March 10, 2025: Russia lost most of its Western trading partners since it invaded Ukraine in early 2022. Western sanctions and the cost of the war in Ukraine have crippled Russian finances. Russia still trades with China, but the Chinese cannot freely trade with Russia because doing so would risk China being hit with trade sanctions too. Trade with Western Europe and the Americans sustains the Chinese export economy.

This leaves Russia with only two alternatives. One is North Korea, which has a feeble economy with a GDP of only $30 billion and has long been subject to economic sanctions. The other alternative is Iran, which is also sanctioned but has oil to export and a GDP of over $400 billion. Iran was also responsible for the recent completion of a drone manufacturing facility on the Volga River. Russia has over fifty firms manufacturing over two dozen types of drones. These include:

Four Granat model drones for tactical use. These drones have a range of up to 40 kilometers and altitudes between 2,000 and 4,100 meters.

Blah-08 Tipchak has a range of 128 kilometers and max altitude of 4,500 meters.

Corsair has a range of 120 kilometers and max altitude of 5,100 meters.

Eleron-3 has a range of 25 kilometers and max altitude of 3,000 meters.

Eleron-10 has a range of 60 kilometers and max altitude of 4,000 meters.

Eleron-3SV has a range of 25 kilometers and max altitude of 5,000 meters.

Eleron-Т28МЕ has a range of 40 kilometers and max altitude of 5,000 meters.

Forpost has a range of 350 kilometers and max altitude of 6,000meters.

Griffon-12 has a range of 40 kilometers and max altitude of 4,000 meters.

Merlin-VR has an unknown range and max altitude of 5,000 meters.

ZALA 421-08 has a range of 15 kilometers and max altitude of 3,600 meters.

ZALA 421-04М has a range of 50 kilometers and max altitude of 3,600meters.

ZALA 421-16E has a range of 50 kilometers and max altitude of 3,600 meters.

Zastava has a range of ten kilometers and max altitude of 2,200 meters.

Takhion has a range of 40 kilometers and max altitude of 3,600 meters.

Orion has a range of 300 kilometers and max altitude of 7,500 meters.

Orlan-10 and Orlan-10Е have a range of 120 kilometers and max altitude of 6,000 meters.

Orlan-30 has a range of 200 kilometers and max altitude of 4,500 meters.

Orlan-20 Kartograph is a new model and its performance characteristics are unknown.

Orlans are used to find and identify targets for artillery units. These drones belong to the artillery units supported. This drone was also supplied to engineer, and railway brigades. Combat Engineers used drones for reconnaissance of minefields and enemy fortifications, railway workers for assessing the conditions of the rail track, and missile brigades for selecting and guarding the positions used to launch missiles.

Mohajer-4 has a range of 150 kilometers and max altitude of 3,500 meters.

Mohajer-6 has a range of 200 kilometers and max altitude of 5,400 meters.

Mohajers are Iranian drones that are rarely found in use except along the Black Sea coast.

SuperCam S150 has a range of 110 kilometers and an unknown max altitude.

SuperCam S350 has a range of 240 kilometers and max altitude of 5,000 meters.

In 2023 Russia introduced the ZALA 421-16E, SuperCam S150 and SuperCam S350 drones.

There are also the KUB-BLA and Lancet attack drones.

KUB-BLA has a range of 15 kilometers and max altitude of 200 meters with a 3 kg warhead.

Lancet-1 has a range of 40 kilometers and max altitude of 200 meters with a 1 kg warhead.

Lancet-3 has a range of 40 kilometers and max altitude of 200 meters with a 2.5 kg warhead.

Scalpel has a range of 40 kilometers and max altitude of 200 meters with a 5 kg warhead.

Russia also manufactures the Iranian Shahed-136/131, renaming them Geran-2/1.

Shahed-131 has a range of 900 kilometers and max altitude of200 meters. with a 12 kg warhead.

Shahed-136 has a range of 2,000 kilometers and max altitude of 200 meters with a 40 kg warhead.

Shahed-238 has a range of 1,200 kilometers and max altitude of 200 meters with a 25 kg warhead.

Russia also has FPV/First Person View drones and produces about 40,000 of these a month.

Russia is building a drone manufacturing infrastructure. By 2026 330,000 people will be involved in the development, production, and operation of drones by 2026. By 2035 1.5 million people may be involved in drone design, development and production.

Russia continues to obtain drones and drone construction assistance from Iran. While Russia produces 330-350 Shahed-136 drones per month, Iran also helps out. Russia has manufactured over 1,600 Shahed drones and 2,600 have been sent by Iran.

To cooperate with Iran, Russia uses an existing north-south trade route to Iran. Russia wants to improve it with road and rail connections. Railway connections are a problem because Russia and Iran railroads use different railroad gauges. That can be overcome by building parallel Iran/Russian rail lines and establishing depots where cargoes, especially standard shipping containers, can be transferred between Russian and Iranian trains. Road building bypasses the rail gauge problem. While trucks have long transported shipping containers, it is three times more expensive to ship by road than by rail. Shipping by sea is less than 20 percent the cost of rail transport. The road and rail lines are essential for getting cargo to inland destinations, but most of the tonnage is moved the longest distances by ship. For this reason Russia has long maintained a water route from Russia to Iran via the Caspian Sea and a series of canals. In 2023 Russia brought in dredging equipment for a major, and overdue, dredging of the heavily used Volga-Don Canal that enables ships to get from the Caspian Sea to the Black Sea. Because of the war in Ukraine, and Iran supplying weapons and equipment to Russia, canal traffic was up 15 percent in 2022 over the previous year. In 2023 traffic increased by another 4.5 percent and increased further in 2024.

Since 1952 a 101 kilometers long canal, linking the Don and Volga rivers, gave the Caspian Sea access to the Black Sea and the world's oceans. Ships that can use the canal cannot displace more than 5,000 tons, be no more than 140 meters long, 17 meters wide, and have a draft of more than 3.5 meters. Normally the canal moves over 12 million tons of cargo a year. About half of that is oil or oil products. In 2021 Russia agreed to allow Iran to use the Volga-Don Canal so that Iranian ships can reach the Black Sea from the landlocked Caspian Sea. This is the first time Russia has ever given a foreign nation free access to the canal. Russia and Iran are now using each other’s Caspian Sea ports heavily for trade and getting Iranian weapons to Russia. Both nations have agreed to establish a joint-shipbuilding operation in the Caspian Sea and cooperate in dredging the canal, something that has not been done since 1991. The prolonged lack of dredging has made portions of the canal shallower and forced ships to carry less cargo.

The 13 locks on the canal connect the Volga River, the longest in Russia that empties into the Caspian, and the Don River which empties into the Sea of Azov, which is connected to the Black Sea via the Kerch Strait. The Caspian is the world's largest lake, at 371,000 square kilometers. It is about a thousand kilometers long and 430 kilometers wide. It's saline but is only about a third as salty as ocean water. The Caspian has a 7,000-kilometer-long coastline, with the largest chunk, 1,900 kilometers, belonging to Kazakhstan.