In the US, it is reported that Russia sent weapons seized in Ukraine to Iran. The Russians’ goal is to produce from the American weapons, Iran will try to reverse engineer, that is, study the production of weapons, and produce a similar weapon on its own
Russia sent Iran weapons and military equipment supplied by the US and NATO to Ukraine, the weapons were captured by Russia in battles with the Ukrainians, and the US believes that Iran will try to reverse engineer the systems, that is, learn the production and try to produce such weapons on its own, so they said CNN has four sources familiar with the matter.
Over the past year, the US, NATO and other Western officials have discovered that weapons and combat equipment such as shoulder-fired missiles, including anti-aircraft anti-aircraft systems, remained on the battlefields after Ukrainian forces were forced to leave them behind as they retreated, the sources told CNN.
In many of those cases, Russia flew the equipment to Iran to be disassembled and analyzed, presumably so the Iranian military could try to create its own version of the weapon, the sources said. Russia believes that the continued supply of Western weapons captured in Ukraine to Iran will encourage Iran to maintain its support for Russia’s war in Ukraine.
U.S. officials do not believe the issue is widespread or systematic, and the Ukrainian military has routinely reported the loss of U.S.-supplied equipment to the Pentagon since the start of the war, officials said. Still, US officials admit the issue is difficult to track.
It is unclear whether Iran has been able to reverse-engineer any US weapons seized in Ukraine, but Tehran has demonstrated high skills in developing weapons systems based on previously captured US equipment.
“Iran has demonstrated the ability to reverse engineer American weapons in the past,” said Jonathan Lord, director of the Middle East Security Program at the Center for American Security. “They reverse-engineered the TOW anti-tank guided missile, creating a near-perfect replica they called the Tofan, and have since distributed it to the Houthis in Yemen and Hezbollah. Iran could do the same with Stinger missiles, which could threaten civilian and military aviation throughout the region. Part of which could be used by Hamas or Hezbollah to threaten an Israeli Merkava tank. In the hands of Iran’s emissaries, this weapon poses a real threat to Israel’s conventional military forces.”