Western technologies in Iranian drones were discovered by specialists of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
At the end of September, the Armed Forces of Ukraine shot down an Iranian combat reconnaissance drone Mohajer-6 over the waters of the Black Sea near Ochakovo. Through a “soft landing” the drone survived – so intelligence dismantled it in order to learn the “stuffing”. An Austrian Rotax (Bombardier) engine was also found here.
“Schemes” received permission to shoot the Iranian drone and examined in detail all the available details. So far, it has been possible to identify manufacturers of at least 15 of its components. Most of them are products of technology giants from the USA.
Linear Technology chips, Analog Devices video encoders, Xilinx microboards. Identified products of American Texas Instruments: signal processors, converters, microcircuits. The thermal imaging camera is very similar to the American Sierra-Olympic.
Drones of Iranian production, Russia began to massively use in the war against Ukraine in early October. Despite attempts to “rename” the drones (for example, the Shahed-136 was marked “Geran-2”), the Russian authorities failed to hide the country of origin.
Despite Tehran’s assurances that the production of Mohajer-6 is based on local inventions, the Schemes were able to identify a number of components produced by companies from the US and EU countries, whose sanctions policy towards Iran restricts the export of technologies that can be used for military purposes.
Journalists note that the presence of these components in Mohajer-6 does not automatically mean that their manufacturers violate US or EU sanctions – usually the import of electronics to Iran is due to “gray” schemes.
Mohajer-6 is an unmanned reconnaissance and strike aircraft. It was first presented by the Iranian Ministry of Defense in 2018, during a ceremony on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the victory of the Islamic Revolution with the participation of the Minister of Defense, Brigadier General Amir Khatami. Khatami noted that Mohajer-6 has the ability to perform surveillance, reconnaissance and combat missions in a wide operational radius and can help the armed forces identify and destroy certain targets.
Slovak case
After the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Slovak companies supplied spare parts to the Russian Federation and Iran that could be used for the production of weapons. We are talking about engines, bearings, electronics, Dennik N.
They said that the Ukrainian military fished out an Iranian Mohajer-6 drone from the sea and dismantled it for parts. It was found to contain an Austrian Rotax 912iS engine, which is used in civilian small aircraft. In Austria, they immediately denied involvement in the supply of the engine. However, on April 21, Slovak border guards allowed a local company to export such an engine to Iran.
The publication claims to have a list of thousands of items, including bearings, engines, electronics, equipment for the production of tire components, which can be used in the production of various weapons and equipment. According to journalists, the Slovak border guards simply did not check whether these goods could be used for military purposes.
Many of these goods were supplied to Russian companies acting as subsidiaries of the arms industry. These agreements may violate EU sanctions.
The Ministry of Finance of the country believes that the blame for such exports lies with the Ministry of Economy, which is responsible for issuing licenses. They deny this and blame solely on the customs service. The Slovak authorities promised to deal with this issue.
Source: Racurs
