Iran Remains Russia's 'Top Military Backer', U.S. Says

Washington D.C./26.07.23/Turan:  The State Department said on Tuesday Iran 'remains' as Russia's main military backbone in its brutal war against Ukraine, and the military partnership between the two is only deepening, TURAN's Washington correspondent reports.

"Iran remains Russia's top military backer," Principal Deputy Spokesperson Vedant Patel told a daily press briefing in response to TURAN's questions about U.S. intel reports suggesting that Russia has been building a drone manufacturing facility with Tehran's assistance.

"Russia received hundreds of one-way attack UAVs, as well as UAV production related equipment from Iran," Patel said.

He also reminded that Russian forces used Iranian drones to strike Kyiv to terrorize the Ukrainian population.

"This military partnership between Russia and Iran continues to be deepening," Patel said.

According to U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency officials, the drone-manufacturing facility that Moscow is building with help of Tehran, is expected to give Russia a new drone stockpile that is "orders of magnitude larger" than what it has been able to get from Iran to date.

To date, it is widely believed that Iran has provided Russia with over 400 Shaheds and Mohajer drones, which Putin's forces have almost completely depleted.

Meanwhile, U.N. inspectors on Tuesday found mines that, according to them, were placed at the Russia-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant (ZNPP).

When asked by TURAN about the IAEA's findings, Patel said the following: "... We have been very clear that such violent and volatile type of activity near, in such close proximity to a nuclear power plant – in this case, ZNPP – is incredibly unsafe. It puts the immediate region in harm's way.  And so we continue to call on such activity so close to ZNPP to stop."

Alex Raufoglu