to prevent the granting of the visa to the son of a former top Revolutionary Guard commander. “As proud Iranian-Canadians who stand for freedom and democracy in Iran, we find it unimaginable that Canada would consider welcoming the son of such a warmonger, who, along with his father and family, has allegedly participated in money laundering and other corrupt activities,” the petition said.
Following Iran International's scoop on Ghalibaf, Canada's Immigration Minister Marc Miller said the permanent residency application of Es’hagh was refused. “The Iranian regime has engaged in acts of terrorism and systemic human rights violations," he noted. “We stand with the people of Iran.”
In 2022, Es’hagh Ghalibaf filed for the judicial review of the processing time of his immigration application at a Canadian Federal Court and the court’s Justice, John Norris, ruled that his application should be granted. Iran International managed to obtain a 150-page bundle of official documents filed in his immigration case based on Canada's Access to Information Act. Ghalibaf uploaded these documents to the website of the Canadian Immigration Office in late 2018 in order to obtain permanent residency in Canada.
In 2017, Bagher Ghalibaf, who was Tehran’s mayor at the time and running for office in the presidential election, presented a sheet to the cameras during a live debate in which he listed his own assets, those of his wife and his son Es’hagh. He claimed that Es’hagh, his only dependent son at the time, only owned a 1971 Nissan Patrol, a motorcycle, and a total of about one million tomans (10,000 rials or about $250 at the exchange rate then) in savings in four banks.
According to the documents filed for immigration to Canada in 2018, Es’hagh, whose father was covering his living expenses, managed to increase his personal savings about 600 times in about a year. Additionally, documents submitted to the Canadian Immigration Office indicate that Es’hagh purchased and rented out two apartment units in Melbourne within the same short period.
Ghalibaf is a household name in many corruption cases in the Islamic Republic, with his wife, daughter, and his older son Elias implicated in various scandals. During his term as mayor of the capital Tehran, several of his deputies and people in his close circle were sentenced to 20 to 30 years in prison but the judiciary never prosecuted him, maybe because he is a close relative of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. During the same period, Ghalibaf handed over lands with a total area of 71,397 square meters to his wife’s charity institute in 2011, apart from another 2.5 trillion rials, nearly $100 million at the time.
An audio file of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard commanders discussing massive financial corruption that leaked in February 2022 also directly involved Ghalibaf.
In March 2022, Ghalibaf’s wife, daughter and son-in-law were caught on camera at Tehran’s Imam Khomeini airport with a large shopping haul of baby clothes and accessories bought from Turkey. The scandal, called ‘SismuniGate’ in Iran, created a media frenzy at the time, with a large number of people as well as several politicians calling for Ghalibaf’s resignation from the parliament.
Ghalibaf became parliament speaker in 2020 after 'revolutionary principlists' or hardliners swept an engineered election, when most reformists were banned from running as candidates.
Iran's provision of around 400 missiles includes many from the Fateh-110 family of short-range ballistic weapons, such as the Zolfaghar, three Iranian sources said. This road-mobile missile is capable of striking targets at a distance of between 300 and 700 km (186 and 435 miles), experts say.
Iran's defence ministry and the Revolutionary Guards -- an elite force that oversees Iran's ballistic missile programme -- declined to comment. Russia's defence ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The shipments began in early January after a deal was finalised in meetings late last year between Iranian and Russian military and security officials that took place in Tehran and Moscow, one of the Iranian sources said.
An Iranian military official -- who, like the other sources, asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the information -- said there had been at least four shipments of missiles and there would be more in the coming weeks. He declined to provide further details.
Another senior Iranian official said some of the missiles were sent to Russia by ship via the Caspian Sea, while others were transported by plane.
"There will be more shipments," the second Iranian official said. "There is no reason to hide it. We are allowed to export weapons to any country that we wish to."
UN Security Council restrictions on Iran's export of some missiles, drones and other technologies expired in October. However, the United States and European Union retained sanctions on Iran's ballistic missile programme amid concerns over exports of weapons to its proxies in the Middle East and to Russia.
A fourth source, familiar with the matter, confirmed that Russia had received a large number of missiles from Iran recently, without providing further details.
White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said in early January the United States was concerned that Russia was close to acquiring short-range ballistic weapons from Iran, in addition to missiles already sourced from North Korea.
A US official told Reuters that Washington had seen evidence of talks actively advancing but no indication yet of deliveries having taken place.
The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the missile deliveries.
Ukraine's top prosecutor said on Friday the ballistic missiles supplied by North Korea to Russia had proven unreliable on the battlefield, with only two of 24 hitting their targets. Moscow and Pyongyang have both denied that North Korea has provided Russia with munitions used in Ukraine.
By contrast, Jeffrey Lewis, an expert with the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, said the Fateh-110 family of missiles and the Zolfaghar were precision weapons.
"They are used to point at things that are high value and need precise damage," said Lewis, adding that 400 munitions could inflict considerable harm. He noted, however, that Russian bombardments were already "pretty brutal".
US Aid Delay Weakens Ukraine's Defenses
A Ukrainian military source told Reuters that Kyiv had not registered any use of Iranian ballistic missiles by Russian forces. The Ukrainian defence ministry did not immediately reply to Reuters' request for comment.
Former Ukrainian defence minister Andriy Zagorodnyuk said that Russia wanted to supplement its missile arsenal at a time when delays in approving a major package of US military aid in Congress has left Ukraine short of ammunition and other material.
"The lack of US support means shortages of ground-based air defence in Ukraine. So they want to accumulate a mass of rockets and break through Ukrainian air defence," said Zagorodnyuk, who chairs the Kyiv-based Centre for Defence Strategies, a security think tank, and advises the government.
Kyiv has repeatedly asked Tehran to stop supplying Shahed drones to Russia, which have become a staple of Moscow's long-range assaults on Ukrainian cities and infrastructure, alongside an array of missiles.
Ukraine's air force said in December that Russia had launched 3,700 Shahed drones during the war, which can fly hundreds of kilometres and explode on impact. Ukrainians call them "mopeds" because of the distinctive sound of their engines; air defences down dozens of them each week.
Iran initially denied supplying drones to Russia but months later said it had provided a small number before Moscow launched the war on Ukraine in 2022.
"Those who accuse Iran of providing weapons to one of the sides in the Ukraine war are doing so for political purposes," Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani said on Monday, when asked about Tehran's delivery of drones to Russia. "We have not given any drones to take part in that war."
Rob Lee, a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, a Philadelphia-based think tank, said a supply of Fateh-100 and Zolfaghar missiles from Iran would hand Russia an even greater advantage on the battlefield.
"They could be used to strike military targets at operational depths, and ballistic missiles are more difficult for Ukrainian air defences to intercept," Lee said.
Deepening Ties With Moscow
Iran's hardline clerical rulers have steadily sought to deepen ties with Russia and China, betting that would help Tehran to resist US sanctions and to end its political isolation.
Defence cooperation between Iran and Russia has intensified since Moscow sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine in February 2022.
Russia's Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu met the head of Iran's Revolutionary Guards Aerospace Force, Amirali Hajizadeh, in Tehran in September, when Iran's drones, missiles and air defence systems were displayed for him, Iranian state media reported.
And last month, Russia's foreign ministry said it expected President Vladimir Putin and his Iranian counterpart Ebrahim Raisi to sign a broad new cooperation treaty soon, following talks in Moscow in December.
"This military partnership with Russia has shown the world Iran's defence capabilities," said the military official. "It does not mean we are taking sides with Russia in the Ukraine conflict."
The stakes are high for Iran's clerical rulers amid the war between Israel and Palestinian Islamist group Hamas that erupted after Oct. 7. They also face growing dissent at home over economic woes and social restrictions.
While Tehran tries to avoid a direct confrontation with Israel that could draw in the United States, its Axis of Resistance allies -- including Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen -- have attacked Israeli and US targets.
A Western diplomat briefed on the matter confirmed the delivery of Iranian ballistic missiles to Russia in the recent weeks, without providing more details.
He said Western nations were concerned that Russia's reciprocal transfer of weapons to Iran could strengthen its position in any possible conflict with the United States and Israel.
Iran said in November it had finalised arrangements for Russia to provide it with Su-35 fighter jets, Mi-28 attack helicopters and Yak-130 pilot training aircraft.
Analyst Gregory Brew at Eurasia Group, a political risk consultancy, said Russia is an ally of convenience for Iran.
"The relationship is transactional: in exchange for drones, Iran expects more security cooperation and advanced weaponry, particularly modern aircraft," he said.
(Exclusive reporting by Reuters)