Instead, they send all their inventory north so that Moscow can spend less money to blow up shopping centers and school houses. Meanwhile, the Iranians lose a credible deterrent.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HESA_Shahed_136#Operators:
> According to leaked documents, the provenance of which are unclear, the Russian military in 2022 paid $1.75 billion in gold bullion for the import of 6,000 Shahed 136 units.[157] These documents state that with near full Russian localization, the projected cost is $48,800 per unit.[158] Based on these documents, Anton Gerashchenko stated the cost of each Shahed 136 was believed to be $193,000 per unit when ordering 6,000 drones and about $290,000 per unit when ordering 2,000.[3]
I don't think 300 would have mattered. According to this (https://isis-online.org/isis-reports/monthly-analysis-of-rus...), that's like a day or two of launches:
> In January, the trend toward saturation and even a gradual decrease in the number of launches of Shahed-type UAVs, which had been observed since the beginning of autumn, continued. Specifically, 4442 Shahed-type drones were launched in January, of which 2915 were designated as Shahed/Geran strike drones, and the remaining drones were categorized as decoy drones. This is the lowest figure recorded since the onset of autumn. The mean frequency of Shahed-type UAV launches in January, including decoys, was approximately 143 per day. This figure is lower than the average number of Shahed drone launches during the summer and fall of 2025, which was 175 UAVs per day, with a peak in July, when the average was 203 drones per day (see Fig. 1 and Table 1). Although there were no mass attacks involving 450 or more UAVs per attack in January 2026, as in previous months, January 2026 was notable for the use of large numbers of various types of missiles in combination with strike UAVs against Ukraine's energy infrastructure.
> The funniest thing about this is how colossally Russia screwed Iran. Iran sent over thousands of drones and dozens of drone pilots for use in Ukraine....
> Instead, they send all their inventory north so that Moscow can spend less money to blow up shopping centers and school houses. Meanwhile, the Iranians lose a credible deterrent.
Russia screwed them, but not in the way you describe. It seems like Iran wished Russia had bought more:
https://www.jpost.com/international/article-863703:
> Russia and Iran signed a $1.75 billion deal in 2023 so that Russia could domestically produce Iran's Shahed-136 drones, but two years later, Western security officials say Tehran feels abandoned after Moscow began improving the model and producing it for cheaper, CNN reported on Friday.
> Russia has heavily relied on the Shahed-136 drones in its war on Ukraine, and now has localized nearly 90% of production, much to Iran’s surprise.
> Sources who spoke to CNN said that they believe that this has made Iran feel like it has had little return on the deal after it supported war, leading to a rift between Tehran and Moscow.
> “This evolution marks a gradual loss of control for Iran over the final product, which is now largely manufactured locally and independently,” a Western intelligence source told CNN.
> The source explained that Moscow’s goal was to “fully master the production cycle and free itself from future negotiations with Tehran.”
Iran gave away that capability.