About two months ago, we reported here on the participation of the Iranian Chief of Staff, in the inauguration ceremony of an Iranian drone factory established in Tajikistan. In the report, the details of which appeared as open news in the Iranian political system, it was not specified whether the plant was already operational, or whether it was still under construction. Tajikistan does not have a common border with Russia, but both are members of the Shanghai Organization, for cooperation between the countries of the Eastern Axis, including Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan, which has a common border with Russia. It is possible that the Iranian vision, at the time of establishing the factory in Tajikistan, was to strengthen the relationship between the Iranian drone industry and the Russian army through an intermediate factory in Tajikistan whose products and delivery methods would not receive much attention. The attention to the passage of direct military supplies between Iran and Russia is not the same as the attention to the work of a factory in Tajikistan.

This week news was published in the West that there is no evidence of the supply of Iranian drones to Moscow. Considering the Iranian strategy to establish drone factories in allied countries, which we reported here on May 22 of this year, such evidence may not be easily found in the future either. The first factory for Iranian drones that was established outside of Iran, is the factory in Tajikistan, a country which, as mentioned, is linked in a security alliance with Russia. On the establishment of the factory, the Iranian Chief of Staff traveled to Dushanbe, and participated in the inauguration ceremony of the factory. Despite all the above, it is possible that the news appeared in the visible Iranian political system, so that the Western press could play a role that Iran has designated for it, to glorify the power of the Iranian UAV industry, the act of Yehoshua in Jericho. On the other hand, the exact hit by Iranian drones on the Saudi oil facilities in September 2019 does not support this assumption, but rather the reasonable assumption that Iranian drone technology is advancing. The transfer of this technology to the Russian army in Ukraine could bring the Russian army a significant advantage in the war it started in February of this year.