VLADIMIR Putin is plotting to prop up his Iranian bedfellows with a shipment of lethal weapons, according to western intelligence.
Kremlin warmongers reportedly began hammering out a deal with Tehran just days after Donald Trump launched his Operation Fury blitz of Iran.
By early March, shipments were already under way, with the whole operation expected to wrap up by month’s end.
Israel reportedly struck a key supply route between Russia and Iran on the Caspian Sea last week in a bid to disrupt the pipeline.
Behind the scenes, the Kremlin has been bolstering its ally with satellite images, targeting data and key intelligence.
Now it’s been accused of sending support such as deadly, state of the art drones directly into the conflict.
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Publicly, Russia has stuck to a softer line, highlighting humanitarian aid shipments.
It claims more than 13 tonnes of medicine have already been sent via Azerbaijan, with more on the way.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov brushed off the claims, saying: “There are a lot of fakes going around right now.
“One thing is true — we are continuing our dialogue with the Iranian leadership.”
But one western official fears Moscow is not only trying to bolster the mad mullahs’ firepower, but to help strengthen the tyrannical regime.
“They don’t need more drones. They need better drones. They are after the more advanced capabilities,” Antonio Giustozzi, senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, told the Financial Times.
Exact models remain unclear, but Russia is likely to supply drones similar to the Geran-2, based on Iran’s own Shahed-136 design.
The Kremlin’s versions of Iranian-designed drones, used in Ukraine since 2023, have been heavily modified to evade air defences and carry bigger payloads.
“The Russians dramatically improved the Shaheds, including modifications to the engines, navigation and anti-jamming capabilities,” Nicole Grajewski, a professor at Sciences Po university in Paris told the FT.
“So these systems are already more advanced than the ones Iran was producing domestically.”
Russian military tech was reportedly found inside the Iranian drone that struck the British air base in Cyprus.
Investigators believe the kamikaze drone that hit RAF Akrotiri contained a Russian-made Kometa-B navigation system.
Iran, has made cheap, one-way attack drones a core element of its military strategy, firing more than 3,000 across the region since fighting erupted.
The rogue state is also pushing to beef up its air defences.
A deal is already in place between Moscow and Tehran for hundreds of launch units and thousands of missiles over the next three years.
But Moscow has drawn the line at handing over its S-400 system, wary of sparking a direct clash with the US.
Deploying such advanced tech would likely require Russian crews on the ground, effectively putting them in the direct combat with American forces.
Despite their growing alliance, a Russia-Iran pact stopped short of a full mutual defence commitment last year
Meanwhile, Russia’s biggest oil port was blitzed as Ukraine seeks to derail Putin’s war profits from the Middle Eastern conflict.
Primorsk, on the Baltic Sea, was bombarded by a menacing fleet of drones over Sunday night.
The export hub houses many of the Russian dictator’s sanction-dodging shadow ships.
These vessels use deceptive means to avoid Western trade sanctions and travel through the Baltic Sea – keeping Putin’s war economy afloat.
The Russian pariah is believed to export one million barrels of oil per day through Primorsk, which is about 1,000km away from Ukraine.