Russia provided Iran with intelligence on US military targets in Middle East: Report

ISTANBUL

Russia provided Iran with intelligence on US military targets in the Middle East, the Washington Post claimed Friday, citing three officials familiar with the matter, implying for the first time that another major American adversary may be indirectly involved in the conflict.

The unnamed officials alleged that Russia has been providing Iran with the locations of US military assets, including warships and aircraft, since the war began Saturday.

“It does seem like it’s a pretty comprehensive effort,” one of them was quoted by the newspaper as saying.

The scope of Russia’s targeting support to Iran remains unclear.

Officials claimed that Iran’s own capability to track US forces had already been weakened less than a week after the fighting began.

Moscow has previously urged an end to the war, describing it as an “unprovoked act of armed aggression.”

Touching upon Iran's assistance role to Russia in getting and sharing information about Ukraine, one of the sources said: "The Russians are more than aware of the assistance that we’re giving the Ukrainians."

“I think they were very happy to try to get some payback.”

Six US troops were killed and several others injured in an Iranian drone strike in Kuwait on Sunday. Iran has launched thousands of attack drones and hundreds of missiles at US military sites, embassies, and civilians, as the joint US-Israel attacks have hit more than 2,000 targets in Iran.

Meanwhile, White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly claimed that the Iranian regime is suffering significant losses, but she did not address reports of Russian support for Iran, the Washington Post said in its report.

“The Iranian regime is being absolutely crushed,” Kelly 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.”

When asked about his message to Russia and China, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said he had no specific message for them, adding that "they're not really a factor here.”

Meanwhile, two officials familiar with Russian support to Iran said that China seemingly did not support Iran’s defense efforts, according to the Washington Post report.

Beijing has also called for an end to the conflict.

Dara Massicot, a Russian military expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told the newspaper that Iran’s attacks have hit early warning and over-the-horizon radars with notable accuracy.

“They’re doing this in a very targeted way. They’re going after command and control,” she said, underscoring the precision of recent strikes.

Iran has only a few military-grade satellites and no satellite constellation, making imagery from Russia’s more advanced space capabilities highly valuable, especially as Moscow has improved its targeting skills during the war in Ukraine, Massicot said.

Nicole Grajewski, an expert on Iran–Russia relations, told The Washington Post that Iranian attacks have shown a high degree of “sophistication” in both target selection and their ability in some cases to penetrate defenses.

“They’re getting through air defenses,” she said, noting Iran’s strike quality seems to have improved compared with last summer’s 12-day war with Israel.

People familiar with the matter told the Pentagon that Washington is rapidly depleting its stock of precision munitions and air defense interceptors, according to the Post.