Staff Reporter:
Russia has provided Iran with targeting information on US military assets in the Middle East since the outbreak of the war, three officials familiar with the intelligence told the Washington Post, marking the first indication that another major US adversary may be involved in the conflict.
According to the officials, Moscow has passed Tehran the locations of American military platforms, including warships and aircraft, since the fighting began on Saturday. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the intelligence.
The reported assistance represents a new dimension in the rapidly expanding conflict, which already involves direct hostilities between Iran and the United States and Israel. It also raises concerns in Washington about the potential role of other global powers in the confrontation.
US officials have not publicly commented on the intelligence, and it remains unclear what additional steps Washington may take in response. Russia is considered one of Washington’s primary nuclear-armed competitors and maintains extensive intelligence capabilities.
Officials said the extent of Russia’s targeting support was not fully clear, but noted that Iran’s own ability to track US forces had been degraded in the early days of the war.
Analysts say the reported intelligence sharing could help explain the precision of some Iranian strikes on US-linked targets. Since the conflict began, Iran has launched thousands of one-way attack drones and hundreds of missiles toward US military positions, embassies and other targets in the region.
One of the attacks on Sunday killed six US troops in Kuwait and injured several others when an Iranian drone struck a military facility.
Dara Massicot, a Russia military expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said some of Iran’s strikes have targeted critical infrastructure such as radar systems. “Iran is making very precise hits on early warning radars or over-the-horizon radars,” she said. “They’re doing this in a very targeted way. They’re going after command and control.” The CIA station at the US embassy in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia’s capital, was also struck in recent days.
Satellite capabilities and improved targeting
Experts say Russia’s advanced satellite capabilities could significantly improve Iran’s targeting ability. Iran has only a limited number of military-grade satellites and lacks its own satellite constellation, making imagery from Russia particularly valuable.
Moscow has also refined its intelligence and targeting capabilities during the war in Ukraine.
Nicole Grajewski of the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center, who studies Russia–Iran cooperation, said the quality of Iran’s retaliatory strikes appears to have improved. “They’re getting through air defenses,” she said, adding that the strikes showed a high degree of “sophistication” in the selection of targets and the ability to overwhelm some US and allied defence systems.
Washington’s response
The CIA and the Pentagon declined to comment on the report. A White House spokeswoman, Anna Kelly, did not address the alleged Russian assistance but said the US campaign was weakening Iran’s military capabilities. “The Iranian regime is being absolutely crushed,” she said.
“Their ballistic missile retaliation is decreasing every day, their navy is being wiped out, their production capacity is being demolished, and proxies are hardly putting up a fight.
”US defence secretary Pete Hegseth said earlier this week that Russia and China were “not really a factor here” when asked about their possible involvement. Two officials cited in the report said China does not appear to be assisting Iran’s military response, despite close ties between the two countries.
