Amid renewed military escalations between the US and Iran, reports of a secret Russia-Iran arms collaboration have surfaced. A report by the Financial Times says that Russia has been transferring strategic military technology to Iran to help it build advanced supersonic cruise missiles.
According to the report, the revelation came during an investigation conducted by the Financial Times (FT), which relied on leaked Russian correspondence, travel records, and analysis of military patents. The investigation revealed that a technology transfer has been taking place to help Iran develop weapons to match the US military might, including those capable of targeting US aircraft carriers and other warships in the Middle East.
The technology transfer is primarily aimed at helping Iran develop a ramjet propulsion system, which allows a supersonic cruise missile to fly at a speed several times the speed of sound. A ramjet propulsion system is an air-breathing engine that generates thrust by using the vehicle’s high forward speed to compress incoming air, rather than relying on a rotating compressor.
Supersonic cruise missiles powered by ramjet engines are capable of flying at very high speeds and at very low altitudes. This makes it harder for air defence systems to detect them and significantly shortens the time to intercept them. Since the US and its regional allies have deployed advanced defence systems at sea and on land in the Gulf, missiles using the ramjet propulsion system will give a crucial military advantage to Iran. The technology, described by experts as fit for anti-ship and land-attack cruise missiles, will equip Iran to counter US aircraft carriers and warships deployed in the region.
What is the covert programme?
The programme, codenamed C430L, commenced in 2023 and has some of Russia’s most experienced missile specialists on board. It was arranged by Rosoboronexport, Russia’s state arms exporter, which co-ordinated the project with NPO Mashinostroyenia, a major Russian missile manufacturer that the US sanctioned back in 2014.
In November 2023, a formal contract was signed with Iran’s Ministry of Defence following repeated visits by senior Russian missile specialists to Tehran. The Russian missile specialists included Alexander Dergachev (then deputy head of NPO Mashinostroyenia, chief designer for sea-launched and cruise missiles), Alexander Chebakov (a patented expert in supersonic ramjet propulsion), Yuri Prokhorchuk (head of aerodynamics/ballistics, also holds a patent on a ramjet-powered hypersonic missile), and Vladislav Kuzmichev (Rosoboronexport official who negotiated the final contract).
After the signing of the contract, Russian engineers received a large cache of Iranian technical data relating to the ramjet propulsion system by 2025. They analysed the Iranian data and sent a set of questions to Iran relating to the performance of the system.
The Russian engineers also worked on improving the performance of a system Iran had already built and tested. Later in April 2025, Russia proposed sending about two dozen specialists to Iran for further consultations under C430L. The FT report states that the dialogue between Russia and Iran continued in 2026, even after the beginning of the US-Israel-Iran war in late February.
Iran’s growing military cooperation with Russia and China
According to the FT, the C430L programme is part of Iran’s wider pattern of seeking covert technological assistance from Russia and China as the Middle Eastern nation has worked on strengthening its military capabilities in recent years.
The programme is indicative of a growing military partnership between Moscow and Tehran. The Gulf nation had supplied its Shahed attack drones to Russia during the war with Ukraine. It also helped set up the production of the drones inside Russia.
Russia has been accused by Ukraine and several Western powers of providing Iran with battlefield assistance, including satellite imagery, drone support, and weapons components during the war with the US and Israel.
Earlier this year, Russia reportedly agreed to supply its man-portable air-defence system, ‘Verba’, to Tehran. Meanwhile, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps secretly acquired a high-resolution Chinese satellite that it later used to watch US military bases across the Middle East around the time it launched retaliatory missile and drone attacks this year.
This led to the US imposing sanctions on the Chinese supplier, Earth Eye, based on the allegation that it had provided satellite imagery to Iran during the war, which enabled Iranian military strikes against US forces.
Iran has successfully developed sophisticated ballistic missiles, but it has not been able to develop a ramjet propulsion system for supersonic missiles, for which it is relying on Russian assistance.
