A US attack on Iran could reset the battlefield in Ukraine and weaken Moscow
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A few hours after the American weapons hit the soil of Iran, the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy sent a statement that the Western media treated more as a diplomatic footnote, but it was a sign that what is happening in the sky over Tehran has a direct impact on the ground in Ukraine.
President Zelenskyy openly approved these strikes, calling Iran “ally Putin,” noted that his country has been able to attack more than 57,000 Iranian-supplied drones, and addressed Moscow: “Whenever there is an American decision, the criminals of the world are weakened. This understanding must also come to the Russians.”
Zelenskyy’s framing of the war in Iran through the lens of the war in Ukraine is no accident. Regardless of the intentions expressed by Washington, the president, who has lived through the conflict in Ukraine since 2022, understands that Iran was involved in the war between Russia and Ukraine, and the United States has now taken action against that organization.
By striking the Iranian regime that provided Russia with Shahed drones (and the ability to make them) that has terrorized the citizens of Ukraine for more than four years, Washington has removed an important Russian ally, which will have a negative impact on Russia’s ability to fight a war in Europe.
When Iranian-provided drones began to descend on Kyiv in October 2022, reducing apartments to rubble and putting cities in darkness, the world quickly learned a new name: Shahed. The Shahed-136 is not a sophisticated weapon. It is not fast (although the development of Russia has greatly increased its power). Not as accurate as a cruise missile. What it is, and what was always designed to be in the hands of Russia, is a weapon of terror.
Russian Shahed targets power stations and residential buildings. The destruction they experience contributes to power outages that leave families without light and heat in the winter. It is the triangular shape that Ukrainians have learned to fear from the night sky, the low noise from a propeller that sends people fleeing to shelters. I have watched Shaheds dive through Ukrainian airspace towards civilian targets. I stood with the interceptor teams in the dark doing everything I could to take down the Shahds before they found their targets. Images of these drones flying over buildings in Kyiv represent the carnage of Iran’s devastating contribution to the war in Ukraine.
In early 2023, Iran signed a $1.75 billion contract for additional drones and complete production systems. Russia then built its own production facility in Tatarstan. Ukrainian intelligence estimates that Russia is now producing up to 1,000 modified Geran drones a day using Iranian-derived technology. In effect, Tehran provided Moscow with the blueprint for a campaign of terror against civilians that Russia has since staged on its soil.
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In addition to drones, Iran launched nearly three billion dollars worth of ballistic and surface-to-air missiles before and during the attack, including hundreds of Fath-360 ballistic missiles, numerous anti-aircraft systems, and thousands of artillery shells, with a total weapon cost of more than four billion dollars.
Iranian weapons have also replenished Russian stockpiles, dashing Western hopes that Russia could soon run out of shells, drones, and missiles. In return, Russia provided Iran with S-400 air defense systems, Su-35 fighter jets, the construction of a nuclear reactor and a cover for the country in the UN Security Council. The 20-year strategic partnership was formalized in early 2024. This was an axis built on all military, nuclear, financial, and diplomatic fronts, and because of US action in Iran, this axis has collapsed dramatically. In a recent statement, Russian Foreign Minister Dimitry Peskov said that Russia will no longer honor its defense agreement with Iran because it signed an agreement with Ayatollah Khameini, and Khamenei has been killed.
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However, Russia’s most important partner, China, continues to supply a large amount of microelectronics and components to Russia’s military and industrial infrastructure to a degree that Iran cannot match. But Beijing has carefully avoided direct transfers of deadly hardware to maintain a degree of deniability. Iran, on the other hand, closed the gap that China deliberately left open: advanced weapons and production systems, which are distributed without hesitation.
Russia completely produced the Shahed, even improving on the original design with a more complex and expensive version of the Geran. The Iranian regime’s legacy of 50 years of terrorism will not only live on in the Middle East, but in Europe as long as the war in Ukraine continues.
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With the US campaign promising to last at least several weeks, Iran’s ability to provide additional ballistic missiles is now critical. Its ability to develop drone designs domestically and deliver replacement parts is being curtailed. In addition, all Russian assets that could be diverted to defend an invaded Iran, air defense systems, aircraft parts, transport equipment, are assets that cannot be found in Zaporizhzhia or Kherson. Moscow is now saddled with a weak, desperate ally at a time when it cannot afford disruption.
This represents a different type of pressure on Russia than sanctions or battlefield aid – one that works through the partnership networks and supply chains that have supported Russia’s war effort. Zelenskyy’s statement that every act of violence eventually meets an appropriate response was directed at Moscow and Tehran. Although Ukraine was not something that was considered by Washington when President Trump decided to attack Iran, the statistics of the war in Ukraine will be very difficult for Russia, and that is a good thing for the people of Ukraine who are fighting for their right to survive.
