MOSCOW, August 18. /TASS/. Iran has destroyed 45 out of the 338 existing US-made MQ-9 Reaper drones, thereby showing the low efficiency of these expensive unmanned aerial vehicles, Alexander Stepanov, a military expert at the Institute of Law and National Security at the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), told TASS.

"A total of 338 MQ-9 Reapers have been produced since 2007. To date, nearly one-third have been lost in combat operations, 45 of them in the Iranian theater of operations. We can see that, by and large, these expensive drones cannot reliably retain their effectiveness during combat missions. They are quite vulnerable, including to the air defense systems currently in service with Iran.

"This suggests that, against a better-equipped adversary, these drones are basically ineffective," he said.

According to the expert, the fact that such a large number of these drones were destroyed is primarily of strategic significance, as it calls into question the feasibility of producing expensive strike and reconnaissance drones. In his view, the current situation has demonstrated the impracticality of using such systems in real combat conditions and may serve as a lesson for representatives of the US defense industry.