Russian Intelligence Begins Assisting Iran, Providing Targeting Information to Strike the US
Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia — Russia is reported to be providing Iran with targeting information to attack American forces in the Middle East, the first indication that another major US adversary is taking part—indirectly—in the conflict, according to three US officials familiar with the intelligence.
Citing The Washington Post, the assistance, which had not been disclosed before, signals that the rapidly evolving war now involves one of America’s principal adversaries armed with nuclear weapons and formidable intelligence capabilities.
Since the war began on Saturday, Moscow has supplied Iran with locations of US military assets, including warships and aircraft, the three officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter.
Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesperson, declined to comment on the intelligence findings. Moscow has called for an end to the war, which it describes as ‘unprovoked armed aggression.’
How extensive Moscow’s help to Iran is not fully clear. Iran’s own ability to track US forces has declined less than a week after the fighting began, according to officials.
CIA and the Pentagon also declined to comment.
When asked this week about his message to Russia and China, which among Iran’s strongest supporters, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said he had no message and that ‘they are not factors here.’
Two officials familiar with Moscow’s support for Tehran said China does not appear to be assisting Iran’s defence, despite a close relationship between the two countries.
In a statement, the Chinese Embassy in Washington referred to Beijing’s diplomatic efforts to engage with partners in the region since the war began and said the conflict must be ‘immediately halted.’
Analysts say the intelligence exchange would align with Iran’s pattern of attacks against US forces, including command-and-control infrastructure, radars, and temporary structures, such as in Kuwait where six service members were killed.
The CIA’s station at the US Embassy in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, has been attacked and destroyed in recent days. Some embassy buildings have been ‘unrecoverable’ and must be closed, according to an internal State Department assessment.
‘Iran has carried out highly targeted strikes on early-warning radar or far-out radar,’ said Dara Massicot, a Russia expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. ‘They do this in a highly directed way. They are aiming at command and control.’
‘Iran possesses only a handful of military-grade satellites and lacks its own orbital constellation, which would make imagery provided by Russia’s space capabilities far more valuable — especially as the Kremlin has sharpened its targeting after years of war in Ukraine,’ Massicot added.
Nicole Grajewski, a Belfer Center researcher who studies Iran’s cooperation with Russia at Harvard Kennedy School, said there is a high level of sophistication in Iran’s retaliatory strikes, both in target selection and its ability to defeat US and allied defences in some cases.
‘They have managed to penetrate air defence,’ she said, noting that the quality of Iran’s strikes seems to have improved even compared with the 12-day war with Israel last summer.
Moscow’s aid has altered how various states participate in the proxy war since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Throughout the conflict, adversaries including Iran, China, and North Korea have provided direct military assistance or material support to Russia’s defence industry. The United States has supplied Ukraine with tens of billions of dollars’ worth of military equipment and shared intelligence on Russian positions to improve Kyiv’s targeting.
On Thursday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy posted on X that the Trump administration had requested assistance to defend against Iranian drones, and that Kyiv would provide ‘specialists’ in response.
Iran has been a major backer of Russia in the Ukraine war, sharing technology to produce cheap one-way attack drones that have repeatedly been used to overwhelm Kyiv’s air defences and exhaust Western interceptors donated to protect Ukrainian cities.
‘Russia is very aware of the help we are giving Ukraine,’ said one US official familiar with Moscow’s support for Tehran. ‘I think they are keen to repay the favour.’
The quality of Russian intelligence gathering is not on a par with the United States, but remains among the best in the world, the official added.
The Kremlin itself sees potential gains in a protracted war between the US and Iran, including higher oil revenues and a crisis that would distract American and European attention from the war in Ukraine.
Iran, whose supreme leader was killed at the start of the conflict, could become the latest country to lose a pro-Russian government in recent years, following Syria’s uprising in late 2024 that toppled dictator Bashar al-Assad and US strikes to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in January.