Alabuga Shahed project: How Russia took over Iran's deadliest drone and is now building thousands for less

Russia has built a drone plant that Tehran might once have considered its own project. Now, Iran is on the sidelines, as reported by CNN. “Finally, something no one else has,” a Russian journalist boasted during a state television documentary on the country’s biggest drone factory. “Such mass production of two-stroke engines doesn’t exist anywhere else in Russia.”

The factory, located in Alabuga, some 600 miles east of Moscow in Tatarstan, has become the backbone of Russia’s Shahed-136 programme. Known in Russia as the Geran, the one-way attack drone has been a constant presence over Ukrainian skies since late 2022.

“This is a complete facility,” CEO Timur Shagivaleev declared in the same broadcast, as reported by CNN. “Aluminium bars come in, engines are made from them; microelectronics are made from electric chips; fuselages are made from carbon fibre and fibreglass this is a complete location.”

According to Western intelligence estimates, about 90 per cent of the Shahed’s production stages now happen in Alabuga or other Russian sites.

Scaling up and shutting out
Recent satellite images show the site continuing to grow, new workshops, new dormitories, and room for yet more assembly lines. Analysts told CNN that this capacity could allow Russia not only to maintain its war effort but even export an improved, battle-tested Shahed back to Iran.

But those same sources say Moscow’s growing independence has left Tehran out of the loop. A Western intelligence official described it as a “gradual loss of control for Iran over the final product”, adding that Russia’s goal is “to fully master the production cycle and free itself from future negotiations with Tehran”.

A transactional partnership
Tensions became visible during June’s 12-day Israeli bombing campaign against Iranian nuclear and military sites. For a government that had helped arm Russia’s war supplying not just drones but missiles and technical expertise Iran expected more than statements of condemnation.

“Iran may have expected Russia to do more or take more steps without being required to do so,” said Ali Akbar Dareini, an analyst at Tehran’s Centre for Strategic Studies. He suggested that Moscow could have increased “operative support, in terms of weapons shipments, technological support, intelligence sharing, or things like that.”

The Western official put it bluntly: “This explicit disengagement demonstrates that Russia never intervenes beyond its immediate interests, even when a partner, here an essential supplier of drones, is attacked.”

From imports to mass production
When Russia first began importing Shaheds in 2022, each one cost roughly $200,000, according to Ukraine’s Defence Intelligence. By 2025, after localising almost all production, that price had fallen to about $70,000. The same source said the Alabuga plant now produces around 5,500 drones each month — far more than the original target of 6,000 over two years.

Russia hasn’t just replicated the original Iranian model. Ukrainian officials say the latest versions have stronger communications links, bigger warheads, longer-lasting batteries, and radar-absorbing paint. In some cases, they have been deployed in swarms of hundreds at a time.

Dareini describes the Moscow–Tehran relationship as “both cooperation and competition”, adding, “It’s obvious that Russians want more, to get more and give less, and this applies to Iran as well. Iran has provided Russia with drones and technology and the factory, and it has not been for free.”

Money, gold, and broken promises
According to Western officials, Iran’s frustration is compounded by unpaid bills and delays in promised technology transfers. One Iranian partner, Sahara Thunder, has reportedly complained that Moscow has failed to meet its commitments, partly because of the sanctions strangling Russia’s economy.

A report from the Centre for Advanced Defence Studies in May 2025 claimed that Russia had paid at least $104 million in gold bars to Iran under its drone-building contracts. But speculation that Tehran would also receive Su-35 fighter jets, S-400 air defence systems, or other major hardware has so far led nowhere.

Some analysts believe Moscow might send upgraded Shaheds back to Iran, especially since Israeli strikes destroyed parts of its drone production network. David Albright, former UN weapons inspector and now head of the Institute for Science and International Security, warned that such cooperation would be “very dangerous”.

“Some of [Iran’s] drone production facilities were bombed and they fired a lot of [drones], so as a way to build back stock, they may do that,” Albright said. “And then Iran could reverse engineer or receive the technology to make the better quality Shahed.”

Flights between Moscow and Tehran continue, with at least one Ilyushin Il-76 military cargo plane visiting in July. Iranian media claimed it carried parts for an S-400 air defence system, though that remains unconfirmed.

A strained but enduring alliance
Despite the frictions, Dareini still sees long-term benefits for Tehran. “Iran has got, and very likely will get the things it needs for its own security,” he said. “Whether it’s military hardware, whether it’s in terms of economic cooperation, technology and whatever it needs.”

For now, the Alabuga plant stands as a symbol of Russia’s determination to take foreign designs, make them its own, and produce them at scale even if it leaves the original partner out in the cold.