Iran is building a kamikaze drone factory in a Russian industrial park 550 miles east of Moscow, out of range of Ukrainian missiles. With the Russian drone company advertising for Farsi-speaking interpreters, the Tatarstan factory is to open next spring with the capacity to churn out 3,000 Shahed-136 drones a year. To stymie Ukrainian air defenses, Russian operators often launch these delta-wing drones in waves.

“The war in Ukraine has led to unprecedented levels of Russian-Iranian cooperation in the military, economic, and political spheres,” the European Council on Foreign Relations warned last month in a report.  “Russian-Iranian cooperation could prolong the war in Ukraine.”

After Hamas fired Iranian-supplied missiles against southern Israel last week, a Ukrainian general, Oleksandr Fatsevych, wrote on Facebook: “Today Ukraine and Israel are in the same trench and on the same front. We fight together against aggression and bloody terror.”

For Ukraine, mistrust of Iran dates back to January 8, 2020. At dawn that morning, an Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps air defense fired two Russian-made Tor-M1 missiles at a fully loaded Ukraine International Airlines jet that had just taken off from Tehran’s Imam Khomeini International Airport. The surface-to-air missiles found their mark, destroying the Boeing 737, killing all 176 on board.

The shootdown occurred five days after the United States assassinated Qasem Soleimani, commander of Iran’s foreign military operations, and a few hours after Iran retaliated by firing dozens of missiles on American-led coalition forces in Iraq. For one week, Iran denied shooting down the jet, whose passengers were from Britain, Canada, Iran, Sweden, and Ukraine.

Eventually, Iran said a fatal mistake was made by an air defense crew on hair-trigger alert. Some Ukrainians wondered: Why, of the 20 passenger jets that took off that morning from Tehran’s main airport, did the air defense crew shoot down a jet owned by Ukraine’s flag carrier?

Iran’s Civil Aviation Organization blamed the shootdown on “human error.” François-Philippe Champagne, then Canada’s foreign minister, retorted: “It cannot just be the result of a human error. There is no circumstance under [which] a civilian aircraft can be downed just by the result of human error in this day and age.” The Ukrainian foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, called Iran’s report a “whitewash.”

Last year, Ukraine International Airlines announced it would sue Iran and the Revolutionary Guards for $1 billion. Last July, Ukraine, Britain, Canada, and Sweden referred the shootdown to the International Court of Justice.

Russia’s partnership with Iran against Ukraine came into sharp focus on July 19, 2022, when President Putin chose Tehran for his only trip that year outside the former Soviet Union. Arriving after his invasion of Ukraine had started to sour, the Russian leader was on an arms-buying mission. Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, welcomed him warmly. Echoing the Kremlin’s talking points, the Iranian leader said that if Russia had not invaded Ukraine, it would have faced an eventual attack from NATO.

Within weeks, Russia was launching Shahed-136 drones against Ukrainian cities and power plants. After drone parts were found with Iranian markings, Ukraine on September 23, 2022, revoked the accreditation of Iran’s ambassador to the country, Manouchehr Moradi. Later, Ukraine imposed sanctions on Iran for 50 years, barring all trade, investments, and technology transfers.

One year ago, on October  21, 2022, the White House said that Iranian troops were “directly engaged on the ground” in Crimea assisting Russia in launching drone attacks on Ukrainian power plants. Soon after, Ukraine warned Iran to expect an “absolutely ruthless” response if it continued supplying weapons to Russia. On November 24, Ukraine said 10 Iranian military advisers had been killed in Crimea. The Institute for the Study of War assessed that these probably were Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, as this unit operates Iran’s military drones.

“Iran remains an established ally of Russia, supplying weapons to Russia used in Ukraine and having had [Iranian] support soldiers killed in Crimea,” the Kyiv-based Ukrainian Freedom Fund wrote last week. “Now is the time to be fully aware that the two wars [Ukraine/Israel] are integrally linked together by the Russian-Iranian alliance.”

Shahed propeller-driven drones are sometimes called “lawnmowers” because of their loud buzzing sounds. But the drones can fly 1,000 miles and carry 100-pound warheads. Of the estimated 500 fired at Ukraine over the last year, most have been shot down. But, at $20,000 apiece, the Shaheds are a bargain compared to the $430,000 price tag of an IRIS-T missile used to shoot them down. Last month, Shahed unveiled on Iranian state TV a turbojet drone.

Impressed with Iran’s drone technology, Russia decided to build a military drone manufacturing plant at Tatarstan’s Alabuga Special Economic Zone. The plant is a joint venture between a Russian producer of drones for farmers, Albatross, and Iran’s Shahed Aviation Industries Research Center. About 70 percent of  the components are to be Russian. Iran is under UN sanctions for missile technology. However, parts from Iran can travel a poorly monitored route: crossing the Caspian and going up Russia’s Volga River to Tatarstan.

In June, the White House issued satellite photographs that identified two production buildings in the Alabuga zone. “We are concerned that Russia is working with Iran to produce Iranian UAVs from inside Russia,” the U.S. National Security Council spokesman, John Kirby, said.

“Iran has supplied missiles and drones to Russia while Moscow has provided Iran with electronics and military expertise,“ a Canadian commentator, Diane Francis, wrote last week. “This poisonous partnership is under-appreciated by the mainstream media, but its geopolitical consequences in Gaza and beyond are immense.”

Iran says it is neutral in the Russia-Ukraine war and denies that it has sent drones to Russia. Last month in New York, President Raisi told reporters on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly: “We are against the war in Ukraine.”

As he spoke, the U.S. Central Command was preparing to transfer to Ukraine’s military a huge cache of Iranian arms seized one year ago in interdiction operations in the Gulf of Oman. Originally destined for the Houthi rebels in Yemen, the ammunition includes: 1.1 million 7.62mm rifle rounds, 9,000 Russian-style assault rifles, 284 machine guns, 194 rocket launchers, and 70 anti-tank guided missiles.

As Ukrainian air defense crews scan for Iranian-made drones, some call this arms transfer poetic justice.