Russia is seizing some US and NATO-provided weapons and equipment left on the battlefield in Ukraine and sending them to Iran, where the US believes Tehran will try to recycle the systems, four people familiar with the matter told CNN.
Over the past year, U.S., NATO and other Western officials have witnessed several seizures by Russian forces of small weapons, including Javelin anti-tank systems and Stinger anti-aircraft missile systems, which Ukrainian forces have sometimes been forced to leave on the battlefield. Some of the Russian booty was shipped to Iran for dismantling and analysis, likely so that the Iranian military could try to build their own version of the weapon, the sources said. Russia believes that continuing to provide captured Western weapons to Iran will encourage Tehran to continue to support Russia’s war in Ukraine, the sources said.
US officials do not believe the problem is widespread or systematic. And the Ukrainian military, in turn, has made it a habit since the beginning of the war to report to the Pentagon any loss of American equipment. However, US officials acknowledge that the issue is difficult to track.
It is not clear whether Iran has successfully recycled US weapons seized in Ukraine, but Tehran has been very adept at developing weapons systems based on US equipment captured in the past. A key weapon in Iran’s arsenal, the Tufan anti-tank guided missile, was redesigned from an American BGM-71 TOW missile in the 1970s. In 2011, the Iranians also intercepted an American Lockheed Martin RQ-170 “Sentinel” drone and modified it to create a new drone that crossed Israeli airspace in 2018 before being shot down.
“Iran has demonstrated the ability to reverse engineer American weapons in the past, said Jonathan Lord, senior fellow and director of the Middle East Security Program at the Center for a New American Security. - They redesigned the TOW anti-tank guided missile into a near-perfect replica they named Tufan, and have since given it to the Houthis and Hezbolli. Iran could do the same with the Stinger, which could threaten both civil and military aviation throughout the region. The redesigned Javelin could be used by Hamas or Hezbollah to threaten an Israeli Merkava tank. In the hands of Iranian puppets, these weapons pose a real threat to Israel’s conventional armed forces.”
This coordination is yet another example of Moscow’s growing defense partnership with Tehran, which has intensified over the past year as Russia becomes increasingly desperate for outside military support in its war against Ukraine. As John Kirby, a spokesman for the US National Security Council, said in February, this partnership would not only further destabilize Ukraine, but could also threaten Iran’s neighbors in the Middle East.
Earlier, the media published details of the delivery of hundreds of thousands of shells and other ammunition from Iran to Russia.
Read on “Censor.NET”: Agreement between the Kremlin and Tehran: what was the path he talked about with the President of Iran
Source: Fakty
I am Joseph Zeman, a journalist who mostly covers world news for the Daily News Hack. I pride myself on being able to find and report stories that others might miss. I have a knack for being able to see both sides of every issue and this allows me to provide readers with well-rounded stories. In addition to my work as a journalist, I am also an author and have written several books on current affairs.
