Behnam Ben Taleblu
After two years of warnings that Iran was planning to supply missiles to Russia, the other shoe has dropped. Tehran has finally provided Moscow with Fath-360 close-range ballistic missiles (CRBMs), marking the Islamic Republic’s first-ever proliferation of missiles to the European continent. While the Fath-360 does not give Russia much in the way of new capability, it does pad Moscow’s missile stocks and complement Russia’s existing capabilities. The missile deal is also a harbinger of tighter Russo-Iranian ties, whose ramifications may extend well beyond Europe.
Missile Delivery
On September 10, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and the U.S. Treasury Department confirmed that Iran had provided Fath-360 CRBMs to Russia. “Dozens of Russian military personnel have been trained in Iran” to operate the Fath-360 system, Blinken said. According to the Treasury, the training occurred in the summer of 2024 pursuant to a contract signed in “late 2023” for the delivery of “hundreds of missiles,” and the first shipment had arrived “as of early September.” Various media outlets, citing unnamed Ukrainian officials, reported that Russia received more than 200 Fath-360 missiles.
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