Jam-proof GLONASS antenna inside Irani drone
It only makes sense really. The Geranium family traces their roots back to the Iranian Shahed family. And while the two drone families have sufficiently diverged by now to be considered different systems (although western outlets will insist on calling them Shaheds), the improvements Russia made to the system throughout the war in Ukraine can and should be adapted by Iran, as has seemingly already happened.
This is why it was such a good deal for Iran and Russia. Iran supplied a useful but non-sensitive technology, Russia scaled production, usage and iteration on the design to incredible heights, Iran received from Russia intel on the effectiveness of the systems, pitfalls, tweaks to the software side of things, hardware improvements and how to make these more resilient.
In the near east there have only been two countries who seriously looked into drones and became pioneers and large influences in the field, and these were Iran and Israel. And while Israel mainly focuses on the larger, high end, high cost surveillance and strike UAVs, deploying units like the Harpy in lower quantities. Iran went all in on the high volume, low complexity, low cost loitering munitions and long range drones, while also having a few MALE UAV designs under their belt as well.
And thanks to Syria, to Hamas, Hezbollah and to the Houthis having to deal with Israeli drones, as well as Russia having intelligence on several types from their time in Syria as well as their own Forepost UAVs, Iran most likely has a really good understanding of the IDF drone capabilities. And let's not forget that time when the spoofed a CIA RQ-170.
I'm aware the missiles and jets steal the spotlight a lot. But let's not forget that two of the most premier drone users and developers are currently duking it out across the entire middle east.
I think that angle is quite fascinating, to be honest.
