From a new leak about military cooperation between Moscow and Tehran, published in early February by hackers from Prana Network after hacking the mail servers of the local company Sahara Thunder, it became known that Iran can buy balloons from the Russian Federation that can be used for espionage .
Medusa journalists came to this conclusion after studying these archives in detail.
Hacking Sahara Thunder servers
Sahara Thunder is described as a so-called gasket associated with the Iranian Ministry of Defense and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. On February 4, hackers announced that its mail servers had been hacked.
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Information about the exchange of military technologies between Iran and the Russian Federation, in particular about kamikaze drones, has leaked online. But they also found evidence that the Iranians were buying balloons from the Russians that were similar to the Chinese balloon shot down over the United States.
What is Damavand
In the Sahara Thunder correspondence, 17 email addresses were found from the Russian company Vneshtekhsnab, specializing in the export of equipment.
The letters discuss the supply of products to Iran Dolgoprudny Automation Design Bureau (DKBA), which is engaged in the development and creation of airships, balloons, as well as special-purpose systems.
The balloon-related project in Iran was called Demavend — in honor of a dormant volcano in the north of the country.
It also became known that Sahara Thunder is headed by the full namesake of Kazem Mirza Kondori, once an attaché of the Iranian Embassy in China, and in the copy of most of the letters that he exchanged with Vneshtekhsnab, there is an email that, according to leaked data, may belong to the attaché of the Iranian Embassy in Moscow.
Correspondence between the companies began on November 11, 2020. There, in particular, the procedure for obtaining permits to export dozens of items of equipment is discussed, including — weather station of the on-board balloon, controllable barovalve, balloon signal light (ASO), berth of the bow balloon, workstation – control panel and helium cylinders weighing 16,600 kg.
On the DKBA website, all these positions are mentioned as components of an unmanned airship or balloon. Such a device, using video and radio surveillance systems, can monitor the operational situation in real time.< /strong>
According to correspondence, the first deliveries were in December 2021, and then in the spring of 2022, after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
True, just a year later, in April 2023, Vneshtekhsnab had problems with supplies due to tightening export rules. And the latest deliveries date back to September last year.
What exactly the Iranian Damavand project is intended for is not stated in the leaked documents. Vneshtekhsnab itself does not know the details.
