"In early September 2022, as Ukrainian troops pressed forward through Russian lines near the eastern city of Kharkiv, they encountered a new weapon deployed by the Russian military. The low-flying object was shot down by Ukrainian forces as it headed toward their position. In the wreckage, they discovered something they had been anticipating for months: an Iranian Shahed-136 drone. American officials had warned that Iran had been delivering loitering munitions to Russia since the summer, and the weapons were finally being used on the battlefield. Within weeks, hundreds of Iranian drones swarmed across Ukrainian skies, overwhelming air defenses and striking critical civilian infrastructure with destructive precision. A dispatch of military specialists from the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), Iran's preeminent military force, deployed to occupied Crimea to aid Russian counterparts in drone operations, which also included the use of Shahed-131 and Mohajer-6 variants. With Iran's assistance, Russia concentrated drone attacks against Ukraine's electrical grid, destroying a third of the county's power stations by late October, and dooming millions of Ukrainian civilians to darkness and cold"--