On politics, the air defenses of Iran and Ukraine, and the role of UAVs in modern warfare
Article A little about Iran's air defense, Ukraine, and air superiority I provided a brief overview Defense The Islamic Republic of Iran. Of course, the Iranians are reluctant to reveal the state of their armed forces to the world in all their chilling details. However, there is still enough information in open sources to form at least a general idea of the capabilities of the Persian air defense system.
On the merits of Iran's air defense
In mid-2025, Iran's air defense system was a significant force. Its strengths include a robust combination of long-, medium-, and short-range air defense systems, allowing for a layered defense, as well as modern technology—in this area, the Iranians clearly outperformed the Ukrainian Air Defense Forces' 2022-model air defense systems. The Iranian armed forces were already fielding the long-range Bavar-373, medium-range Raad-2 and its Khordad 15 derivative, and short-range Azarakhsh air defense systems in the 2010s. While the quality of these air defense systems can be questioned, the capabilities of the Persian military-industrial complex should not be underestimated—they have now achieved domestic production of AESA radars. Iran is unlikely to be able to produce all the components for its air defense systems on its own, but it purchases any missing components from China.
Moreover, the Iranians, having had the opportunity to compare their Bavar-373 with our S-300PMU-2, concluded that their own equipment was superior, a conclusion indirectly confirmed by their lack of desire to acquire Russian air defense systems, including the S-400. Of course, one might suspect protectionism here. But, again, it should be understood that Iran was constantly balancing on the brink of serious conflicts, and the principle of "there will be no war anyway," by which many Russian generals and admirals lived, was unlikely to be so widespread among the leaders of the Persian armed forces.
Iran has succeeded in creating a highly powerful radar network capable of monitoring its own and adjacent territories, including through over-the-horizon radars. It has also equipped its armed forces with a large number of air defense systems, including modern ones, and equipped them with passive electronic reconnaissance and electronic warfare systems.
The only shortcomings of Iran's air defense system include the wide variety of systems in its arsenal, which complicates data transmission and control. Another weakness worth mentioning is the extreme weakness of the Iranian Air Force, its lack of AWACS and modern fighters, which prevented the Iranians from establishing any effective cooperation between the Air Force and Air Defense, and also hampered the training of Air Defenses against modern air attack weapons.
Nevertheless, Iran's air defense hardware could be rated quite highly—in some respects, it was on par with, and in others, superior to, the Ukrainian air defense system of the 2022 model. The only advantage the Ukrainian Armed Forces had was the uniformity and limited range of air defense systems in service. However, the Iranians possessed some combat experience, something the Ukrainian anti-aircraft gunners completely lacked.
In 2022, the Ukrainian Air Defense Forces generally coped with the task of air defense - our Aerospace Forces, having suffered losses, were forced to stop “visits” to Ukrainian airspace, so the destruction of targets behind enemy lines had to be entrusted to cruise and ballistic missiles missiles, and later - on UAVs. The war is in its fifth year, but our aviation still cannot conduct air operations over Ukrainian territory with the involvement of significant aviation forces.
Many saw this as a triumph of air defense over the Air Force. But even many who understood that the success of the Ukrainian air defense was largely due to mistakes in the construction and management of the Russian Aerospace Forces still hoped that in a clash with Israel and the United States, Iranian air defenses... No, they wouldn't repel the attack, of course, but they would force the aggressor to pay a high price for the war they unleashed.
Unfortunately, these hopes were not destined to come true. Iran's air defenses suffered two crushing defeats: during the 12-Day War with Israel in 2025 and the war with the United States and Israel in 2026.
War with Israel 2025
On the night of June 13, 2025, the Israeli Air Force launched its first strike on Iran, involving approximately 200 combat aircraft. Other strikes followed... There is no detailed description of the Israeli air force's actions, but based on open sources, the following picture emerges.
The Israelis primarily struck at Iran's head, eliminating its military leadership. A total of 30 Iranian generals, including senior commanders, were killed during the 12-day war, and it's likely that a significant number of them were caught in the initial strike. Simultaneously, the Israeli Air Force attacked Iranian air defenses, with priority targets being fixed air situational awareness radars and mobile anti-aircraft missile target acquisition radars. They also achieved some success in this, which Iran indirectly confirmed, as it subsequently replaced some of its radars with new ones.
By the second day of the operation, Iran's air defenses were suppressed. Not destroyed, of course—the point is that the Israelis suppressed them in the areas they intended to strike, not over the entire territory of the Islamic Republic of Iran. In effect, Israel achieved air superiority in the areas of Iran it needed to ensure the flight of its combat aircraft over these areas.
Then came strikes on nuclear facilities, military bases, airfields, missile depots, and surface-to-surface missile launchers, as well as military industrial facilities, including a missile component factory, an oil storage facility, gas and oil refineries, and so on. These strikes had been carried out from the very beginning of the Israeli air offensive, but after the suppression of Iran's air defenses, the number of such strikes apparently increased.
Today, one often reads a version of events that Israel never entered Iranian airspace at all, but launched strikes from afar, using long-range munitions, including cruise missiles. This version doesn't hold up to scrutiny, if only because the vast majority of Israel's long-range aerial munitions have a range of 250–300 km (LORA alone has a range of 400 or even 430 km).
So, to attack central Iran, Israeli aircraft would still have to enter its airspace. The Israelis themselves claimed that their aircraft were flying over Iran. For example, Air Force Commander Major General Tomer Bar reported on June 14, 2025, the second day of the attacks:
After a powerful day in which we attacked hundreds of targets, including dozens of anti-aircraft targets, we launched a wave of precision strikes of operational and national significance over the skies of Tehran, improving our air superiority and freedom of action in Iran. For the first time since the beginning of the war, dozens of IAF fighters flew over Tehran, more than 1500 kilometers from Israeli territory, and attacked defense systems in the Tehran area.
IDF Spokesman E. Defrin stated the same day that the IDF had secured freedom of operation in Iranian airspace from the western border to Tehran and that 70 Israeli Air Force fighter jets had taken part in operations over Iran.
But even ignoring the above, it is impossible to deny the fact that the American strike on Iran’s nuclear centers was carried out with GBU-57 guided bunker buster bombs, which have a maximum range of 40–50 km.
That is, a strike from outside Persian airspace was technically impossible.
Since the Israelis failed to achieve their most important goal—disabling Iran's nuclear program—they persuaded the Americans to join in. The US launched a strike with 14 GBU-57 and 30 Tomahawk missiles, dropping a dozen GBU-57s on the Frodo uranium enrichment plant and two on the Natanz facility. Seven B-2 Spirit strategic bombers conducted the air strike, but the total number of aircraft involved in Operation Midnight Hammer, including reconnaissance aircraft, refueling tankers, and multirole fighters escorting the Spirits, as well as those striking Iranian air defenses, exceeded 125. A significant number of these, of course, violated Iranian airspace.
At the same time, it's quite obvious that the Iranians couldn't help but provide air defense coverage for such important facilities as nuclear centers. Even after Israel's initial successes, it would have been surprising if the Iranian military hadn't attempted to redeploy surviving radars and air defense systems to protect them.
So what did Iran's air defense achieve? It achieved its first confirmed victory on the sixth day of combat operations: on June 18, an Israeli aircraft was shot down. UAV Hermes 900.
And this victory... was a deafening slap in the face for Iran's air defenses, as the massive (at least 8,3 meters long, with a 15,3-meter wingspan), slow-moving (cruising speed of 145 km/h) drone was shot down near Isfahan, practically in the center of Iran. It turns out that the Hermes 900 had been flying over Iran for several hours before being shot down, covering at least 400 kilometers in Iranian airspace.
In other words, the Israelis had suppressed Iran's air defenses to the point where a target that was quite easy to intercept could fly halfway across the country before being shot down. In light of this fact, stories that Israeli and American aircraft were afraid to enter Iranian airspace and used weapon from areas out of reach of Iranian air defense, so to speak, they began to shine with new colors.
And then what? Before the end of the fighting, the Iranians managed to shoot down another Hermes 900, and possibly another UAV of the same type, or an Eitan. In total, 2-3 UAVs, although it's possible that several more were shot down. As for the aircraft, it seems they didn't shoot down a single one—everything Iran presented as proof was clearly a botched AI hoax.
I anticipate indignant comments—why does the author only list Israeli air losses? Where are the losses from Tehran's missile strikes on the "Promised Land"?! How many shekels was the author paid for this article? And so on and so forth...
The answer is very simple. Yes, Israel's air offensive failed to achieve its stated objectives. Yes, Iran did not accept this flagrant violation of its sovereignty. Yes, the Iranian leadership, despite heavy losses in its ranks, responded militarily to Israel's unprovoked aggression—and that response was significant.
But all of this is beyond the scope of this article, as I'm examining the effectiveness of Iran's air defenses, and the missile and UAV strikes on Israel have nothing to do with Iran's air defenses. And the fact that Iran demonstrated ironclad resilience and managed to inflict some damage on Israel doesn't change the fact that Iran's air defenses have completely failed in their mission to protect Iranian skies.
War with the USA and Israel in 2026
So, in the clash with Israel, Iran's air defenses suffered a crushing defeat. However, they were far from destroyed, and they gained much-needed experience in modern warfare. Of course, this experience cost Iran dearly, but once the price had been paid, it would have been a sin not to take advantage of it.
The Twelve-Day War of 2025 ended on June 25, 2025, and the American operation "Operation Indescribable Folly"... sorry, "Operation Epic Fury" began on February 28, 2026. Iran had a full eight months to figure out what went wrong in June 2025 and refine its air defense tactics. Furthermore, according to some reports, Iran received a replenishment of its battle-worn materiel—specifically, the latest Chinese HQ-22 medium-range air defense systems.
However, when the US and Israel struck Iran again, its air defenses were able to do little more than nothing.
The United States attacked Iran on February 28, and a temporary ceasefire began on the night of April 8, 2026. During the 39 days of the operation, Iran's air defenses managed to shoot down two aircraft: an F-15E Strike Eagle and an A-10 Thunderbolt II.
Another aircraft, an F-35, was seriously damaged. And that, in fact, is the extent of Iran's air defense success in terms of manned aircraft.
Again, I foresee a lot of hats with earflaps flying at the author of this article. Where are the other American losses: the KC-135 Stratotanker, the E-3C Sentry AWACS, etc.? They're not on this list because these losses aren't the work of Iran's air defenses, and we're examining their effectiveness—and no one else's.
The UAV strikes were more successful. While the exact number of UAVs shot down by Iranian air defenses is difficult to determine, it could well reach or even exceed forty. For example, on April 9, the Americans reported that the total number of MQ-9 Reapers lost during Operation Epic Fury was 24. However, not all of them were shot down by Iranian air defenses. At least one Reaper was shot down by Iraqi militias, several were destroyed on the runway by an Iranian UAV strike, and so on. For example, on March 19, the Americans reported the loss of 12 MQ-9 Reapers since the beginning of hostilities, but according to their own data, Iranian air defenses shot down only nine of these dozen.
In general, it would not be wrong to assume that Iranian anti-aircraft gunners shot down about 20 American UAVs, as well as at least 15 Israeli UAVs and a couple of UAVs from the UAE or Saudi Arabia.
Why were the Iranians able to do anything against UAVs, but nothing against US and Israeli manned aircraft? The answer is very simple.
Firstly, UAVs are disproportionately inferior to manned aircraft in terms of air defense countermeasures. A modern multirole fighter has a radar warning system (RWS), so its pilot can quickly detect when it's being targeted by an air defense radar. It also has an electronic warfare system that can jam attacking missiles with active or semi-active seekers, as well as IR decoys. Finally, a multirole fighter is capable of performing anti-missile evasive maneuvers.
Well, the Israeli and American UAVs used in Iran had none of this. The MQ-9 Reaper, for example, has an onboard radar and a thermal imaging sight, allowing it to detect and attack ground targets, and under certain conditions, even airborne ones, but the SLO, EWIt has no decoys. However, the MQ-9 Reaper's design and thrust-to-weight ratio prevent it from performing anti-missile maneuvers. Even if they did, they would be useless, as anti-missile maneuvers require information about a missile attack, which such UAVs have no way of obtaining.
In general, when a fighter pilot discovers their aircraft has been targeted by a SAM radar and missiles have been launched at it, it's extremely unpleasant and very dangerous, but far from a death sentence. A drone operator, however, generally only learns of a missile attack when the drone they're piloting is destroyed.
Secondly, by deploying manned aircraft where Iranian air defenses are still operational, the US and Israel provide cover with air defense suppression forces. If an Iranian radar is detected, they immediately begin jamming it and use anti-radar missiles and other munitions against it. At the same time, UAVs do not always operate under the cover of manned aircraft. Moreover, given that the Americans entered the war with Iran expecting a police operation rather than full-scale combat, they simply did not concentrate a sufficient number of manned aircraft to accomplish the tasks they were assigned. As a result, it can be assumed that the Americans were forced to use UAVs instead of manned aircraft to perform tasks unsuitable for UAVs. This, of course, inevitably resulted in unnecessary losses of UAVs.
On the role of UAVs in light of the effectiveness of Iran and Ukraine's air defenses
Unfortunately, today we often encounter erroneous assumptions about the advent of the UAV era in military affairs. In short, the logic is this: the Air Defense Forces have demonstrated that aviation is incapable of penetrating modern air defense systems, and therefore aviation is obsolete. Many ground target destruction tasks previously assigned to aircraft are now performed by aircraft. drones, which have become widespread in both the Russian and Ukrainian armed forces. Iran, while lacking air superiority, nevertheless managed to force powers with immeasurably superior air power to negotiate. Moreover, it achieved this by using missile and drone strikes, which US air defenses proved incapable of countering.
This leads to the conclusion that a new wonder weapon has emerged—His Majesty the UAV, capable of defeating anyone. But is this true? Let's examine all the above theses in more detail:
Thesis: The Air Defense Forces have proven that aviation cannot achieve air superiority if the enemy has more or less modern air defense systems.
Answer: The only thing the SVO has proven is that the Russian Aerospace Forces cannot achieve air superiority, even when operating against obsolete air defense systems (and the youngest Ukrainian systems were over 30 years old on February 22, 2022), whose design is thoroughly known to our armed forces (since the Russian Armed Forces themselves once operated such systems) and whose tactics are completely understandable (since the air defense systems of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and the Russian Armed Forces have the same roots – the USSR).
At the same time, the US and Israeli air forces have repeatedly proven that achieving air superiority against a very powerful, modern, and layered enemy air defense is entirely possible. Their combat operations against Iran are another example.
Moreover, the Iranian experience has demonstrated that air superiority can only be achieved with the appropriate equipment and tactics. Iran's air defenses are adept at shooting down drones, which lack both, but have proven completely powerless against manned aircraft, which possess and are skilled in the use of all those reconnaissance aircraft, electronic warfare systems, AWACS, and so on.
Therefore, as sad as it is to admit, if the Russian Aerospace Forces were ordered to fight Iran with, say, 400 aircraft, selected at the discretion of our command, this air group would achieve roughly the same results as against the Ukrainian Air Force's air defenses. That is, almost nothing. Meanwhile, the US Air Force, having allocated 400 aircraft from its complement, would very quickly crush the Ukrainian Air Force's anti-aircraft gunners into the black soil of Ukraine.
Thesis: Modern air defense cannot effectively combat UAVs.
Answer: This thesis is absolutely correct. The reason is that anti-UAV missiles are many times (or even orders of magnitude) more expensive than the UAVs themselves. Therefore, UAV attacks can be so widespread that they overwhelm the capabilities of virtually any air defense system.
Thesis: UAVs are capable of performing reconnaissance and engaging ground targets, tasks that were previously performed by tactical aircraft.
Answer: This is a false conclusion. For example, during Desert Storm, American aircraft effectively isolated combat zones, impeding the delivery of supplies and the maneuvering of Iraqi troop units. Meanwhile, neither the Ukrainian Armed Forces nor the Russian Federation, despite their numerous UAVs, can demonstrate anything comparable. Even when the enemy is two-thirds encircled, our armed forces are usually unable to completely disrupt supply lines. This is extremely difficult, but possible. Further to the rear, the Ukrainian Armed Forces command easily removes units, up to several brigades, from some sectors of the front and redeploys them to others. Moreover, the Russian Armed Forces command is often unaware of the enemy's concentration of forces, which allows the Ukrainian Armed Forces to periodically launch surprise counterattacks.
Thesis: Air superiority is insignificant, or the US failed to achieve air superiority because it failed to "bomb" Iran out of the war. The US objectives in the operation against Iran were not achieved.
Answer: The US's failure in the war with Iran is not due to Iran's air defenses or air superiority, but to the US's appalling preparation for the conflict. Donald Trump truly didn't understand what he was getting into. He thought he could lightly bomb Iran with a few hundred planes, and the ayatollah regime would "beg him for a deal."
To be fair, it should be noted that Donald Trump had reason to believe this. He could have been misled by Iran's willingness to make peace in the 12-Day War, immediately after Israel and the United States expressed their desire to cease hostilities. He could also have been misled by Iran's purely formal military response to US aggression. In 2025, Iran attacked a US base not to harm the Americans, but to save face in front of the Iranian population. And the United States understood this perfectly well.
But in 2026, the Iranians, God bless them, took up the war in earnest.
And it immediately turned out that the forces concentrated against Iran were clearly insufficient to force the Iranian leadership to peace.
The air force deployed against Yugoslavia, which began the conflict with 350 aircraft, was quickly expanded to 1000. For Operation Desert Storm against Iraq, which was roughly twice the size of Yugoslavia, the US and its allies deployed approximately 2800 aircraft. In Iran, whose territory is almost four times larger than Iraq, they planned to make do with approximately 500 US and Israeli aircraft.
Moreover, in Desert Storm, the Americans had no intention of winning the war solely through air power. They concentrated numerous ground forces, which were then thrown into battle in the final phase of the operation. In other words, the air power of the multinational force was not intended to force Saddam Hussein to peace on its own; its only task was to weaken the Iraqi forces sufficiently to allow the ground forces to achieve their objectives with minimal losses.
An inadequate target and a completely insufficient force composition are why the US and Israeli air forces were unable to force Iran to peace, even though they had established air superiority.
Thesis: In their counter-attack on Iran and its cheap drones, the Americans have inflicted enormous damage on the US Air Force—the cost of the destroyed American aircraft has exceeded a billion dollars. This is an effective asymmetric response of air power—cheap and deadly drones!
Answer: Certainly, Iranian drones have inflicted significant damage on the Americans, but everything is relative. Israel has estimated the cost of a war with Iran in 2026 at $11,52 billion. The Americans are unlikely to be more. Iran, however, has estimated the damage from US and Israeli air attacks at $270 billion, even though this figure is crude and preliminary. Undoubtedly, drones are very good in terms of cost-effectiveness, but it cannot be ignored that Iran, waging a war with missiles and drones against air power, has suffered far more damage than it has managed to inflict on the aggressors.
Conclusions
They are very simple. UAVs have undoubtedly become a new word in military art. From now on and for a very long time, if not forever, armies incapable of using UAVs en masse will no longer be considered modern. To date, no effective countermeasures have yet been found against either battlefield UAVs or Geranium-type unmanned aerial vehicles aimed at striking the enemy's rear. In this regard, the Soviet Military District is truly highly instructive, and military operations will never be the same after it.
But despite all this, UAVs, even in the current conditions, when troops are just learning to fight them, cannot replace cruise missiles, manned aircraft, artillery, armored vehicles, etc. They perfectly complement all of the above and will undoubtedly become a decisive argument in a clash with an enemy possessing the same weapons, but without UAVs.
Thank you for attention!
P.S. "What are you writing, author!" some reader will exclaim upon reaching these lines: "Iran, with the help of its drones, managed to bring the world's leading power to the negotiating table!"
That's true, but not entirely. And if you think about it, it's not true at all.
The future is uncertain, but Iran is winning now—that's certain. But why?
Because he's not afraid to fight and fight back—with all the force he can muster, stopping at nothing, even though he's fighting a decidedly stronger enemy. The Persians were attacked by the United States—a country immeasurably superior to Iran in military power, possessing nuclear weapons, and truly capable of wiping Iran off the face of the earth. Scared? Iran couldn't care less.
Next. Iran has clashed with a clearly superior enemy, so what? At the same time, it's attacking other countries—the UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait, Jordan, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Qatar... It would be fine if the Iranians were only attacking US military bases in these countries. But no—they're also attacking factories and infrastructure, providing an excellent pretext for the Arab powers to enter the war.
What is Iran doing? The UAE Air Force alone, with its 79 F-16s and 68 Mirages, was superior to the Iranian Air Force in combat capability even before the Israeli and US strikes!
But, fighting against a clearly superior enemy, Iran is prepared to escalate. What is a war against just two modern powers—the United States, with its 250-year history, and infant Israel—for a civilization whose history, by the most conservative estimates, is 2500 years old? Just two states... Give me seven more!
No, even this seems a bit too small for the descendants of Darius. And Iran is closing the Strait of Hormuz, now stepping on a sore spot for the European Union as well—and this at a time when the US is directly pushing Europe into armed conflict with Iran. Trump unconvincing? Well, the ayatollahs are generous: there you have it, fellow Europeans, a fig instead of hydrocarbons and an excellent pretext for entering the war against Iran on the US side.
But if you think about it—what is this Iran? It's just a developing country, whose economy and military potential are frankly insignificant compared to the combined might of NATO and the Arab countries. Iran has no magic wand, no insurance, nothing at all... But it wasn't afraid to stand up, sword in hand, against half the world.
Iran wasn't cowardly, like, "Oh, I can't even stand up to the US; under no circumstances can we allow the formation of an international anti-Iranian coalition!" Iran's missiles and drones told the world, "Yes, you can destroy Iran. But be prepared to pay the real price!" Instead of frightening itself with the consequences of its actions, Iran acted. And through its actions, it left the entire world tormented by the thought: "Are we prepared to pay such a price to crush Iran?"
And the world... turned out to be unprepared—at least not yet. As unpleasant as rising oil and gas prices were for Europe, it didn't dare go to war with Iran. Whatever the financial losses the Arab countries had suffered, they were afraid of losing even more if the conflict escalated.
In other words, the Europeans didn't consider it feasible to go to war with an enemy that, although inferior in weaponry and technology, was willing to fight. With what it had. If only the Europeans had been the only ones... The US, faced with the prospect of not just a police operation but a full-blown war at full force, began looking for ways to back down while, if possible, preserving face. Because the US, of course, could seriously engage Iran, put pressure on its allies, deploy its air force to the region, bringing its total to about 1,500 aircraft, deploy another five or so strike groups, redeploy ground forces to Iraq, and so on and so forth.
But they didn't expect to do this, and they absolutely don't want to. Yes, the US is certainly capable of it. But they don't want to expend the manpower, bear the financial costs of deploying and using troops, or lose personnel for a war that most Americans simply don't consider theirs and don't understand why it's necessary.
And here, of course, interesting parallels arise.
Iran wasn't afraid to strike countries that, while not directly at war with it, were indirectly involved in the conflict by providing territory for US forces. The Russian Federation didn't consider this feasible. Because a strike on NATO territory could be considered aggression against the entire bloc, because NATO could declare war, because the war could escalate into a nuclear war... I can only assume that the risks of striking the logistics hubs through which arms were flowing to Ukraine were deemed excessive.
But here's the interesting part: what would have happened if the Russian Federation's leadership, instead of assessing the risks to Russia, had launched a strike on the territory of Poland and other countries assisting Ukraine? What if the Russian Armed Forces had started shooting down planes and sinking ships carrying military aid to Zelenskyy and Co.? What if our country, like Iran today, hadn't calculated the consequences of its actions but had carried them out, forcing NATO to calculate the risks of its decisions? After which, not the Russian leadership, but the US and the West would be faced with the question: are they ready to continue? Are they ready to attack a nuclear power capable of wiping out any single European country or driving the US back to the Stone Age in 25-40 minutes?
For me personally, the answer is now completely obvious. And it's precisely here that lies the reason why Iran forced the US to back down in just over a month, while another country, having expended an order of magnitude more missiles and drones, has been unable to bring Ukraine to the negotiating table for five years.
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