Operation “Cutter” and gold bars: How Iran became the hub of Russian espionage in the Middle East

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Russia leaps into Iran’s embrace

Relations between the Russian and Iranian dictatorships had been developing for years, but Moscow remained cautious about accelerating this rapprochement, wary of straining ties with Israel. That changed after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, when Russia found itself isolated by sanctions and struggling to overcome an arms shortage. In July 2022, Putin personally traveled to Iran, his only trip beyond the post-Soviet space since the war began. After that visit, an array of Russian intelligence services — the GRU, the SVR, and the FSB’s Fifth Service — dramatically increased their engagement with Iran, as reflected in the spike in flights. This escalation was not merely a question of quantity, but also of significance: Iran began receiving high-profile delegations led by senior Russian generals. On Oct. 1, 2022, a delegation led by GRU Deputy Chief General Sergey Afanasyev arrived in Tehran. It was Afanasyev’s first trip to the country, but from that point forward, he began visiting every few months. Accompanying him was General Andrey Averyanov, the infamous head of military unit 29155, notorious for overseeing operations in which his operatives poisoned Sergei Skripal and Emilian Gebrev with Novichok, blew up military depots in the Czech Republic and Bulgaria, and used microwave weapons against American diplomats. Averyanov now oversees Russia’s operations in Africa and the Middle East falling under the GRU’s 4th Directorate. The third member of the delegation was a GRU officer and former resident in Dushanbe, traveling under the alias Alexey Sorokin. The details of their discussions remain unknown, but by November, a Russian delegation from Tatarstan had already visited a secret Iranian plant involved in assembling combat drones.

Information about Iran’s drone program came to light thanks to hackers from the Iranian opposition group PRANA Network, who posted secret correspondence between Russian and Iranian interests online. The messages in question show the relationship between Sahara Thunder, a subsidiary of Iran’s Ministry of Defense that supplies drones, and Russian recipients from Tatarstan. As a result of negotiations between the parties, an agreement was reached regarding the training of Russian specialists in Iran and the supply of components for drone assembly in Russia at a plant in Alabuga. To maintain secrecy, drones were referred to as “cutters,” while Iran was code-named “Belarus.” On the Russian side, the deal involved JSC Alabuga Special Economic Zone for industrial production, represented by its general director Timur Shagivaleev, and LLC Alabuga Machinery, represented by Nikolay Aftapov. Iran was represented by Sahara Thunder’s general director Hossein Bakhshayesh, who according to the U.S. Treasury Department has been circumventing sanctions while trading with Venezuela, India, and China, leading to Bakhshayesh himself being placed on the sanctions list.

Leaked correspondence from the hackers reveals that part of the drone supply deal was disguised as repayment of a supposed $104 million debt owed by Alabuga Machinery to Sahara Thunder. The payment, however, was not made in currency, but in gold bars.

In November 2024, the EU imposed sanctions on Russian shipping companies operating in the Caspian Sea over their role in transporting Iranian drones and missiles to Russia. Previously, these companies had transported cars, aircraft parts, fruits, and nuts from Iran, generating modest revenues. However, in 2023, their earnings suddenly surged by 75–80%.

It is clear that the drone program was only one part of the negotiations, as high-ranking GRU officers continued their frequent trips. These included Andrey Fyodorov, head of GRU strategic intelligence and a former officer in Morocco, as well as Ivan Kasyanenko, Averyanov’s deputy, who had overseen terrorist operations against American citizens, among others.

And it wasn’t just GRU leadership traveling to Iran. Then-Secretary of the Security Council Nikolai Patrushev visited, with his November 2022 trip even having been officially acknowledged, albeit without details. Top FSB officials — including Sergey Beseda, then still head of the Fifth Service, along with his colleagues Vladimir Bogdanov and Roman Manakov — also made the journey. The strengthening of intelligence ties was openly recognized by SVR chief Sergey Naryshkin: “We have extensive cooperation with our Iranian colleagues. Several intelligence agencies are our partners; the work has been structured and has promising prospects.”

Overseer in Iran

Two sources within the intelligence services confirmed to The Insider that the GRU residency in Tehran is headed by Colonel Igor Dyomkin, who operates under the cover of an embassy advisor on scientific affairs. There is little doubt about Dyomkin’s connection to the GRU — he studied at the GRU’s Military Diplomatic Academy, and his family was registered in a GRU dormitory on Volokolamsky Proyezd in Moscow.

According to a diplomatic source in the Russian embassy, Dyomkin “constantly shuttles between Tehran, the Iranian Air Force base in Hamadan, and the Amirabad port, from where drone components and Fateh and Fath missiles are shipped to Russia.” Previously, Dyomkin was seconded to the Ministry of Economic Development and made multiple trips to Iran, occasionally appearing in media photographs, which show him welcoming Putin at the airport in Tehran alongside Igor Sechin, in place on the presidium at the Russia-Iran Business Council, seated in a cockpit at an Iranian air show, and attending a scientific conference titled “From the Caspian to the Persian Gulf: In the Footsteps of Afanasy Nikitin.”

According to the source, Dyomkin has a private office inside the embassy with strictly restricted access, as well as a summer residence in Tehran’s Zargandeh district. Until Oct. 26, 2024, when the Israeli Air Force launched retaliatory airstrikes on Iranian military targets, the embassy boasted around 200 staff members, but following the escalation in Middle Eastern tensions, the Russian diplomatic facility became noticeably less populated.

“A posting in Iran is basically considered a form of exile,” said an embassy technical staffer who requested anonymity. “The Islamic dress codes are everywhere, the city is heavily polluted, beaches are segregated by gender, there’s nowhere to go, and alcohol is banned. Some supplies are stashed away by our FSB guy [Eduard Evenko of the FSB’s Fifth Service — The Insider] and by ‘Padre Aidar’ — that’s what we call our priest, Father Alexander, whose real name is Aidar. We also sneak out to buy homemade wine from local vendors, but we’ve had cases of poisoning and run-ins with the local police.”

Not just traders

Under the command of GRU resident Igor Dyomkin are four GRU officers from the military attaché staff: Colonel Dmitry Kuvshinov (who arrived in Tehran in 2020), Colonel Yevgeny Belokonev, and two lieutenant colonels — Maksim Kutsenko and Yuliy Deryabin. The latter graduated from the Military Academy of Air Defense Forces and co-authored a patent for a “Radar Station with Inverse Aperture Synthesis and Two-Level Neural Network Target Recognition.” Since August 2023, Deryabin has been advising the Iranians on air defense systems, though judging by Israel’s ability to carry out airstrikes on Iran without sustaining losses, the GRU officer’s advice has yet to prove particularly effective.

Dyomkin is frequently seen in the company of Vladimir Obydenov, an honorary representative of the Russian Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Iran, along with Obydenov’s deputy, Vyacheslav Yuvachev. In Moscow, Obydenov and Yuvachev are regular visitors to the office of Mir Business Bank’s general director, Mohammad Hazzar, who was involved in the “gold-for-drones” deal that supplied Russian with combat UAVs. Both Russians present themselves as businessmen and customs clearance specialists. However, Colonel (Ret.) Obydenov actually graduated from the Rostov Higher Military Command and Engineering School of Strategic Missile Forces named after M.I. Nedelin and served in the GRU until 2003.

Obydenov’s deputy Yuvachev is also a former missile officer and a graduate of the Serpukhov Higher Military Command and Engineering School of Strategic Missile Forces. He holds leadership positions in Antares-Trading LLC and Impulse LLC, both of which are engaged in scientific research and development in natural and technical sciences. He also has ties to Sea South Logistics LLC, whose revenue skyrocketed sevenfold in 2023, reaching 307 million rubles (around $3.4 million). The Insider reached out to Obydenov for comment. He did not respond.