Iran Sends Russia Ballistic Missiles Amid Growing Economic Ties in 2024

On August 24, 2024, Pavel Lozhkin, Deputy Head of Russia’s Ministry for the Development of the Far East and the Arctic, announced Moscow’s readiness to collaborate with Tehran in various sectors such as industrial development, mining, tourism, and transportation. Putin provided a €1.3 billion loan to Iran to build a 162-kilometer railway connecting Rasht to Astara on the Azerbaijan border. This railway will facilitate the transportation of goods from St. Petersburg to Bandar Abbas, Iran’s main export port on the Persian Gulf. On August 9, Reuters reported that Russian military personnel are being trained in Iran to operate the Fath-360 short-range ballistic missile system. According to two European intelligence sources, hundreds of these satellite-guided weapons are expected to be delivered to Russia soon for use in the war in Ukraine. Justin Bronk, a senior research fellow for airpower at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) in London, noted that the delivery of a large number of short-range ballistic missiles from Iran to Russia would increase pressure on Ukraine’s missile defense systems. He emphasized that only the top-tier systems, such as the U.S.-made Patriot and the European SAMP/T Mamba, can reliably intercept these types of missile threats.

Items of note:

Iran has the #2 largest natural gas reserves in the world. Behind Russia’s. It is a huge natgas field deep under the Persian Gulf. They share it with Qatar.

When you find a question such as . . . they have their own oil, why do they need to do this for Russia with Russia paying in oil? There then is an explosion of replies speculating this reason or that reason. But somehow, nobody ever offers up . . . because it’s a bogus story and isn’t happening.

“Satellite guided” always has people leap to think about GPS. Russia has its own satellite navigation constellation called Glonass. The EU has its own called Galileo. China has its own called Beidou. And there are others. Good quality receivers can use multiple constellations so if one is denied, another is not.

In the context of the item above about reports not being true, we can add to that the concept of missile defense. It’s a very difficult task. If you go back and read about the test designs you will find success criteria are absurd, like turning on countermeasures pre launch and turning them off at time of launch. There are many of these constraints that the contractor insisted on to get a minimal chance at success.

It’s a very difficult task. The velocities and radar cross sections make it near impossible. Iron Dome this and that probably intercepts something like 5%. Not 5% get through. 5% intercepted. Then numbers of projectiles get quoted after the fact and are likely all bogus and results in manufactured reputation (and future sales).

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