US sanctions Ukrainian firms for selling drone parts to Iran

Kiev has repeatedly accused Tehran of supplying UAVs to Moscow during the conflict

The US Treasury Department has said it is blacklisting two Ukrainian companies for providing key drone components to a state-run UAV producer in Iran.

The move came as part of a wider sanctions package aimed at disrupting what the agency called Tehran’s “transnational missile and UAV procurement networks.” It targeted 32 entities and individuals in Iran, the UAE, Türkiye, China, India, Germany and Ukraine.

The Treasury accused Ukrainian-based firms GK Imperativ and Ekofera of being fronts for Iranian procurement agents facilitating the supply of parts to Iran Aircraft Manufacturing Industrial Company (HESA). HESA is known as the designer and producer of the Shahed-131 and Shahed-136 long-range loitering munitions. It has been under US sanctions since 2008.

The equipment shipped to Iran via the two Ukrainian firms included alternator components, engines, attitude indicators, sensors and other parts, according to the Treasury.

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Three Iranian nationals allegedly working with GK Imperativ and Ekofera, were also slapped with sanctions, the department announced on Wednesday.

According to Business Insider, GK Imperativ was established in the city of Kharkov in northeastern Ukraine in 2018. Ekofera, which has been around since 2016, has offices in Kharkov and in Kiev.

Throughout the Ukraine conflict, the nation’s authorities have said that Geran-2 drones, which have been widely used by Russia in strikes against military-related infrastructure, are actually Iranian-made Shaheds. Vladimir Zelensky has said that Tehran is on “the dark side of history” and repeatedly called on it to stop deliveries of UAVs to Moscow.

Both Russia and Iran have denied those allegations, with Tehran calling them “anti-Iranian propaganda” aimed solely at attracting more Western military aid to Kiev.

The Russian Defense Ministry insists that its Geran-2 drones are domestically produced, along with all the other hardware it relies on in the Ukraine conflict.

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The Iranian Foreign Ministry only confirmed sending a small batch of drones to Russia before the escalation between Moscow and Kiev in February 2022, stressing that no new deliveries have taken place since then.