The Defense Intelligence Agency has updated its “Iranian UAVs in Ukraine: A Visual Comparison” report to include new findings and images that counter Iran’s claims that its unnamed aerial vehicles were not deployed in Ukraine.
The additional images include parts of the Iran-made Shahed-131 UAVs used by Russia against Ukrainian targets in 2022 and Shahed-131 UAVs that were recovered in Iraq in 2021, the agency said.
A visual comparison of the debris showed that the systems have the same size and shape and were produced using similar materials and subcomponents. The images also indicated that the Shahed-131s share the same honeycomb-like structure observed from the systems’ airframe, according to the report.
The DIA display also brought attention to similarities between the Shahed-131 engine and wing stabilizers retrieved from Ukraine in September 2022 and the same Shahed-131 components recovered from an attack in Iraq in the same month, a drone strike that the Iranian government publicly claimed responsibility for.
The identical UAV, which appeared at nearly the same time in two conflict zones separated by thousands of miles, strongly suggests that the systems were from Iran, the DIA noted.
The agency said the UAV components, which were collected during site exploitations, will be on display until early September.
