During the current war with Iran, Israel has been conducting a large-scale systematic effort to degrade the Iranian regime’s structures, in particular its apparatus of repression.
While the United States has focused on diminishing Iran’s military and other material assets, Israel has been also working specifically on creating conditions for a possible successful uprising by the Iranian people against the regime.
Israeli air and drone strikes have reportedly been “chasing security forces from their headquarters to muster points then on to hide-outs under bridges in an effort to disrupt their activity and show Iranians that the enforcers are being taken out.” At the same time, “Israeli intelligence officials began placing calls to individual commanders, threatening them and their families by name if they didn’t stand aside in the event of an uprising.”
In the week of 9-15 March 2026, “Israel’s air force began operating fleets of loitering drones above Tehran and other areas of Iran, shifting its focus from command centers to individual Basij checkpoints and roadblocks.”
Efforts Category: Israel’s Military Force against the Iranian regime
The WSJ reported on 17 May 2026 that “Russia has been expanding its intelligence sharing and military cooperation with Iran, providing satellite imagery and improved drone technology to aid Tehran’s targeting of U.S. forces in the region.”
The technology provided by Russia to Iran “includes components of modified Shahed drones, which are meant to improve communication, navigation and targeting.” Russia has been “drawing on its experience using drones in Ukraine, offering tactical guidance on how many drones should be used in operations and what altitudes they should strike from.”
Russia has also been “providing Iran with the locations of U.S. military forces in the Middle East as well as those of its regional allies.” Moscow’s aid “is believed to have helped Iran with recent strikes on U.S. radar systems in the region,” including US targets in Jordan, Bahrain, Kuwait and Oman.
Efforts Category: Russia’s Military Support of Iran
On 17 March 2026, Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy stated that “right now, there are 201 Ukrainians in the Middle East and the Gulf region,” with another 34 “ready to deploy.”
Zelenskyy said the Ukrainians deployed to help defend against Iran’s strikes were “in the Emirates, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and on the way to Kuwait,“ being “military experts, experts who know how to help, how to defend against ‘shahed’ drones.”
Efforts Category: Ukraine’s Military Support of the Gulf countries
Modern Great Game Watch 