Vladimir Putin's troops in Ukraine are being forced to source weapons from North Korea and Iran amid a struggling campaign in the country, according to new evidence.
Sanctions on Russian industries including the defence sector may have impacted the Kremlin's decision to bring in technology from the rogue states. Ukraine is also on the advance.
Reports emerged earlier this month that Putin had turned to them for help.
The UK's Ministry of Defence (MoD) said that claims by Ukraine that they had shot down an Iranian-made drone as evidence that Moscow is "increasingly sourcing weaponry from other heavily sanctioned states".
The device was supposed to detonate on impact but didn't.
The MoD said: " Russia is almost certainly increasingly sourcing weaponry from other heavily sanctioned states like Iran and North Korea as its own stocks dwindle."
In early September, a US official said that Russia buying from North Korea was a sure sign of "severe supply shortages".
In August, Russia vowed to expand its relations with North Korea and hoped for "strategic and tactical co-operation, support and solidarity" between the two.
Ukraine has gained significant ground in the fight for its survival over the past week and is estimated to have taken back well over 900 square miles of territory.
Of the reports of the shot-down drone, the ministry said: "Russia has highly likely deployed Iranian uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAV) in Ukraine for the first time.
"On September 13 2022, Ukrainian officials reported that their forces had shot down a Shahed-136 UAV near Kupiansk, in the area of Ukraine's successful ongoing offensive.
"The Shahed-136 is a one-way attack UAV with a claimed range of 2,500 kilometres."
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said of sanctions on Russia's defence industry: "The Russian military is taking chips from dishwashers and refrigerators to fix their military hardware, because they ran out of semiconductors.
"Russia's industry is in tatters."
It is not known how many troops and how much equipment has been lost by Russia in its war in Ukraine, but the recent advance by defending troops and estimates of soldiers killed is not good news for the Kremlin.
Ukraine believes - such claims are likely exaggerated - that Russia has lost over 50,000 troops since the February invasion. This also includes claims of 2,180 lost tanks and 215 helicopters.
The Kremlin has not updated its death tally since March when it said it had seen 1,351 killed and 3,825 wounded.
