“Finally, something no one else has,” the Russian journalist said in a television documentary about the country’s largest drone factory. “There is no mass production of such two-stroke engines anywhere else in Russia.”
The Arabga, 600 miles east of Moscow in the Tatarstan region of Russia, the factory in question, is increasing the number of Iran-designed Shahed-136 attack drones (known in Russia as Guerland), but the man behind the site thinks this is one of the biggest achievements.
“This is a complete facility,” CEO Timur Shagivaleev adds to the documentary, explaining that most of the drone components are produced locally. “It comes in aluminum bars and the engines are made from them. The microelectronics are made from electric chips. The fuselage is made from carbon fiber and glass fiber. This is the perfect place.”
This claim shows that Iran-designed production of Shahed, the backbone of Moscow’s drone war against Ukraine, is now largely absorbed by Russian military industrial machinery. Analysts and information personnel believe that 90% of the production stages are occurring in Arabga or other Russian facilities.
To that end, recent satellite images continue to expand the site, allowing new production facilities and dormitories to be expanded exponentially. Analyst CNN said this growth could potentially allow Russia to potentially export updated combat-test versions of drones originally imported from Iran.
However, according to Western intelligence sources, the expansion of Shahed-136 and the complete Russian integration effectively alienates Iran and reveals the rift between Moscow and Tehran. They became increasingly panicked with the small returns they received from Russia, despite Tehran supporting Moscow’s war efforts with not only drones but missiles and other assets.
That frustration boiled effectively through Israel’s 12-day bombing campaign, which targeted Iran’s nuclear weapons program in June.
“Iran may hope that Russia will take more steps without the need to do so,” Ali Akbar Dareini, an analyst at the Tehran-based Center for Strategic Studies, the research arm of the Iranian president’s office, told CNN. They cannot intervene militarily, but they have support for beef surgery in terms of weapon shipping, technical support, sharing intelligence, or anything like that. ”
However, Russia’s distant approach was not surprising when civil servants from the Western intelligence agency spoke to him.
“This clear break-off shows that Russia will not intervene beyond its imminent interests, even when a partner, a key drone supplier, is attacked,” they said.
After Russia began a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, it began importing Iranian Shahed drones. By early 2023, Moscow and Tehran had signed a $1.755 billion contract for Russia to build drones domestically.
By September 2025, stipulated in the initial contract, 6,000 drones were manufactured a year before scheduled, and according to Ukraine’s defense information, Arabga currently pumps more than 5,500 units a month. They also do so in a more efficient and cost-effective way.
“In 2022, Russia paid an average of 200,000 US dollars for one such drone,” a Ukrainian defense source said. “In 2025, that number reached around 70,000 US dollars.”
Ukraine also said Russia modernised its drones, improved communications, long-term batteries and much larger warheads, making them even more deadly and difficult to beat.
Officials from the Western Intelligence Agency said Iran first appears to be embracing Russia’s efforts to localize about 90% of Shahed 136 production in Arabga, but Moscow’s upgrade appears to have caught it off guard.
“This evolution indicates Iran’s gradual loss of control over the final product, which is currently manufactured primarily locally and independently,” the source explained. They added that Moscow’s ultimate goal is to “fully master the production cycle and free yourself from future negotiations with Tehran.”
Dareini says that Russia’s predatory behavior is not surprising, describing relations between the two countries as “both cooperation and competition.”
“It’s clear that Russians want more, they want to get more, give less, and that’s true for Iran,” he explained. “Iran has been providing drones, technology and factories to Russia, but it wasn’t free.”
However, in the process of expansion, officials say the Arabga cannot fulfill their obligations to Iranian partners. They say in addition to losing control of the final product, Iranian authorities and businesses, namely the Sahara Thunder, complain that some payments have not been made as the Russian economy was stuffed over three years ago.
CNN was unable to independently verify this. CNN contacted the Arabga regime for comment but has not yet received a reply.
“These obstacles add to Tehran’s complaints about the blockage that would prevent the transfer of Russian aviation technology to Iran. Iran has been promised by Moscow in exchange for its support.”
A ceasefire between Israel and Iran led Tehran to withdraw from its predominantly international territory, reorganizing, reorganizing and rebuilding what was destroyed during the conflict. In addition to the well-known damage to Iran’s nuclear facilities, Israel has targeted several other Iranian facilities.
David Albright, a former UN Weapon Inspector and head of the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) think tank, believes that the Arabga expansion will allow Moscow to provide some meaningful support and send some of the updated versions of Sharp back to Iran.
“Some of (Iran’s) drone production facilities have been bombed and they fired a lot of (drones), so they might do that as a way to build inventory,” Albright said. “And Iran has been able to reverse engineer or receive the technology to make better quality sharps.”
“I think that’s very dangerous,” he added.
Other military equipment may also be heading towards Tehran. Open source flight tracking data shows Gelix Airlines Ilyushin – 76 military cargo planes that flew from Moscow to Tehran on July 11.
The IL-76 is a heavy transport plane that the Russian army frequently uses to carry troops and military equipment, and Gerix Airlines is associated with the transport of military equipment in the past.
The aircraft spent about three hours on the ground and returned to Moscow.
Although CNN was unable to confirm what was on board, Iranian media reported it was the final component of Russia’s S-400 air defense system.
CNN has requested comment from the Russian Ministry of Defense to comment on tensions between the two countries, but has not received a response. Similarly, CNN has also contacted the Iranian government in both Tehran and the UK embassy, but has not yet received a reply.
These latest developments highlight Dareini’s core beliefs about relations between the two countries. There may be tensions, but Iran will ultimately benefit from the partnership.
“Iran has it, but it’s very likely that they’ll get what they need for their own security,” he explained. “Whether it’s military hardware, economic cooperation, technology and what it needs.”