Iran Presents Russia with A Copy of US ScanEagle Drone

Local Editor

Iranian media reported Monday that the copy of the US ScanEagle drone was provided to Russia on the sidelines of a meeting in Tehran between Farzad Esmayeeli, the air defense commander of Khatam al-Anbia, the Revolutionary Guards' military and industrial base, and Viktor Bondarev, head of the Russian air force.

In December 2012, a guards' commander said his forces had got their hands on a ScanEagle, promising Tehran would mass produce it.
"The drone built by the Islamic republic's Revolutionary Guards is a symbol of the technical capabilities of the Islamic Iran and today we presented a real model of it as a gift to Russian air force ... and the Russian people," Esmayeeli said after meeting with Bondarev, according to the semi-official Fars news agency.

                          

Iran's state English-language newspaper, Tehran Times, said the two met on Sunday and spoke on a range of air defence issues but it did not give further details.

Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh also said after the meeting that the drone which had been manufactured by IRGC experts was a symbol of the technical capabilities of the Islamic Iran.

In December 2012, the commander of the IRGC Naval Force, Rear Admiral Ali Fadavi, announced that IRGC naval forces had captured a US ScanEagle drone that had violated Iranian airspace.
Since then, Iranian officials revealed advances in drone technology and have put on show a number of US and "Israeli" drones their elite forces alleged to have shot down.

In addition, Hajizadeh said that he had also presented the Russian general with a roll of film showing the vessels of extra-regional forces operating in the Persian Gulf captured during Iranian forces' surveillance operations.
For his part, Bondarev said that the IRGC Aerospace Force had made great achievements, adding that the achievements indicated the fact that the IRGC had taken steps well ahead of its time.

In February, Iranian television broadcast a program showing video footage and still images the authorities unveiled they were extracted from the RQ-170 drone captured in 2011. The program also showed pictures of what was described as a ScanEagle drone production line in Iran. Fars described ScanEagle as a small, long-endurance unmanned aircraft.

Source: News agencies, Edited by website team