By Kontur | 2026-03-09

The drones Iran has been firing at Bahrain, the UAE, Kuwait, and Qatar since late February carry a Russian signature.

The Shahed-136 design is Iranian, but the factory producing them at scale is Russian -- the Alabuga Special Economic Zone in Tatarstan, where a dedicated production line was established under a $1.75 billion agreement between Moscow and Tehran. Russia subsequently modified the design, adding longer-lasting batteries, heavier warheads, and improved guidance systems.

The Gulf states now absorbing Iranian strikes are the second population, after Ukrainians, to live with the consequences of that partnership.

A factory built for two fronts

Russia began importing Shahed-136 drones from Iran shortly after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Within a year, the two governments had formalized a $1.75 billion production agreement. Iran's Sahara Thunder, a front company controlled by Iran's Ministry of Defense, shipped disassembled drone kits, engines, warheads, avionics, and Iranian technicians to Alabuga, where Russian workers were trained to assemble them.

The arrangement, documented in leaked internal records and confirmed by Western intelligence, amounted to an extensive military technology transfer.

The factory scaled fast. By April 2024, Alabuga had produced roughly 4,500 drones. By summer 2025, output exceeded 5,500 units per month.

"Aluminium bars come in, engines are made from them; microelectronics are made from electric chips; fuselages are made from carbon fiber and fiberglass -- this is a complete location," Alabuga CEO Timur Shagivaleev said in a Russian state television documentary.

CNN confirmed in August 2025 that roughly 90% of the production process had been internalized. The cost per drone fell from $200,000 in 2022 to approximately $70,000 by 2025, low enough to sustain nightly mass launches against defended targets.

Tested over Ukraine, deployed in the Gulf

Ukraine has absorbed tens of thousands of Shahed strikes since autumn 2022. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described the campaign in stark terms, saying Russian President Vladimir Putin is "off the deep end with this Shahed obsession and terror," as cited by CNN.

In response, Ukraine built layered counter-drone defenses -- combining fighter aircraft, shoulder-fired missiles, heavy machine guns, and low-cost interceptor drones that can bring down a Shahed for $1,000 to $5,000 -- and has begun sharing that expertise with NATO partners, with Gulf cooperation under discussion.

Those same weapons are now targeting Gulf infrastructure. The UAE tracked 689 Iranian drones in the first five days of strikes, intercepting 645, along with 174 ballistic missiles. Kuwait's forces shot down 97 ballistic missiles and 283 drones. Bahrain intercepted 45 missiles and nine drones, yet a Shahed still reached a building near US Navy Fifth Fleet headquarters in Manama.

A coordinated response

The United States, Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE responded with a joint statement on March 2 condemning Iran's attacks as "unjustified strikes" representing "a dangerous escalation that violates the sovereignty of multiple states."

The multilateral condemnation presents a coalition that has grown stronger under pressure.

Retired General and former Central Intelligence Agency Director David Petraeus described Iran's decision to target Gulf states as a strategic miscalculation.

"A really foolish move by the Iranians was to hit the Arab countries in the Gulf, who really had wanted to stay out of this -- but now are in it,” he said.

Now, Gulf air forces are operating alongside US forces as part of a rapidly coordinated regional air-defense response to Iranian missile and drone attacks.