Russia providing Iran with intelligence for strikes on US troops – media
Russia is providing Iran with targeting information for attacks on American troops in the Middle East, marking the first sign that another major US adversary is indirectly participating in the war, The Washington Post writes, citing three informed officials who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue.
"Since the war began on Saturday, Russia has transmitted information to Iran regarding the location of US military facilities, including warships and aircraft," the publication writes. "It seems to be a fairly comprehensive initiative," noted one of the newspaper’s sources.
According to the report, the full scale of Russia’s assistance to Iran in missile targeting was not entirely clear. Officials stated that the Iranian military’s ability to locate US forces had degraded in less than a week since the start of hostilities.
Two officials familiar with Russia’s support for Iran stated that China, it appears, is not assisting Iran in the defense sector despite close ties between the two countries.
Iran is "carrying out very precise strikes on early warning radars or over-the-horizon radars," said Dara Massicot, an expert on the Russian armed forces at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "They are doing this in a very targeted manner. They are going after command and control systems," she added.
Iran has only a few military satellites and does not possess its own satellite constellation, making imagery provided by Russia—which has much more advanced space capabilities—extremely valuable, especially since the Kremlin has refined its own targeting tools after years of war in Ukraine, Massicot noted.
Nicole Grajewski, who studies Iran’s cooperation with Russia at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center, said that Iranian retaliatory strikes have been very "sophisticated" both in terms of the targets Tehran has chosen and its ability, in some cases, to overcome the defenses of the US and its allies.
"They are breaking through air defenses," she said, noting that the quality of Iran’s strikes appears to have improved even compared to the 12-day war with Israel last summer.
The Pentagon is rapidly depleting its stockpiles of precision-guided weapons and air defense interceptors, sources familiar with the matter told The Washington Post, highlighting concerns expressed by General Dan Caine, Chairman of the Joint Committee of Chiefs of Staff, as President Donald Trump weighed whether to approve the operation. The administration has attempted to downplay the significance of Caine’s assessment.
