Iran is likely to supply ammunition to the Russian Federation in exchange for assistance in developing missile weapons.

William Burns, US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director, spoke about this in an interview with CBC News.

He stressed that the alliance between Russia and Iran was developing rapidly and this was an “worrisome” situation.

“Well, it’s moving at a pretty fast clip in a very dangerous direction right now, in the sense that we know that the Iranians have already provided hundreds of armed drones to the Russians, which they’re using to inflict pain on Ukrainian civilians and Ukrainian civilian infrastructure.

We know that they’ve provided, you know, ammunition for artillery and for tanks as well,” Burns said.

He added that the CIA also saw signs that Russia was offering assistance to Iran in its missile program and considering providing fighter jets in exchange for military assistance for a war against Ukraine.

Earlier, The Wall Street Journal reported that Russia and Iran were considering the possibility of building a plant for the production of combat UAVs in the city of Elabuga in Tatarstan.

According to them, in early January, the Iranian delegation visited Russia. They examined the place for the plant to be built, and agreed on the details of the project.

Besides, both countries aim to create an improved version of the Shahed-136 kamikaze drone. It is planned that the new version of the loitering munition will be able to develop a higher speed than the current one.

Iran may also smuggle new Shahed-191 and Shahed-129 combat drones to Russia. This was reported by The Guardian.

For the supply of new drones to Russia, Iran allegedly uses sea transport and aircraft of the state airline. The use of Shahed-191 and Shahed-129 drones have not yet been recorded in Ukraine.

In 2022, the Ukrainian military managed to capture an Iranian-made Mohajer-6 multi-purpose drone used by Russians.