Russia has secured a significant deal with Iran, purchasing 6,000 Shahed-136 kamikaze drones from Sahara Thunder, and it's just the beginning.

A series of internal documents reveal the Russian localization of production of illicit Iranian unmanned-aerial-vehicles (UAVs) in the special-economic-zone Alabuga. At first, Russian specialists for planes, avionics, engines and IT have traveled to the Islamic republic of Iran for the purpose of acquiring the technology and necessary training to produce the deadly UAVs in large quantities.

After concluding the learning phase, a two-stage plan for the production was implemented. In the first stage of the plan (which began around April of 2023 and ended in December of 2023), Iran shipped kits to be assembled into Shahed UAVs at the Russian factory, practically creating a "Drones IKEA". These kits include everything needed to assemble a drone from scratch; steel, carbon fibers, screws and bolts, PCBs (motherboards) and other hardware, source-code, engine oil and many more materials. The second stage is the production stage, during which most of the UAV is produced in Russia, with only few Iranian components, but still under Iranian supervision. According to the schedule, in the current stage (February 2024) the factory is expected to manufacture more than 200 drones every month until September of 2025. The plan spreads across 30 months of shipping, where 100 units would be sent every month in the first three months, and 211 units a month afterwards.

The Bazaar - haggling over the price The initial price for a single drone stood at 375,000 dollars. Eventually, the parties agreed to manufacture an astounding number of 6000 UAVs, at a cost of 193,000 dollars per unit. With larger quantities come bigger discounts. That's more than 1.15 billion USD just for the drones, adding Iranian involvement in the establishment of the Alabuga Drone Factory, shipping, supervision and other services, totaling 1.75 billion USD, just as seen in the payment schedule.

Dolphin-632 boat is a code-name for the Shahed-136 drone. In general, such false names are used throughout the agreement to disguise the true nature of the deal. Notice how Sahara Thunder and Alabuga constantly refer to the UAVs as motor boats even when there is no denying that the document discusses kamikaze drones.

One of the most interesting documents is 214-page long instructions manual on how to build a motor boat, with pictures on every slide showing exactly how one can build a drone.

The Catalog

Along with the documents presented, following is information we found about other UAVs that might be used by Russia that's worth mentioning:

MC236 adaptation of the Shahed-136 sold to Russia, equipped with a guidance system.

M237 variant of the M236 that's equipped with a jet engine. Used for attacking air and ground targets.

107B multipurpose UAV, used for both espionage and attack.

According to the documents, some of the UAVs are also equipped with the Nasir anti-jamming system.

Alabuga Machinery LLC:

Alabuga Machinery LLC is a Russian company known for manufacturing drones used by the Russian military to carry out attacks on Ukrainian civilians. The company is part of the Special Economic Zone Alabuga, an industrial production area in the Yelabuzhsky District, Russia. The US department of treasury had recently imposed sanctions (February 23rd, 2024) on SEZ Alabuga for the production of "one-way attack UAVs". The economic zone houses many sub-companies, a couple of which already appear on the SDN list. The CEO of Alabuga at the time the contract was signed (beginning of 2023) was Timor Shagivaliaf. The work in the factory is set to continue around the clock, including weekends and holidays.

Aerial photograph of the factory as shown by IranWire

Blueprints of the packaging area in the factory

The rest of the documents contain additional details about the factory design, shifts and workers, as well as shipment dates and other relevant information.

The Payment Method:

The following documents summarize what our team believes was the main method of payment Iran used to receive for the drones it sold Russia and any other related products, despite heavy sanctions imposed on such trade.

In the addendum below (February 28th, 2023), Russian Alabuga is referred to as the buyer, Iranian Sahara Thunder as the supplier, and a third-party UAE-based company, Generation Trading FZE, as the payee. Sahara Thunder is supplying UAV parts to Alabuga, and the payment is transferred to Generation Trading in the UAE. This indicates that Generation Trading FZE serves as a second front, used to distance MODAFL from the transaction even more. Therefore, Generation Trading was designated last week alongside with Alabuga.

Generation Trading FZE Commercial License; Managed by Hans Crispin De Paz

Both Iran and Russia have been isolated from the international banking system, with many of their banks are heavily sanctioned for supporting terrorism. As a result, transferring large amounts of money as part of illegal arm sales is no easy task. In order to facilitate these payments Iran utilizes financial institutes with minimal international oversight, where questionable transactions are less likely to be noticed. The UAE is favorable financial hub due to lax regulations and Iranian banks in the Emirates, most noticeably - Bank Melli Dubai, are already subject to US sanctions.

WikIran team urges UAE authorities to exert pressure on the banks in their territory - Melli Iran and others - enabling the illicit purchase of weapons utilized in acts of violence targeting innocent civilians, not only in Ukraine, but the UAE itself that got targeted by Iranian drones in the past. We call for the immediate closing of the relevant accounts.

Upon scrolling through an older database published on WikIran - Berlian Exchange House (ZarrinGhalam exchange), we discovered a few other AED accounts held by Generation Trading within UAE banks. Even more intriguing, we found deals involving similar products to those sold in the Iran-Russia UAV deal (steel coils and sheets, etc.). The invoices are dated in 2020 and the buyer's name is left blank, but it's possible that these products are used for the same purpose.

Both Iran and Russia have been isolated from the international banking system, with many of their banks are heavily sanctioned for supporting terrorism. As a result, transferring large amounts of money as part of illegal arm sales is no easy task. In order to facilitate these payments Iran utilizes financial institutes with minimal international oversight, where questionable transactions are less likely to be noticed. The UAE is favorable financial hub due to lax regulations and Iranian banks in the Emirates, most noticeably - Bank Melli Dubai, are already subject to US sanctions.

Due to the large amount of money involved, its highly difficult to conduct payment using the regular banking system without raising too many red flags, even in UAE. Therefore, other means of payment are required. In this case, it’s a known method used by Iran to bypass sanctions - gold smuggling. The following document describes the details of a payment made between Alabuga Machinery and Sahara Thunder for UAV parts (February 28th, 2023). This payment consists of over 2 tons of pure gold bars, with an approximate value of 122 million USD at the time.