Iran has provided Russia with a large number of powerful surface-to-surface ballistic missiles, six sources told Reuters, deepening the military cooperation between the two US-sanctioned countries.
Iran’s provision of about 400 missiles includes many from the Fateh-110 family of short-range ballistic weapons, such as the Zolfaghar, three Iranian sources said.
The road-mobile missile is capable of striking targets 300km to 700km away, experts say.
Photo: EPA
The Iranian Ministry of Defense and the Revolutionary Guards — an elite force that oversees Iran’s ballistic missile program — declined to comment.
Russia’s Ministry of Defense did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The shipments began early last month after a deal was finalized in meetings late last year between Iranian and Russian military and security officials that took place in Tehran and Moscow, one of the Iranian sources said.
An Iranian military official — who, like the other sources, asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the information — said there had been at least four shipments of missiles and there would be more in the coming weeks. He declined to provide further details.
Another senior Iranian official said some of the missiles were sent to Russia by ship via the Caspian Sea, while others were transported by plane.
“There will be more shipments,” the second Iranian official said. “There is no reason to hide it. We are allowed to export weapons to any country that we wish to.”
UN Security Council restrictions on Iran’s export of some missiles, drones and other technologies expired in October last year.
However, the US and the EU retained sanctions on Iran’s ballistic missile program amid concerns over exports of weapons to its proxies in the Middle East and to Russia.
A fourth source who is familiar with the matter confirmed that Russia had received a large number of missiles from Iran recently, but did not provide further details.
US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said early last month that Washington was concerned that Moscow was close to acquiring short-range ballistic weapons from Iran, in addition to missiles already sourced from North Korea.
A US official told Reuters that Washington had seen evidence of talks actively advancing, but no indication yet of deliveries having taken place.
The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the missile deliveries.
Ukraine’s top prosecutor on Friday last week said the ballistic missiles supplied by North Korea to Russia had proven unreliable on the battlefield, with only two of 24 hitting their targets.
Moscow and Pyongyang have both denied that North Korea has provided Russia with munitions used in Ukraine.
By contrast, Jeffrey Lewis, an expert with the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, said the Fateh-110 family of missiles and the Zolfaghar were precision weapons.
“They are used to point at things that are high value and need precise damage,” Lewis said, adding that 400 munitions could inflict considerable harm if used in Ukraine.
He added that Russian bombardments were already “pretty brutal.”
A Ukrainian military source said that Kyiv had not registered any use of Iranian ballistic missiles by Russian forces in the conflict. The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense did not immediately reply to Reuters’ request for comment.
Following the publication of this story, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s air force told national television that it had no official information on Russia obtaining such missiles.
He added that ballistic missiles would pose a serious threat to Ukraine.
Former Ukrainian minister of defense Andriy Zagorodnyuk said that Russia wanted to supplement its missile arsenal at a time when delays in approving a major package of US military aid in Congress has left Ukraine short of ammunition and other material.
“The lack of US support means shortages of ground-based air defense in Ukraine, so they want to accumulate a mass of rockets and break through Ukrainian air defense,” said Zagorodnyuk, who chairs the Kyiv-based Center for Defence Strategies, a security think tank, and advises the government.
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