Are Russian ‘Iva’ MANPADS Chinese Knock-Offs?

A report on the Russian Rossiya 1 television channel on Monday, Sept. 28, was intended to show soldiers from a mobile fire group of the 51st Air Defense Division in Rostov. It included an interview with an operator demonstrating a shoulder-launched man-portable air defense system (MANPADS) weapon. The soldier referred to it as the “Iva” – Russian for willow.JOIN US ON TELEGRAMFollow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official. Milbloggers and other open-source analysts began to question the origin of the weapon. They argued that the launcher didn’t share the characteristics of other Russian systems such as the Igla or Verba – other words used for willow. Chinese, Iranian, or a hybrid? The milblogger Dead District, posting on X on Monday, suggested the weapon was an Iranian Misagh-2, while other military analysts disagreed. The US military issues site The War Zone (TWZ) and Ukraine’s Militarnyi compared the launcher with existing Chinese and Iranian designs and concluded that it more closely resembled the Chinese QW-18/QW-18A or QW-19 series of MANPADS, rather than Iran’s Misagh-2 or 3 – derivatives of the Chinese launchers. The Swiss analytic site MiGFlug, citing TWZ, offered other possibilities for the weapon’s origin: a system bought directly from China, perhaps for evaluation; an Iranian-built derivative; a Russian copy of one or other design; or, unlikely but possible, a North Korean weapon. The arguments were further complicated by another suggestion from the Defence Blog military issues site which said that Pakistan’s Anza-2 MANPADS is also thought to be based on a Chinese design. Other Topics of Interest Drone Explodes in Moldova During Russia’s Deadly Attack on Ukraine The drone breached Moldovan airspace and detonated outside a village as Russian missiles and drones struck Kyiv. Previously, in July, Reuters reported that China was expected to transfer several hundred MANPADS to Iran as part of an arms deal. China has been accused of being involved in the illegal global trade in shoulder launched surface-to-air missiles (SAM), as summarized in the 2022 report by the Small Arms Survey. Why would Russia need foreign MANPADS? It is logical for mobile fire groups in the Rostov region, which shares a border with Ukraine and frequently faces drone attacks, to deploy MANPADS. The presence of an apparently foreign MANPADS system, assuming it is something more than a publicity stunt or has been simply provided for evaluation, raises the question as to why? Russia inherited the capability to build its own MANPADS from Soviet times and has exported them all over the world. It could be that stocks of MANPADS, along with other weapons systems, have been denuded by the war in Ukraine. Examples of Moscow addressing shortages since the 2022 full-scale invasion through expedient measures include taking 50-year-old tanks out of mothballs to replace frontline losses and cannibalizing Russia’s RM-48U training missiles, combining their components with parts from air-defense missiles and foreign electronics to supplement its ballistic missile capabilities. In the meantime, the weapon experts will continue to investigate the origin of the “Iva” system which will then enable them to technically assess its potential in the role for which it is being used in Rostov. Kyiv Post is Ukraine’s first and oldest English news organization, reporting since 1995. Its international reach – 97% of readers are outside of Ukraine – make it truly Ukraine’s global voice.