Russia provides Iran with data for precision attacks on American troops in the Middle East.
This was reported to The Washington Post by three officials familiar with the intelligence.
Since the start of the war on February 28, Russia has been providing Iran with the locations of American military facilities, including ships and aircraft.
"It seems like this is a pretty complex operation," one of the interlocutors noted.
The extent of Russiaʼs assistance is not yet fully understood. As journalists note, the Iranian militaryʼs ability to independently determine the positions of American forces was limited after just a few days of fighting.
Analysts said the intelligence sharing was consistent with a pattern of Iranian strikes on US forces, including command and control infrastructure, radars and temporary structures — such as in Kuwait, where six US service members were killed.
Iran carries out precision strikes on early warning radars and command facilities. It has few military satellites and no satellite constellation of its own, so data from Russia, with its advanced space capabilities, is particularly valuable.
According to experts, the level of accuracy of Iranian strikes is high, they are capable of overcoming the defenses of the United States and its allies, and even surpassed the effectiveness during the 12-day conflict with Israel last summer.
War in the Middle East
On the morning of February 28, the United States and Israel launched an attack on Iran. The Israelis called the operation “Lion’s Roar”, the United States called it “Epic Fury”. The attacks killed Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and nearly 40 other senior Iranian officials. They died in Khamenei’s residence in the first minutes of the war.
Iran responded by attacking American bases in the Persian Gulf countries: Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, and the UAE. Iran also attacked Israel with ballistic missiles. Some Iranian drones and missiles targeted infrastructure and residential areas in Arab countries. For example, an Iranian drone struck the largest oil refinery in Saudi Arabia. A fire broke out there, and the plant suspended operations.
Israel also attacked the Lebanese pro-Iranian Hezbollah, which retaliated and launched a ground operation.
As of the morning of March 4, 870 people were known to have died, 787 of them in Iran. The US says it attacked 2 000 sites, using 5 000 troops and B-2 stealth bombers. In response, Iran launched 500 ballistic missiles and 2 000 drones.
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