Washington Post: How Russia is Helping Iran Target U.S. Forces

SadaNews - The American newspaper Washington Post reported today, Friday, citing three sources familiar with intelligence information, that Russia is providing Iran with intelligence to target U.S. forces in the Middle East, marking the first indication of another major adversary of the United States - albeit indirectly - participating in the war. Since the war began on Saturday, Russia has supplied Iran with the locations of U.S. military assets, including warships and aircraft, according to the three officials who spoke to the Washington Post on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter. One source told the newspaper, "It appears to be a very comprehensive effort," while the paper noted that "the Russian embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment." Six American soldiers were killed and others were injured in an Iranian drone attack on Sunday in Kuwait, while Iran launched thousands of one-way attack drones and hundreds of missiles at U.S. military sites, embassies, and civilians. Meanwhile, the joint American-Israeli campaign targeted more than 2,000 Iranian sites, including ballistic missile sites, naval assets, and the country's command structures. Iranian Response Diminishing White House spokesperson Anna Kelly, while not commenting on any Russian assistance to Iran, stated, "The Iranian regime is being completely crushed," adding that "their ballistic missile response diminishes day by day, their naval capabilities are being destroyed, their production capacity is being wrecked, and their proxies barely show resistance." When asked this week about his message to Russia and China, which are considered strong supporters of Iran, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said, "Russia and China are not a factor in this regard." Two officials familiar with Russian support for Iran stated, "China does not seem to be providing any support for Iranian defense, despite the close relations between the two countries," according to the Washington Post. The newspaper cited analysts stating that the exchange of intelligence aligns with the pattern of Iranian attacks on U.S. forces, which include infrastructure for command and control, radars, and temporary facilities, like those targeted in Kuwait. The CIA station in the U.S. embassy in Riyadh has also been targeted in recent days. The newspaper quoted Dara Masikout, a Russian military affairs expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, as saying, "Iran is delivering very precise strikes on early warning radars or over-the-horizon radars. They are doing this in a highly precise manner, targeting command and control centers." Masikout added that Iran possesses only a few military satellites and does not have its own satellite system, making the images provided by more advanced Russian space capabilities of high value. For her part, Nicole Gragievski, a researcher at the Belfer Center at Harvard University's Kennedy School specializing in Iranian-Russian cooperation studies, noted that the Iranian strikes were characterized by a high level of "complexity," both in terms of the targets Iran aimed for and their ability in some cases to penetrate American and allied defenses. She said, "They are penetrating the air defenses," pointing out that the quality of Iranian strikes seemed to have improved even since its 12-day war against Israel last summer. A building adjacent to the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet headquarters in Juffair, Bahrain, sustained damage from a strike by an Iranian drone during the weekend. Source: Washington Post