Key Points and Summary – The latest U.S. Treasury sanctions on Iran’s Shahed drone ecosystem included an unusual target: two companies registered in Ukraine.
-Ekofera and Imperative Ukraine are described as shell firms controlled by Iran-based procurement agent Bahram Tabibi, accused of buying and shipping key aerospace components like attitude indicators and magnetometers to HESA, the Shahed’s manufacturer.
Iran’s Drones That Russia Is Using. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
-Their exposure highlights how Iran’s long-standing global networks still tap Ukraine’s Soviet-era industrial base for parts and know-how, despite wartime security tightening.
-From earlier Iranian and even North Korean procurement attempts, Ukraine has been a prime hunting ground—one Western intelligence officers say will take years to fully seal off.
Why Two Ukrainian Firms Were Sanctioned for Arming Iran’s Shahed Drones
On November 12, the US Treasury Department sanctioned two companies for allegedly supplying components for the Iranian-design Shahed series of drones. The two companies were part of a broader sanctions package targeting 32 individuals and various business entities.
The act of sanctioning firms for supporting the production of the Shahed drones is itself not a new phenomenon.
Just this past July, it was announced that the Treasury was specifically targeting supply chain entities that supply all of Iran’s military UAV programs.
These sanctions clearly indicated that Iran is obtaining the components it needs from a worldwide network of suppliers.
The sources of supply targeted in this July action were located not only in Iran, but also in Hong Kong, the Republic of China (ROC) on Taiwan, and the People’s Republic of [Mainland] China (PRC).
The action intends to cripple the supply networks that support production not only of the Shahed drones, which have been used increasingly on front-line positions along with glide bombs, but also Iranian ballistic missiles.
But what makes the sanctions package of this past week unusual is that two of the entities being added to the Treasury Department’s list are actually Ukraine-registered firms.
Which Ukrainian Firms Are Involved
According to multiple press reports, the two Ukrainian-registered companies targeted were Ekofera and Imperative Ukraine. However, the US Treasury Department announcement states that these are Ukrainian front corporations, not controlled by Ukrainian entities, and that they are instead operating under the direction of “Iran-based procurement agent Bahram Tabibi.”
Tabibi, according to the Treasury announcement, “used his Ukrainian shell companies” to “purchase and supply aerospace materials” for the Iran Aircraft Manufacturing Industrial Company (HESA), which designs and produces the Shahed drones that are striking Ukrainian cities almost every night.
According to the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, or OFAC, these two Ukrainian-registered companies were part of a network that shipped attitude indicators and magnetometers to HESA. OFAC had initially imposed sanctions on HESA in 2008, and 14 years later, Iran began selling Shaheds to Russia, commencing in the second half of 2022.
One year later, in 2023, Russia began producing its own domestically manufactured version of the Shahed, designated as the “Geran” and “Gerbera” series.
Their construction varies in numerous aspects from the original Iranian design, mostly in the configuration of on-board systems.
The lighter-weight Gerbera design became famous in September of this year, when at least 20 of them entered Polish airspace and violated it.
The incursion by these Russian-made drones was later evaluated as having been a purposeful provocation on the part of Moscow.
Examinations of those that soft-landed in Poland revealed that they had been modified with an additional fuel tank to give them the range to travel well inside Polish territory.
Iran’s Procurement Networks
Iran has long operated networks of procurement agents around the world to illicitly source spare parts and components for its mix of both Western and Russian-design weapons platforms.
Because of the number of Mikoyan MiG-29, Sukhoi Su-17, and Sukhoi Su-24 aircraft in Iran’s inventory, Ukraine has been a favorite source for these networks for decades.
In 2018, Iranian agents were apprehended by authorities in Kyiv while they were attempting to acquire an example of the Russian-made Zvezda-Strela Kh-31supersonic anti-ship and anti-radiation missile. Seven years earlier, agents from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) were arrested and later convicted for attempting to obtain design drawings, configuration details, and other technical data from YuzhMash, Ukraine’s chief missile design enterprise in the southern city of Dnipro.
“Ukraine has been a place where numerous countries have been operating for years to acquire military technology that they could not otherwise procure through openly legal means,” said a European intelligence officer who spoke to National Security Journal.
“Their networks, institutional linkages, relationships with particular individuals in Ukraine with access to the hardware or technology they are looking for have been active for many years,” he said.
“Even with the increase in security measures that are instituted under wartime conditions, it is still going to take years for these same networks to be dismantled.”
About the Author: Reuben F. Johnson
Reuben F. Johnson has thirty-six years of experience analyzing and reporting on foreign weapons systems, defense technologies, and international arms export policy. Johnson is the Director of the Asia Research Centre at the Casimir Pulaski Foundation. He is also a survivor of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. He worked for years in the American defense industry as a foreign technology analyst and later as a consultant for the U.S. Department of Defense, the Departments of the Navy and Air Force, and the governments of the United Kingdom and Australia. In 2022-2023, he won two awards in a row for his defense reporting. He holds a bachelor’s degree from DePauw University and a master’s degree from Miami University in Ohio, specializing in Soviet and Russian studies. He lives in Warsaw.
More Military
The Mach 15 X-43D ‘Hypersonic Scramjet’ Has a Message for the U.S. Air Force
Europe’s Future Combat Air System (FCAS) Stealth Fighter Is ‘Circling the Drain’
The Mach 2 B-58 Hustler Bomber Has a Message for the U.S. Air Force
The YF-23 Black Widow II Deserved A Better Fate Than This