Investigators have named the names of four Russian soldiers who operate the Shahed drones
Investigative journalists have identified four Russian military personnel who operate Iranian Shahid kamikaze drones during attacks on Ukraine.
In the aggregate of investigative publications Consequence.Info and Our money. Lviv The story that in the summer of 2022 he lived in the state center for unmanned aircraft of the Russian Defense Ministry, which is based in Kolomna, learned to fly Shahed drones under the cover of “army events” in the Iranian city of Kashan.
Investigators identified four of them: according to their data, these are Captain of the Russian Air Force Andrei Stepovoy, Lieutenant of the Russian Air Force Yevgeny, as well as servicemen Sergei Sozinov and Gleb Pivkin. Later, all of them, having returned to Kolomna, began to train drone operators themselves before being sent to the troops.
It also happened in the investigation that the time of the “army events” in Kashan (August 2022) is coordinated with the date of delivery of the first batch of Iranian drones to Russia. Two weeks after this Russian civilian attack, Shaheds attacked Ukraine.
The Armed Forces of Ukraine reported that since September, Ukrainian air defense destroyed about half a thousand representatives of Shahed kamikaze drones.
According to the GUR, Russia is currently used approximately 660 Iranian drones, and 1,750 are provided under the contract.
According to the Ukrainian authorities and a number of foreign intelligence services, there are observations of kamikaze drones in Iran, which are further developed for distribution in Ukraine. Russian and Iranian authorities deny this.