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Max Hopp im Achtelfinale der PDC Challenge Tour 5

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Ergebnisse PDC Challenge Tour 5

Glen Durrant lobt Luke Littler: "Wir machen etwas Besonderes durch und müssen es genießen"

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Tournament Center Nordic Darts Masters 2024: Spielplan, alle Ergebnisse, Übertragungszeiten und Preisgeldübersicht

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"Jeffrey de Graaf war nichtsdestotrotz der härteste Gegner, den ich hätte ziehen können" - Beeindruckender Rob Cross auf Jagd nach zweitem World Series Titel in Folge

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Spielplan Freitagabend Nordic Darts Masters 2024 mit Humphries, Price und Wright

Aktuelle kommentare.

• Sh 29-05-2024 Leere "Drohungen" wie so oft von Price. Ist eingeschnappt weil er keine Leistung erreicht hat. Lasst das Kleinkind schreien
• VioSan7070 28-04-2024 Prima. Danke. Alles gut.

• VioSan7070 26-04-2024 "Der 17-jährige Engländer brachte es auf 31 Punkte und ein Platz in der Runde der letzten Vier ist sehr unwahrscheinlich." Da ist wohl eher "wahrscheinlich" gemeint, oder :-)
• Sandrine 24-04-2024 Die Austrian Darts Open ohne Mensur - sie werden nicht mehr das sein, was sie mal waren...

The Pro Tour

The PDC Pro Tour is the bread and butter of any player in the PDC. Floor tournaments played behind closed doors that the ranking are build from.

The PDC Pro Tour is a series of darts tournaments organised annually by the PDC. The Pro Tour events are unique in that they are non-televised events and they comprise Professional Dart Players Association (PDPA) Players Championships, UK Open qualifiers and European Tour events.

The PDC began operating a Tour Card system in 2011, with there being a total of 128 players awarded Tour Cards every year. These allow players to participate in all Players Championship and UK Open qualifiers. There has been a particular increase of Players Championship events over recent years, all of which see players aim to qualify for the Players Championship Finals. These events are known within the sport as floor tournaments, with multiple boards featuring games taking place at one time. 

As of today, the PDC awards players Tour Cards through the following requirements:

• Top 64 players from the PDC Order of Merit after the World Championship (having competed in at least ten events)
• Tour Card holders from previous year’s Qualifying School
• Four tour card holders from previous year’s invitations (PDC Challenge Tour & PDC Development Tour)
• Two highest qualifiers from the PDC Challenge Tour, a series of tournaments for non-Tour Card holders
• Two highest qualifiers from the PDC Development Tour, a series of tournaments for youth players
• At least 16 qualifiers from a four-day Qualifying School (more places will be awarded via this method if not all the above spaces are filled)

PDPA (Professional Dart Players Association) players can only enter Pro Tour tournaments through the PDC’s online entry system. Those who are not a PDPA player must submit their entries through the local event organiser. 

UK Players Championship events feature a 128-player draw, but those events which feature fewer than 128 entries will see byes awarded to players via their seeding. Seedings for these events are decided by the one-year rolling Players Championship Order of Merit, which is determined by the prize money won in Players Championships events over the 12 months before that event. Tour Card holders must pay a £100 entry fee to all Players Championship events.

Prize money won by players in the Pro Tour also contributes directly to their overall ranking in the PDC Order of Merit, which decides seedings in a number of PDC ranking tournaments . Players can also earn automatic qualifying places in major tournaments such as the World Championship, World Matchplay and World Grand Prix through their prize money earned. As such, players performances in events on the Pro Tour can have a direct correlation on their success in the televised ranking events. 

Players win the following amount of prize money for their success in Pro Tour events:

• Winner – £10,000
• Runner-Up – £6,000
• Semi-Finals – £3,000
• Quarter-Finals – £2,250
• Last 16 – £1,500
• Last 32 – £1,000
• Last 64 – £500

In the history of PDC Pro Tour events, no player has won more titles than Michael van Gerwen, who has 75 to his name. He sits just above Phil Taylor in the list of Pro Tour victories, who won 70 Pro Tour tournaments during his esteemed career, while Gary Anderson sits in third place with 30 victories. 

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Field for 2024 Baltic Sea Darts Open led by Van Gerwen, Anderson, Humphries and Littler

From May 10 to 12, 48 players will compete for the final victory at the 2024 Baltic Sea Darts Open . The sixth Euro Tour tournament of the year will take place at the Wunderino Arena in Kiel.

The top-16 on the seeded list will enter the Baltic Sea Darts Open from the second round. Michael van Gerwen, Luke Humphries, Gerwyn Price, Gary Anderson and Peter Wright will therefore only play their first match in Kiel on Saturday

The remaining 32 participants will play in the first round on Friday. Nathan Aspinall, Joe Cullen, Chris Dobey, Luke Littler and James Wade are among the leading lights through this route.

TV Guide: How to watch the 2024 Baltic Sea Darts Open

Baltic sea darts open 2024 participant field.

Top-16 seeded players

1. Dave Chisnall

2. Damon Heta

3. Luke Humphries

4. Gerwyn Price

5. Rob Cross

6. Jonny Clayton

7. Michael van Gerwen

8. Gary Anderson

9. Josh Rock

10. Dirk van Duijvenbode

11. Ryan Searle

12. Danny Noppert

13. Peter Wright

14. Ricardo Pietreczko

15. Stephen Bunting

16. Ross Smith

Order of Merit Qualifiers

Nathan Aspinall

Dimitri Van den Bergh

Chris Dobey

Krzysztof Ratajski

Daryl Gurney

Andrew Gilding

Raymond van Barneveld

Gian van Veen

Martin Schindler

José de Sousa

Brendan Dolan

Luke Littler

Gabriel Clemens

Tour Card Qualifiers

Matthew Dennant

Mike De Decker

Madars Razma

Wessel Nijman

Ritchie Edhouse

Maik Kuivenhoven

Niels Zonneveld

Thibault Tricole

Andy Baetens

Haupai Puha

Host Nation Qualifiers

Moritz Hilger

Franz Rötzsch

Kevin Troppmann

Christopher Toonders

Nordic & Baltic Qualifier .

Daniel Larsson

East European Qualifier

Sebastian Białecki

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Sat 08 Jun 2024

‘A Gentleman in Moscow’s’ 20 Emmy Submissions: Ewan McGregor, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Sam Miller’s Directing Episode and More (EXCLUSIVE)

By Clayton Davis

Clayton Davis

Senior Awards Editor

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As Paramount’s British series “ A Gentleman in Moscow ” hopes to break into the highly competitive limited series races, the show has submitted for 20 Primetime Emmys , including lead actor for star Ewan McGregor and supporting actress for Mary Elizabeth Winstead .

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McGregor has garnered five Emmy nominations throughout his career across multiple categories. Along with his lead actor (limited) win in 2021 for “Halston,” he’s been nominated in the same category for the anthology “Fargo” in 2017, in addition to guest drama actor for “ER,” narrator for “Highlands: Scotland’s Wild Heart” and as an executive producer last year for “Obi-Wan Kenobi.”

Speaking to Variety about his prolific career in Hollywood , McGregor said, “I love making movies. I always dreamed of being a movie star. Then I was in movies. Every time I would sit there at the premiere, I couldn’t believe I was up there [on screen]. I still have that, I guess, but I don’t know what it means exactly.”

Winstead, who’s married to McGregor, also spoke candidly regarding the long search for a project for them to work on together after FX’s anthology crime series “Fargo” in 2018, saying, “I really didn’t expect it to be as great of a role as it ended up being. I just felt so lucky.”

The full list of submissions for “A Gentleman in Moscow” is below.

Read : All Primetime Emmy predictions in every category on  Variety’s  Awards Circuit .

• Outstanding Limited or Anthology Series
• Lead Actor in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie — Ewan McGregor
• Supporting Actor in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie — Fehinti Balogun, Johnny Harris
• Supporting Actress in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie — Mary Elizabeth Winstead
• Directing for a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie — 101: “A Master of Circumstance” (Sam Miller)
• Writing for a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie — 101: “A Master of Circumstance” (Ben Vanstone)
• Cinematography for a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie — 101: “A Master of Circumstance”: (Adam Gillham)
• Casting for a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie — Julia Harkin and Nathan Toth
• Picture Editing for a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie — 101: “A Master of Circumstance” (Tim Murrell, Editor; 102 – “An Invitation”: Sofie Alonzi, Editor)
• Music Composition for a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie or Special (Original Dramatic Score) — 108: “Adieu”: (Federico Jusid, Music by)
• Main Title Theme Music — Federico Jusid, Music by
• Main Title Design — Matt Curtis, Designer; Søren Bonke, Animator/Compositor; Stuart Pitcher, Animator/Compositor
• Sound Editing for a Limited or Anthology Series, Movie or Special — 101: “A Master of Circumstance” (Jim Goddard, Supervising Sound Editor, Ian Wilkinson, Dialogue Editor, Sarah Elias, Tom Stewart, Sound Effects Editors, Anna Wright, Foley Artist, Conor Thompson, Foley Editor, Jack Sugden, Music Editor)
• Sound Mixing for a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie — 101: “A Master of Circumstance” (Stuart Hilliker, Re-Recording Mixer, Jim Mulhearn, Production Mixer)
• Production Design for a Narrative Period or Fantasy Program (One Hour or More) — 105: “An Arrival” (Victor Molero, Production Designer, Ussal Kalyoncu Smithers, Set Decorator, Christopher Guy Evans, Art Director)
• Music Supervision — 101: “A Master of Circumstance” (Zoë Ellen Bryant, Pete Saville, Music Supervisors)
• Period Costumes — 102: “An Invitation” (Sam Perry, Costume Designer, Sarah Harrison, Costume Supervisor, Katie Broome, Assistant Costume Designer)
• Period or Fantasy/Sci-Fi Makeup (Non-Prosthetic) — 102: “An Invitation” (Jacqueline Fowler, Department Head Makeup Artist, Sue Newbould, Co-Department Head Makeup Artist, Laura Hartney, Personal Makeup Artist, Kirstie Lavin, Mark English, Key Makeup Artists)
• Special Visual Effects in a Single Episode — 101: “A Master of Circumstance” (Tim Zaccheo, Max Wright, VFX Supervisors, Joe Cork, 2D Supervisor, Lucy Beavis, VFX Producer, Harry Hamblin, VFX Editor, Alex Jevon, Rasik Gorecha, Gustaf Nilsson, VFX Artists, Rob Rowley, SFX Supervisor)

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After turning pro Monday, Max Moldovan enjoys stress-free Thursday at Memorial Tournament

Maxwell Moldovan joined the gravy train Monday. Three days later his first round as a professional golfer was all gravy.

The freshly-minted Ohio State graduate enjoyed a stress-free opening round at the Memorial Tournament Thursday. No pressure. No clenching over a 5-foot downhill putt. No even keeping score. Not officially, anyway.

Moldovan played as a non-competing marker, meaning his score did not count. Markers are used when the field is an uneven number – the Memorial field is 73 – and they keep their playing partner’s scorecard and provide pace for the field. 

The 21-year-old went out with Davis Thompson in the first twosome and figured he shot 4 or 5-over-par. He can’t be sure because he was asked by Thompson’s caddie to pick up on the third hole after he found water off the tee.   

“Not really any nerves, because it didn’t really matter what I shot,” he said. 

Moldovan turned pro on Monday after an impressive college career in which he finished with the lowest scoring average (71.25) in OSU history. He completed his college career last week at the NCAA Championship then played the U.S. Open qualifier Monday at Springfield (Ohio) Country Club. 

“Hopefully, this is a step toward being a full competitor in the field, but even the chance to play I’m grateful for,” he said of the Memorial experience. 

Moldovan received a phone call from Memorial tournament director Dan Sullivan Saturday asking if he would be interested in being a marker if the field ended up an odd number. It took about a half second to answer yes. The confirmation call came Sunday.

“It was interesting to be out there and be expected to pick up if I was falling behind, because you’re not used to that,” he said. “It was a bit of a weird feeling, but still got to play the first round of the Memorial Tournament.”

Soaking that in was secondary. On Thursday, Moldovan sought to fulfill his role as well as possible. 

“My responsibility was for (Thompson) to feel comfortable and feel like he’s playing a normal tournament round, even if I’m not technically in the event,” he explained. 

2024 Memorial Tournament Round One: Who leads at Memorial Tournament?

That said, playing without competing felt odd, even with longtime friend Jake Conjerti caddying for him.

“It was like a practice round in the sense of I don’t have to finish the hole and can pick up whenever, but at the same time playing in the Memorial, so I want to score a ball,” he said. “It was a weird vibe out there but it was fun.”

Moldovan will play with Thompson again Friday, but will not be needed to mark on the weekend. Instead, he plans to attend the Memorial as a spectator Saturday, then drive to Pinehurst, North Carolina Sunday and wait to hear if he gets into the U.S. Open at Pinehurst No. 2. 

By qualifying as second alternate at the 36-hole U.S. Open qualifier Monday, Moldovan needs some help if he is to play in his third U.S. Open overall but first as a pro. Adam Scott and Cameron Davis must be ranked in the top 60 of the World Golf Ranking on Monday for Moldovan to play Pinehurst.

[email protected]

Date change confirmed for ET11-12 Tour Card Holder Qualifiers

The Tour Card Holder Qualifiers for 2024 European Tour Events 11-12 will now be held on Saturday August 3.

The qualifying double-header had originally been planned for Thursday July 4 at the Marshall Arena in Milton Keynes.

However, due to the UK General Election which has been announced for July 4, the Marshall Arena is now not available.

As such, the double-header will be played on Saturday August 3 in Milton Keynes, following Players Championship 16-17 on August 1-2 at the Marshall Arena.

The entry deadline for European Tour Events 11-12 will now be moved to 1400 BST on Sunday July 21, in line with PC16-17.

European Tour

Inside the Russian effort to build 6,000 attack drones with Iran’s help

Leaked documents show that Moscow is progressing toward its goal of mass-producing UAVs it could use to pummel Ukrainian cities

The engineers at a once-bustling industrial hub deep inside Russia were busy planning. The team had been secretly tasked with building a production line that would operate around-the-clock churning out self-detonating drones, weapons that President Vladimir Putin’s forces could use to bombard Ukrainian cities.

A retired official of Russia’s Federal Security Service was put in charge of security for the program. The passports of highly skilled employees were seized so they could not leave the country. In correspondence and other documents, engineers used coded language: Drones were “boats,” their explosives were “bumpers,” and Iran — the country covertly providing technical assistance — was “Ireland” or “Belarus.”

This was Russia’s billion-dollar weapons deal with Iran coming to life in November, 500 miles east of Moscow in the Tatarstan region. Its aim is to domestically build 6,000 drones by summer 2025 — enough to reverse the Russian army’s chronic shortages of unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, on the front line. If it succeeds, the sprawling new drone factory could help Russia preserve its dwindling supply of precision munitions, thwart Ukraine’s effort to retake occupied territory and dramatically advance Moscow’s position in the drone arms race that is remaking modern warfare.

Although Western officials have revealed the existence of the facility and Moscow’s partnership with Tehran, documents leaked from the program and obtained by The Washington Post provide new information about the effort by two self-proclaimed enemies of the United States — under some of the world’s heaviest sanctions — to expand the Kremlin’s drone program. Altogether, the documents indicate that, despite delays and a production process that is deeply reliant on foreign-produced electronic components, Moscow has made steady progress toward its goal of manufacturing a variant of the Iranian Shahed-136, an attack drone capable of traveling more than 1,000 miles.

The documents show that the facility’s engineers are trying to improve on Iran’s dated manufacturing techniques, using Russian industrial expertise to produce the drones on a larger scale than Tehran has achieved and with greater quality control. The engineers also are exploring improvements to the drone itself, including making it capable of swarm attacks in which the UAVs autonomously coordinate a strike on a target.

OCT. 5, 2021

APRIL 4, 2023

Construction of facilities Alabuga later used to establish a drone production line.

Preliminary floor plan for part of the drone assembly line.

JUNE 20, 2021

Researchers at the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security, who reviewed the documents pertaining to the production process at the request of The Post, estimated that work at the facility in the Republic of Tatarstan’s Alabuga Special Economic Zone is at least a month behind schedule. The facility has reassembled drones provided by Iran but has itself manufactured only drone bodies, and probably for not more than 300 of the UAVs, the researchers concluded. Alabuga is unlikely to meet its target date for the 6,000 drones, they said.

Even so, David Albright, a former U.N. weapons inspector who helped lead the research team that studied the documents, said: “Alabuga looks to be seeking a drone developmental capability that exceeds Iran’s.”

The Post obtained the documents from an individual involved in the work at Alabuga but who opposes Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. The individual decided to expose details of the effort in the hope that international attention might lead to additional sanctions, potentially disrupting production and bringing the war to an end more quickly, the person told The Post.

“This was the only thing I could do to at least stop and maybe create some obstacles to the implementation of this project,” the person said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of safety concerns. “It has gone too far.”

The documents, dating from winter 2022 to spring 2023, include factory-floor blueprints, technical schematics, personnel records, memorandums provided to Iranian counterparts and presentations given to representatives of Russia’s Defense Ministry on the status of the effort code-named “Project Boat.” The Russian-language news outlet Protokol reported on some of the documents in July.

The team led by Albright and senior researcher Sarah Burkhard said the documents “appear authentic” and “go to great length to describe supply-chain procurement, production capabilities, manufacturing plans and processes, as well as plans to disguise and hide the production of Shahed drones.”

The research team found that the project faces challenges — including “doubt about its ability to reach its desired staffing levels” — but cautioned that Russia might be able to overcome those difficulties.

“Russia has a credible way of building over the next year or so a capability to go from periodically launching tens of imported Shahed-136 kamikaze drones against Ukrainian targets to more regularly attacking with hundreds of them,” Albright told The Post.

Albright said the disclosure of the records makes it difficult for Iran — which has publicly declared it is neutral in the war — to claim that it is not helping Moscow develop the ability to manufacture drones at Alabuga.

The Russian government and Alabuga did not respond to requests for comment from The Post. The Kremlin has dismissed reports that it is receiving assistance from Tehran on drones, saying that Russia relies on its own research and development .

Iran’s mission to the United Nations also did not respond to a request for comment.

‘The flying moped’

While Russia has made breakthroughs in air defense and hypersonic missiles, its military was late to prioritize drone technology. To catch up, Moscow has had to turn to Iran, one of the few nations willing to sell it military hardware.

Last summer, Russia began receiving secret shipments of Iranian drones — many of them Shaheds — that were quickly deployed to prop up its flagging war effort, U.S. and other Western officials have said.

Iran’s Shahed-136 — Russia calls the drone the Geran-2 — can carry a 118-pound explosive payload toward a target that is programmed in before launch. Because the drone is powered by a noisy propeller engine, some Ukrainians have dubbed it “the flying moped.”

The Iranian Shahed-136

Russia is working toward manufacturing a variant of the Iranian drone, which it calls the Geran-2, to supplement its dwindling stockpile of precision weapons. The drone can deliver small payloads of explosives in self-detonating attacks.

SHAHED-136 (IRAN)

Length: 11 feet

Max. speed:

Approx. weight: 440 pounds

Range: About 1,100 - 1,500 miles

Overhead view

Its nose contains a warhead and can be equipped with a camera.

Sources: Defense Express, AeroVironment

WILLIAM NEFF/THE WASHINGTON POST

Max. speed: 115 mph

Russia’s drones have struck targets deep inside Ukraine, degrading Kyiv’s precious air defenses and allowing Moscow to preserve its more expensive precision-guided missiles. The attacks, often targeting critical civilian infrastructure, have had a devastating impact on Ukraine’s war effort, knocking critical power grids offline and destroying grain stockpiles, according to Vladyslav Vlasiuk, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

“Those drones are much cheaper to produce compared to the damage they cause, and this is the problem,” Vlasiuk told The Post.

In November, a Kyiv-based think tank became one of the first nongovernmental organizations to examine the wreckage from a Russian Geran-2 drone downed in Ukraine. It found that key parts — the motor and warhead — were produced by Tehran. “We knew the drone was from Iran,” said Gleb Kanievskyi, the founder of the StateWatch think tank.

That month, Iran acknowledged it had provided drones to Russia but said it had done so only before the start of the war.

In the past three months, Russia has attacked Ukraine with more than 600 of the self-detonating Shahed-136 drones, according to an intelligence assessment produced by Kyiv in July and obtained by The Post.

Conflict Armament Research, a weapons-tracking group based in Britain, examined two drones downed last month and concluded based on components it found that the Kremlin has started producing “its own domestic version of the Shahed-136.”

The Post reported in November that Russian and Iranian officials had finalized a deal in which the self-detonating drones would be produced at the Alabuga Special Economic Zone, a government-backed manufacturing hub designed to attract foreign investment. The cooperation included the transfer of designs, training of production staff and provision of increasingly hard-to-source electronic components.

“This is a full-scale defense partnership that is harmful to Ukraine, to Iran’s neighbors and to the international community,” White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said in June as the Biden administration confirmed plans by the two countries to build a drone production facility. Kirby said the plant “could be fully operational next year.”

Under the deal, the new documents show, Tehran agreed to sell Moscow what is effectively a franchise, with Iranian specialists sharing project documentation, locally produced or reverse-engineered components, and know-how. A document created in February by the project’s chief manager details the parameters of the effort and estimates the cost for some aspects of the project to be 151 billion rubles, more than $2 billion at the exchange rate at the time. Under agreements reached earlier, more than half of that sum was to go to Iran, which insisted on being paid in dollars or gold because of the volatility of the ruble, the individual who provided the documents said.

The effort — at a facility larger than 14 football fields and set to be expanded — is to be separated into three stages, according to a planning document. The first envisioned Iran’s delivery of disassembled drones that would be reassembled at the facility. The second called for the facility to produce airframes — the hollow bodies of the drones — that would be combined with Iranian-supplied engines and electronics. In the final and most ambitious stage, more than 4,000 drones would be produced with little Iranian assistance and delivered to the Russian military by September 2025.

A three-stage plan

Below is a visualization of the production timeline, based on internal documents, that engineers set out late in 2022. Experts who reviewed the documents for The Post said work has probably been delayed.

100 units per month

600 total units

Iran was to deliver disassembled drones that would be reassembled at Alabuga.

170-180 units per month

1,332 total units

The facility is to produce airframes — the hollow bodies of the drones — that would be combined with Iranian supplied engines and electronics.

226 units per month

4,068 total units

In the third stage, Alabuga is to independently produce drones built with materials and components sourced largely by Russia. Under the facility’s contract, the last of those drones must be delivered to the Russian Defense Ministry by September 2025.

Up to 170-180 units per month

The analysis conducted for The Post by the Institute for Science and International Security found that the facility’s production plan “appears to be feasible” but has “vulnerabilities that could disrupt its ability to fulfill its contract … or at least delay the fulfillment.”

Scarce components

The documents identify the sourcing of components required to build the Shahed-136 as an immediate challenge, after Western restrictions disrupted Russian access to foreign-produced electronics.

A detailed inventory, based on data provided to the Russians by Tehran, shows that over 90 percent of the drone system’s computer chips and electrical components are manufactured in the West, primarily in the United States. Only four of the 130 electronic components needed to build the drone are made in Russia, according to the document.

The research team led by Albright and Burkhard noted that none of the required items appears to be exclusively for use in military drones, and none is listed as a sensitive technology that is subject to export controls by the U.S. Commerce Department. The components would, however, fall under a near-blanket ban the United States recently imposed on the export of electronics to Russia, the team said.

The flight-control unit, used to pilot the drone, comprises 21 separate electronic components manufactured by the Dallas-based company Texas Instruments. At least 13 electronic components manufactured by the Massachusetts-based company Analog Devices are present in all of the drone’s major circuit boards, including an accelerometer critical for the craft’s operation that allows the UAV to navigate along a preprogrammed route if the GPS signal is lost.

One document highlights the need to develop a supply channel for various American components, including a Kintex-7 FPGA, a processor used in the drone’s navigation and communication system, made by a company that was acquired last year by California-based AMD. Without elaborating, another spreadsheet notes the domestic availability of Western-made components inside Russia and lists U.S.-based electronics distributors Mouser and DigiKey as potential suppliers.

AMD, DigiKey, Texas Instruments and Analog Devices told The Post that they comply with all U.S. sanctions and global export regulations and work to ensure that the products they make or distribute are not diverted to prohibited users. Mouser did not respond to requests for comment.

The documents do not suggest that any Western company directly supplied Iran or Russia with components used in production of the drone.

In response to questions from The Post, the White House said U.S. officials have worked to prevent Moscow from obtaining technology that might be used in its war against Ukraine and have imposed sanctions against those involved in the transfer of Iranian military equipment to Russia.

“As Russia searches for ways to evade our actions, the U.S. government, alongside allies and partners, will continue to ramp up our own efforts to counter such evasion,” Adrienne Watson, a spokeswoman for the National Security Council, said in a statement.

According to a breakdown of material requirements along with the status of negotiations with suppliers, Alabuga specialists were able to promptly source the materials required for manufacturing the airframe. Most of those components are supplied by Russian or Belarusian companies, and the Chinese company Metastar provided a sample of a material used to make the wings, the breakdown shows.

Metastar did not respond to a request seeking comment.

Other components proved harder to obtain. Documents highlighted a problem that perpetually plagues Russian military production: the lack of a capable domestic engine industry. The Shahed-136 is powered by a reverse-engineered German Limbach Flugmotoren L550E engine, which Iran illicitly obtained two decades ago.

To reach the final stage of the project, Russia would have to come up with its own version of the engine, which engineers described in internal documents as their most complex task. A spreadsheet created by a senior engineer on Nov. 5, titled “Questions asked to Iran at the very beginning of cooperation,” listed a request for a copy of the engine as “the most important point.”

“Better two: one to take apart, and after the chemical analysis it will not be functional; the second one is for comparative tests. The propeller is also needed for testing,” the engineer wrote. “We’ll copy it too.”

The questions — over 120 in total — were separated into thematic categories that include “policy” and “warhead,” and requested details on how Iran achieved mass production. They also asked “which countries are suppliers of electronic components.” The documents obtained by The Post do not show a response to that question.

The Alabuga team also requested a meeting with Mado, an Iranian company that produces engines and other components for UAVs with the help of illicitly obtained Western technology. Western governments imposed sanctions on the company late last year for its contribution to the war in Ukraine.

Subsequent documents include a detailed description of the re-engineered Limbach engine, known as the Mado MD550. The authors indicated that the description was compiled on the basis of the information “provided by Mado specialists.”

Efforts to reach Mado for comment were not successful.

Despite those challenges, Alabuga engineers have worked to improve the drones, the documents show. They have swapped out malfunctioning Chinese electronic components for more-reliable analogues, and they replaced a glue the Russians deemed defective and added waterproofing in a design overhaul of the airframe.

Struggling to staff up

Documents show that Alabuga has struggled to fill specialized positions at the facility, which was to have 810 employees for each of three shifts per day. The production team lacked experts in key and highly complex areas of drone development including electronic warfare systems.

Numerous Alabuga employees have traveled to drone manufacturing centers in Iran to gain expertise, according to personnel documents. Delegations included project managers and engineers, along with students and manual laborers.

While one group was visiting Tehran on Jan. 29, Israeli’s external intelligence service, the Mossad, carried out a strike on a weapons factory in the Iranian city of Isfahan, leaving flames billowing from a site believed to be a production hub for drones and missiles. Alabuga’s managers and engineers were forbidden to leave their hotel as Iranian officials worried that Israel might strike facilities the group was supposed to tour, according to the individual who provided the documents.

The documents also reveal that Central Asian workers who held low-level jobs at Alabuga were sent to Iran because they speak a language similar to Farsi. They were supposed to observe the assembly process on Iranian production sites, interpret for the rest of the delegation and undergo training that would allow them to build drones back in Russia.

By end of spring, an estimated 200 employees and 100 students had received training at the Iranian facilities, according to the documents and the individual.

Students from the local polytechnic university were required to work at the Alabuga factory as part of their curriculum, the Russian news outlet Razvorot reported in July.

Alabuga also has sought to recruit young people for menial assembly-line positions, with glitzy ads promising “a career of the future” and subsidized housing. One ad posted on Alabuga’s Telegram channels invites women ages 16 to 22 to relocate to the site and “build a promising career in the largest center for training specialists in the UAV production,” with a wage starting at $550 a month.

At the same time, the individual said, some workers have been uncomfortable with the idea of developing drones to pummel Ukraine and discontented by what they view as long work hours and poor management. To keep staffers and lure talent from rival manufacturers, Alabuga boosted salaries, budget documents show, with some key workers earning 10 times the median Russian salary. Management created obstacles to prevent employees from quitting, including seizing passports and requiring workers to seek sign-off before leaving their positions, according to the individual.

Damaged drones

The Russians had issues in dealing with the Iranian side. An estimated 25 percent of the drones shipped from Iran for Alabuga’s use and delivered by Russian Defense Ministry aircraft were damaged, according to the documents and the individual who provided them.

One document from February includes a log of damaged or faulty drones received in a second shipment of the UAVs from Iran — separated into the categories of “big boats” and “small boats,” which refer to the Shahed-136 and the Shahed-131, respectively, despite Alabuga’s mainly being interested in the former. The document indicates that 12 of the Iranian drones in the Feb. 15 delivery were inoperable, including one irreparably damaged when it was dropped on the ground.

“That was an interesting moment, because the initial agreement with Iran concerned only big Shahed drones, as the smaller 131 model is pretty useless — its payload is ten times lower compared to the 136 model, and it can maybe blow up a car,” the individual said. “But as you can see, Iran pressed its own conditions for the deal and supplied smaller models, many of them broken.”

The log shows that the Russian team lacked the expertise and replacement parts to repair the damaged or malfunctioning drones.

The team struggled to meet initial deadlines. A February memo shows that project managers warned their higher-ups about a 37-day delay in the schedule as communications with Iran were slowed by the Russian Defense Ministry’s bureaucracy and Iran’s failure to provide some technical documentation.

“Iranians aren’t used to working according to some high European standards, and I suspect they didn’t have a ready set of all documentation,” the person said.

Technicians suggested reverse-engineering a drone already in the possession of Russia’s Defense Ministry to create their own project documentation, but the request was denied as their managers feared it would be perceived as a failure on Alabuga’s part by military officials in Moscow, according to the individual.

“There was a political moment that if we say that we don’t have something, it would show our weakness and inability to implement such a complex project, so all problems were being swept under the rug,” the individual said.

Delivery of the drones and equipment to the production facility also was a challenge. The first Iranian shipments arrived at Begishevo Airport in Tatarstan with little advance notice. Staffers at Alabuga scrambled to sort out the basic logistics of transporting the cargo back to their warehouse, the individual said.

In one instance, after securing trucks to transport the shipment, the staffers realized they did not have a forklift to load the heavy wooden crates full of disassembled drones. An employee was dispatched to a nearby business to find an off-loader, only to realize after finding one that no one was qualified to operate it.

The individual related that boxes of drones were first stored in a nearly empty warehouse as the facility was not yet prepared even for simple tasks such as reattaching parts of the UAV body that had been disassembled for transportation.

“So they just unboxed them and tried to reassemble on the floor,” the individual added. “At the same time, they wanted to show the Defense Ministry that the process was ongoing, the facilities are being built, so they bought some tables and did a photo shoot to show how they are supposedly actively assembling these drones.”

High-ranking officials at Alabuga spent a week taking and retaking photos, according to the individual.

What to know about Ukraine’s counteroffensive

The latest: The Ukrainian military has launched a long-anticipated counteroffensive against occupying Russian forces , opening a crucial phase in the war aimed at restoring Ukraine’s territorial sovereignty and preserving Western support in its fight against Moscow.

The fight: Ukrainian troops have intensified their attacks on the front line in the southeast region, according to multiple individuals in the country’s armed forces, in a significant push toward Russian-occupied territory.

The front line: The Washington Post has mapped out the 600-mile front line between Ukrainian and Russian forces .

How you can help: Here are ways those in the United States can support the Ukrainian people as well as what people around the world have been donating.

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