DUBAI — A senior Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander denied reports that Iran was transferring missiles to Russia, Iranian media said on Monday, amid concern in the West that they could be deployed in the war in Ukraine.
CNN and the Wall Street Journal reported last week, citing unidentified sources, that Iran had transferred short-range ballistic missiles to Russia.
Brigadier Fazlollah Nozari, deputy commander of the Khatam al-Anbia Central Headquarters, was quoted by the Iranian Labour News Agency as saying: “No missile was sent to Russia and this claim is a kind of psychological warfare.”
“Iran does not support any of the parties to the Ukraine-Russia conflict,” Nozari said.
The European Union said its allies had shared intelligence Iran had supplied Russia with ballistic missiles, a claim that Tehran rejected but that the Kremlin did not explicitly deny.
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Asked about the reports on Monday, the Kremlin said that Iran is Russia’s partner and that the two countries were developing dialogue in all areas.
“We have seen this report, it is not every time that this kind of information is true,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. “Iran is our important partner, we are developing our trade and economic relations, we are developing our cooperation and dialogue in all possible areas, including the most sensitive areas.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov attends a meeting of Russian President Vladimir Putin with the new cabinet members at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, May 14, 2024. (Vyacheslav Prokofyev, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)
Iran’s foreign ministry also denied supplying missiles to Moscow.
“We strongly reject the claims on Iran’s role in exporting arms to one side of the war,” Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani said during a weekly press conference.
The West has been warning Tehran against sending Russia missiles for months, and the EU has already repeatedly hit Iran with sanctions for supplying drones to Moscow for the war in Ukraine.
“We are aware of the credible information provided by allies on the delivery of Iranian ballistic missiles to Russia,” EU spokesman Peter Stano said.
“We are looking further into it with our member states and if confirmed, this delivery would represent a substantive material escalation in Iran’s support for Russia’s illegal war of aggression against Ukraine.”
Stano added that “the EU leaders’ unanimous position has always been clear. The European Union will respond swiftly and in coordination with international partners, including with new and significant restrictive measures against Iran.”
People kneel down as hearse cars drive along a street during the funeral for four members of a family, who died in a missile airstrike on September 4, 2024 and were only survived by the father, in Lviv, western Ukraine, on September 6, 2024. (YURIY DYACHYSHYN / AFP)
Ukraine said last week that deepening military cooperation between Tehran and Moscow was a threat to Ukraine, Europe, and the Middle East, and called on the international community to increase pressure on Iran and Russia.
Any Iranian transfer of ballistic missiles to Russia would mark a sharp escalation in the Ukraine war, the United States said on Friday.
The US has said deliveries would invoke a “severe” response and damage Tehran’s efforts to improve relations with the West following the country’s election of reformist Masoud Pezeshkian as president.
Faced with punishing Western sanctions, Moscow has turned to Iran and North Korea for weapons supplies to keep its war machine going in Ukraine.
Illustrative: This undated photograph released by the Ukrainian military’s Strategic Communications Directorate shows the wreckage of what Kyiv has described as an Iranian Shahed drone downed near Kupiansk, Ukraine. (Ukrainian military’s Strategic Communications Directorate via AP, File)
Ukraine says it has been attacked with Iranian-designed Shahed drones on an almost daily basis from Russia, and has found fragments of North Korean missiles on its territory.
The reported delivery of missiles to Russia comes as the Kremlin has once again stepped up its bombing campaign against Ukraine’s key infrastructure ahead of winter.
Tehran and Moscow have drawn closer since Russia ordered tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine in February 2022, with Iran supplying its Shahed drones to Russia’s military.
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