Russia has used 540 attack drones against Ukraine from 1,700 batch bought in Iran

Head of the Main Directorate of Intelligence of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, Kyrylo Budanov, stated this in an interview with The New York Times.

According to him, in order to convince Tehran to supply UAVs, Moscow offered it scientific know-how for military industry.  However, Iran does not yet dare to transfer ballistic missiles to the Russian Federation due to the risk to itself.

"Iran is in no hurry to do this for obvious reasons, because as soon as Russia launches first missiles, sanctions pressure on Iran will grow," Budanov said.

He clarified that in accordance with a contract signed in summer, Russia purchased 1,700 Shahed drones from Iran, which are delivered in batches.

Budanov added that Russia has so far used about 540 drones for strikes along the front line and on the energy infrastructure of Ukraine.

He also emphasized that most drones are shot down. However, he noticed that they are cheap. In Iran, production cost of one such UAV is $7,000, although it is unknown how much Russians pay for drones.

• On December 19, Russian troops attacked Ukraine with drones from a new batch. Volodymyr Zelenskyy noted that Russia received 250 new UAVs from Iran.

• On December 23, the Israeli Mossad intelligence agency warned that Iran would increase the supply of weapons to the Russian Federation.