THERE ARE many reasons why America’s war on Iran has been failing. One of them is the effectiveness of Iranian drones. Now a confidential document obtained by The Economist from a trusted source suggests that Russia has offered to provide Iran with unjammable drones and training on how to use them against American troops in the Gulf and perhaps elsewhere.
Until now, Vladimir Putin’s government is thought to have provided intelligence that enabled Iran to target American forces in the Middle East. This is the first evidence that it may also have offered to supply innovative weapons in large enough numbers to inflict many casualties on American and allied forces, we can exclusively report.
The secret plan involves Russia providing Iran with 5,000 short-range fibre-optic drones of the sort used in the war in Ukraine, an unknown number of longer-range satellite-guided drones, and training to use both sorts. It is contained in a ten-page proposal prepared by the GRU, the intelligence arm of Russia’s armed forces, for presentation to Iran. We have been able to examine the ten-page proposal, which contains six diagrams and a map depicting islands off the coast of Iran.
Though the document we saw was undated, we estimate that it was drafted within the first six weeks of the war, when there appeared to be a real chance of President Donald Trump ordering ground troops to attack Iranian territory, potentially to seize Kharg Island, an important oil terminal. We do not have direct evidence to confirm that the document was passed to the Iranians, whether any of the drones reached Iran, or if the promised training programme has begun.
Regional intelligence sources briefed on the plan said they considered it plausible, but were unable to independently corroborate it. Christo Grozev, an expert on Russia’s intelligence services, says the proposal is consistent with other evidence that the GRU is looking for ways of increasing Russian support for Iran during its war with America and Israel. And it fits with evidence emerging across the region of closer military co-operation between Russia and Iran.
In late March, for instance, Western intelligence officials said that Russia was preparing to send Iran its own upgraded versions of the long-range Shahed-type drones that it initially bought from Iran in 2022 and started producing in 2023. The Russian versions can better evade air defences and carry heavier payloads, but do not represent a step-change in capability.
Fibre-optic drones, by contrast, have transformed the battlefield in Ukraine by creating large “grey zones” in which vehicles and soldiers in the open are attacked remorselessly. Instead of being guided using radio signals, which can be jammed, operators control them through thin wires that spool out behind them. Operators can use them to conduct pin-point attacks at ranges of over 40km.
Such fibre-optic drones have recently surfaced in Lebanon, where they have been used by Hizbullah, an Iranian proxy, to attack Israeli forces. Israeli officials confirm these have been supplied by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Iran’s most powerful military force, but were unwilling to say whether they were originally from Russia.
Fibre-optic drones emerged in the war in Ukraine in 2024 as a way of countering the jammers that both sides used to defeat radio-controlled drones. Russia used them to devastating effect the following year after mass-producing them. Although less manoeuvrable than their wireless counterparts, they transmit sharper video imagery and give out no radio signals that an enemy could use to locate and attack the operator.
The second part of the secret Russian plan is the provision to Iran of long-range satellite-guided drones equipped with Starlink terminals. Russia had used these to locate and either evade or attack Ukrainian air defences. They were highly effective against Ukrainian logistics, even when operating well beyond the frontlines. In 2026, however, Elon Musk denied Russia’s armed forces access to Starlink by blocking all terminals operating in Ukraine except for those on a “white list” approved by Ukraine’s government. The Russian proposal suggests these drones could instead be diverted and used in the Middle East, which has no such restrictions. Though it speculates that Starlink connectivity there would also be shut off in time, they could still inflict “disorder” on American forces in the interim.
The third element of the plan is training. The document proposes recruiting drone operators from among an estimated 10,000 Iranian students studying in Russian universities. Other communities that could potentially be tapped are Tajiks, who speak both Russian and a version of Persian, and the Alawite minority in Syria, loyal to the ousted regime of Bashar al-Assad. All would be screened for loyalty and against religious extremism, the proposal suggests.
The text of the GRU report suggests that it was written at a time when the main threat facing Iran was an American amphibious assault to open the Strait of Hormuz or to seize Kharg Island. It notes that American landing craft would be particularly vulnerable to drone attack, because of their slow speed. A diagram illustrates how Russian-trained Iranian drone operators could attack a landing flotilla by launching swarms of five or six drones from hidden positions some 15-30km away. Although it now seems very unlikely that America will try to land troops in Iran, the prospect of this concerned Russian and Iranian officials earlier in the war.
The GRU document notes that Russia is heavily committed in the fifth year of its “special military operation” in Ukraine. This would limit the resources it can allocate to helping Iran. The proposal also points out that Russia would be taking political and military risks by becoming more involved in the war in Iran. But limited assistance would complicate any American operation. It would also remain deniable, the document suggests, which would avoid dragging Russia into open conflict with America.
