The Ukrainian military says it disassembled a mostly intact UAV that was downed over the Black Sea
© Military TV UA / YouTube
Ukrainian military officials say they have discovered a Ukrainian-made part inside an “Iranian drone” that was shot down near the Black Sea port of Odessa. Ukraine has been accusing Moscow of using Iranian UAVs to attack Kiev and other cities.
The Ukrainian Armed Forces reported the findings on their official channel Military TV UA on Wednesday. They said they took apart an Iranian Mohajer-6 surveillance and combat drone that had made an emergency landing after being hit by the country’s air defenses.
“Three-fourths of components are US-made. There are also components from Japan, China, Sweden, and Austria,” a spokesman for the Defense Ministry’s Defense Intelligence (GUR) said.
“And there is a component, which was made in Ukraine. A single one, but it is there. We are now determining how it could have gotten there.”
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According to the report, one part contained an inscription in Farsi, Iran’s official language.
Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky accused Russia this week of deploying Iranian Shahed-136 kamikaze drones, which Moscow allegedly rebranded as Geran-2 (Geranium-2), against Ukraine.
Tehran has denied supplying weapons to either side of the conflict. Moscow did not confirm the claims of receiving drones from Iran. Russia has maintained that all weapons used by its troops on the battlefield in Ukraine, including the Geran-2 UAVs, are from domestic stockpiles. Zelensky has claimed that Russia acquired as many as 2,400 of the UAVs.
Last month, Ukraine cut diplomatic ties with Iran over the alleged supply of weapons to Russia.