Elite Iranian troops have secretly entered the Ukraine frontline to help Russia’s horror blitz, The Daily Mirror can reveal.
Up to 50 Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps specialists have been deployed to train Moscow’s forces in how to operate “Kamikaze drones.”
They were sent to the southern and eastern front with hundreds of Shahed-136 drones which have been hammering Ukrainian cities.
And in some attacks they are suspected of having controlled the flight path and targeting by the Shahed-136 drone teams.
It comes amid growing concerns in the Kremlin that President Vladimir Putin’s brutal war machine is failing and running out of missiles.
Ukrainian artillery and drone teams have recently destroyed one Shahed-136 base in southern Ukraine, according to Kyiv sources.
Putin’s senior commanders signed up the IRGC troops despite repeated denials from the Iranian regime that they are involved.
They have been based in Dzankoi in Crimea and Kherson in the south, where one IRGC team has already been destroyed.
One Ukrainian military source told the Daily Mirror: “At least one of the Iranian training teams has been hit recently and they are actively being hunted down.
“We have been concerned for some time that IRGC specialists are helping Russia in their terrible attacks on civilians and they are of course being targeted.”
The Shahed-136 drones are 11ft-long, can travel at 100mph and carry am explosive warhead in the nose which can be devastating when fired.
These systems can also be carried on the back of a fast moving vehicle so launch sites can be swiftly changed after opening fire.
Dozens have been shot down by Ukrainian air-defence units but there is a race against time to get state-of-the-art UK and American defences to Kyiv’s troops.
Tonight Ukraine’s air defence teams were again fighting to shoot down missiles and suspected drones fired in Kherson.
Russia is failing to hold back a stunning Ukraine counter-offensive in the east and south - retaking 600 settlements in just a month, 75 of them in Kherson.
Part-destruction of Putin’s Kerch Strait bridge linking annexed Crimea to Russia has seriously hammered supply links to Russian forces in the south.
Russia’s hold in Kherson is weakening by the day although members of the Moscow-backed mercenary unit the Wagner Group have made advances.
British sources revealed the villages of Optyine and Ivangrad have been taken by Russian troops and local separatists militia.
One source said: “There have been few if any other settlements seized by regular Russian forces or separatists forces since early July.”
Russian-imposed officials in Kherson have appealed to civilians to flee the area as Ukrainian troops advance, in a bid to discredit Ukraine’s counter-offensive.
Kherson city is the only major urban site that Russia has continually occupied since invading in February and controls the land route to Crimea, which was seized in 2014.
Since the beginning of October Ukrainian forces have broken through Russia’s front lines all along the eastern and southern front.
Despite Moscow’s dwindling missile stocks and repeated Ukrainian destruction of ammo dumps Russia this week launched the biggest air strikes since the war started.
More than 100 cruise missile were fired into Ukraine, killing dozens and wounding many more, prompting the UK and US to send out more air defence systems.
On Ukraine’s northern border Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko claimed on Friday he was putting his country on alert.
He has done this on the false pretext that Ukraine or NATO might be a threat to Belarus and to justify Russia and Belarus forces linking up near the border.
He said: "In connection with the escalation of tension, a regime of heightened terrorist danger has been introduced.
"Therefore we began a procedure with the Union group of forces, the basis of which, as I already said, is the Belarusian army, which will be supplemented by units from the Russian Federation. Everything is going according to plan."
Belarus depends on Russia politically and economically, and Putin's support helped Lukashenko survive mass pro-democracy protests in 2020. Lukashenko crushed the demonstrations and all leading opposition figures have been jailed or forced to flee abroad.