As Russia and Iran Draw Closer, U.S. Frets Over New Iran Drones in Ukraine

As President Joe Biden contends with Russia's war in Ukraine and Iranian influence in Iraq and Syria, the White House is warning of a potential convergence of these challenges in the alleged transfer of weaponized drones from Tehran to Moscow.

National Security Council Strategic Communications Coordinator John Kirby told reporters Wednesday that Iranian unmanned aerial systems wielded by Russia have been "newly introduced to the fight" in Ukraine.

Though he declined to get ahead of Kyiv in assessing the impact of these platforms, he did say that "U.S. officials know of some difficulties that the Russians have been having with some of these drones and in some of the limits on some of the capabilities."

He said Washington would take action to back Kyiv against this threat as it has others.

"Whatever the threats and capabilities that the Ukrainians are facing — and we have expressed concern over these drones — whatever the threats and capabilities that they're facing by the Russians," Kirby said, "we are working in lockstep with them to help counter that."

Such U.S. support includes providing Ukrainian forces with Western drones, as well as air defense platforms and "technical support to help them beat back the kinds of capabilities that the Russians keep introducing into the battlefield," he added.

Kirby said the effect of the drones on the battlefield is as yet unknown.

"It remains to be seen what the overall impact is going to be on these," he said, "but it's not going to change the kinds of capabilities that we continue to provide Ukraine to be able to counter those threats."

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova earlier dismissed reports that Moscow had purchased drones from Tehran, arguing that the news "was artificially spread among the American media, in particular, by The Washington Post and artificially promulgated."

The Washington Post was one of several media outlets in recent days to cite unnamed U.S. officials as saying that Russian cargo planes had picked up the first shipment of Iranian combat drones to be used in Ukraine. The systems were said to include the Shahed-129, Shahed-191 and Mohajer-6.

Iran has developed a wide range of advanced drones used for both combat and surveillance purposes. Last week, the Iranian military held a large-scale war game involving unmanned aerial systems and officials regularly tout their state-of-the-art capabilities.

In response to the U.S. report on the alleged sale of such drones to Russia, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov accused the newspaper of "publishing a lot of bogus stories." He said Russia-Iran ties "have been developing dynamically," according to the state-run TASS Russian News agency.

"They were developing previously, they have been developing of late, and will continue to do so," he added.

Zakharova referenced these remarks during her press briefing Wednesday in which she asserted that drone sales were not on the agenda when Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met with Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian that same day in Tehran, nor were they a matter of discussion last month at the meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in Tehran.

Following his talks with Amir-Abdollahian, Lavrov said relations between Russia and Iran "are reaching a qualitatively new level, which will be fixed in a large interstate agreement" now in its "final stages." He said the document "will be of strategic importance" and "will set out the basic guidelines for further building up the entire range of Russian-Iranian ties in the coming decades."

Lavrov said he discussed a number of bilateral and international issues with his Iranian counterpart, including joint efforts to counter Western sanctions, the ongoing effort to revive the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear deal, and the conflict in Ukraine, on which Lavrov thanked Amir-Abdollahian for his "consistently balanced position."

"Tehran understands Russian security concerns, considers them absolutely legitimate and understands the motives that caused our actions in response to the destabilizing policy of the United States and its NATO allies," Lavrov said.

Amir-Abdollahian, for his part, said his priority in visiting Moscow was to act upon requests made by Western countries for Iran "to play an active role" in addressing the crisis in Ukraine. Among the matters discussed on that subject, he said, was "the release of Ukrainian prisoners."

Mohammad Jamshidi, deputy political adviser to Raisi, tweeted on Tuesday that an unnamed "Western leader," whom Iran's semi-official Iranian Students' News Agency reported was French President Emmanuel Macron, had asked the Iranian president to mediate the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, and that, "following a series of consultations, a peace initiative along with an important message was sent to Moscow" through Amir-Abdollahian.

Beyond the issue of Ukraine, the Iranian top diplomat also said he discussed with Lavrov an array of global affairs, as well as efforts to fortify economic and trade relations between Iran and Russia. He also "emphasized the need to continue and strengthen joint efforts to further develop relations in various bilateral dimensions," according to an Iranian Foreign Ministry readout.

The two countries already collaborate directly in Syria, where Moscow and Tehran have backed Damascus against rebels and jihadis. All three governments have also called for the withdrawal of U.S. troops, which have come under fire by militias aligned with the Islamic Republic. Last week, Biden ordered airstrikes against positions said to be affiliated with Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in eastern Syria, though Iranian officials denied any connection to the sites.

Meanwhile, the fate of the JCPOA, to which Iran and Russia are both parties, continued to hang in the balance. The deal lifted international sanctions against Tehran in exchange for the Islamic Republic severely curbing its nuclear program, but the accord was unilaterally abandoned by the U.S. in 2018 under President Donald Trump.

Biden has sought to restore U.S. participation in the JCPOA, and after nine rounds of talks in the Austrian capital of Vienna, the European Union circulated a "final" draft to restore the agreement. Iran provided comments on the proposal earlier this month and the U.S. has replied, though the next steps toward resolving their impasse have yet to be announced.

Kirby told reporters Wednesday that the U.S. was "cautiously optimistic" that the deal could be reached, but "we are also pragmatic and clear-eyed and we realize that there are still gaps and we're trying to close those gaps in a good-faith way."

This is a developing news story. More information will be added as it becomes available.