Moscow, Russia – Russia has sharply expanded intelligence-sharing and military cooperation with Iran, according to a Wall Street Journal report.
Moscow is supplying satellite imagery and upgraded drone technology to help Tehran target US forces in the Middle East, people familiar with the matter told the journal.
The deepening alliance reflects a calculated Russian strategy to keep its closest Middle Eastern partner in the fight against US and Israeli military power.
By prolonging the conflict, Moscow stands to gain both militarily and economically, while also stretching American resources.
The technology supplied to Tehran includes advanced components for modified Shahed drones.
Those upgrades are designed to improve communication, navigation, and targeting precision, the sources said.
Russia has also drawn heavily on its battlefield experience with the same drones in Ukraine.
It is offering tactical guidance on swarm sizes and strike altitudes to help overwhelm sophisticated air defences, according to sources, including a senior European intelligence officer.
Most critically, Russia has provided Iran with the precise locations of US military forces and their regional allies.
That cooperation deepened rapidly in the early days of the current war.
Two sources, including the European officer and a Middle Eastern diplomat, said Russia recently began sending high-resolution satellite imagery directly to Iran.
‘Taste of our own medicine’
Analysts say the Russian assistance mirrors the intelligence support the United States and its European allies have provided to Ukraine over the past four years.
“It’s an opportunity to give us a taste of our own medicine in terms of what the US provides to Ukraine in intelligence support,” said Samuel Charap, a distinguished chair at the Rand Corporation defence think tank.
In the Gulf, Moscow’s support is believed to have played a crucial role in Iran’s recent and highly successful strikes on US radar systems.
Those unprecedented attacks targeted early-warning radars used by the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system.
The sites included a critical THAAD radar installation in Jordan, along with other strategic assets in Bahrain, Kuwait, and Oman.
Satellite imagery offers extremely granular detail on the location and movement of land-based and sea-based targets.
That allows Iranian commanders to refine their targeting before a strike and carry out accurate damage assessments afterwards.
“If there are details in those images that the Russians are providing, say, of specific types of aircraft, munitions sites, air defense assets, and naval movements, that have intel value to the Iranians, that would really help them,” said Jim Lamson.
Lamson is a visiting research fellow at King’s College London and a former CIA analyst who specialised in the Iranian military.
One official confirmed that the data Russia is supplying comes directly from a fleet of military satellites operated by the Russian Aerospace Forces, or VKS.
Ukraine tactics replicated
The intelligence-sharing helps explain why Iran has had far greater success targeting US and Gulf military assets in this conflict than it did during the brief 12-day war last year.
Tehran’s current strategy relies on cheap drone swarms to overwhelm radar systems immediately before launching heavier ballistic missile strikes.
Analysts say the approach looks almost identical to Russia’s punishing bombardment tactics against Ukrainian cities.
“Iranian targeting in the Gulf has been more focused on radar and command and control,” said Nicole Grajewski, a professor at Sciences Po in Paris.
“Iran’s strike packages have come to strongly resemble what Russia does.”
The Kremlin did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the intelligence-sharing.
But US special envoy Steve Witkoff, who has led negotiations with Moscow, said Russia flatly denied giving Iran intelligence to support its strikes.
President Donald Trump recently told reporters he believed Moscow might be helping Iran “a bit”.
The White House has continued to publicly downplay the impact of the alleged Russian assistance.
“Nothing provided to Iran by any other country is affecting our operational success,” White House spokeswoman Olivia Wales said.
Wales said the US military had struck more than 7,000 targets and destroyed more than 100 Iranian naval vessels since the war began.
She said those operations had reduced Iranian missile attacks by 90 percent and drone attacks by 95 percent.
Two-way street
While Russia and Iran do not have a formal mutual defence treaty, Tehran has cemented its position as Moscow’s closest strategic partner in the Middle East.
Historically, the relationship followed an asymmetric patron-client model, with Russia selling submarines and fighter jets to an isolated Iran in the 1990s.
But that dynamic shifted dramatically after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
The two isolated nations set up joint commissions and working groups to share military and defence lessons.
Military delegations now visit each other regularly, their soldiers train together, and Russia recently built and launched one of Iran’s newest satellite systems.
Crucially, the technology pipeline reversed when Iran supplied Moscow with thousands of Shahed drones for the war in Ukraine.
When Russia first deployed the Shaheds, dozens of Iranian officers travelled to Crimea to watch live footage of their devastating impact on Ukrainian frontline positions.
Ukraine estimates that Russia has used more than 57,000 Shahed-type drones since the start of that war.
Since then, Moscow has built vast domestic production facilities for the drones.
Russian engineers have adapted the weapons to navigate more accurately and withstand intense electronic warfare jamming.
Moscow is now sharing those key battlefield innovations with its allies in Tehran.
Economic lifeline
The support Russia can offer remains somewhat constrained by its own war in Ukraine, as well as the Kremlin’s reluctance to antagonise the Trump administration too far.
“The categories of assistance — including satellite data and advice on drone tactics — that Russia is providing are limited but still valuable to the war and Iran’s ability to hit specific military sites,” Lamson said.
Yet the Middle East war has played to Russia’s geopolitical advantage in several important ways.
The conflict is rapidly depleting US stockpiles of the same air defence interceptors that Ukraine desperately needs to shield its own skies.
At the same time, the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz has sent global oil prices soaring.
With a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas normally passing through that narrow waterway, the disruption has delivered a major financial windfall to Russia’s heavily sanctioned economy.
The Trump administration has even eased restrictions on purchases of Russian oil to help bring prices down.
The war carries severe long-term risks for Russia, particularly if US forces ultimately topple Iran’s clerical regime.
For now, however, the Kremlin sees an unmissable chance to support a vital partner while striking a heavy blow at its main strategic adversary in Washington.
