The Moscow-Tehran ‘steel pact’ that Trump is ignoring

 “In these difficult times, we are trying to provide you with the necessary assistance,” Vladimir Putin told Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, “we have discussed this, and we are supplying you with the necessary equipment”. The Russian president confirmed what everyone knows and what the Trump administration tends to ignore or downplay, despite concrete evidence from American intelligence itself (and from Ukrainian intelligence, which has been enduring the brutality of Iranian military forces for four and a half years and which, unlike the Americans themselves, has learnt to defend itself): Russia is assisting Iran in its war against the United States and against American military targets in the Gulf states. The “necessary equipment” Putin refers to, with a smirk, consists of intelligence on where to strike, military assets and also, according to a Financial Times investigation, the development of advanced supersonic cruise missiles. The code name for the joint programme is C430L; it began in 2023, and its main objective is the transfer of sophisticated technology from Russia to develop a ramjet propulsion system – an engine that enables cruise missiles to fly at speeds several times the speed of sound. 

An expert quoted by the British newspaper says that Iran has been seeking access to this “strategically sensitive” technology for decades, and emphasises that this type of technology transfer involves high-level political involvement – in other words, it is on a far larger scale than normal military cooperation. The Financial Times has examined Russian correspondence, military licences and travel records of Russian missile specialists sent to Iran to provide assistance, and describes in detail both how these missiles work and the various parties involved in the secret programme, such as NPO Mashinostroyenya, one of Russia’s leading missile manufacturers, which – and this is important – has been subject to US sanctions since 2014.

The C430L forms part of a wider programme of technological assistance that the Tehran regime has requested from Russia and China: at present, these missiles have not yet been used by Iran in the war against the United States, or at least there is no evidence to suggest they have. Iran has so far largely used drones and precision-guided missiles to strike American targets in the Gulf states, inflicting serious physical and financial damage, given that the American defence system is not cost-effective – the Trump administration refused to accept Ukraine’s offer of assistance, which arrived well before this war against Iran began, and its contemptuous short-sightedness has taken a very tangible toll on the American arsenal. Iran, however, would like to target American naval assets, and Russian technology is tailor-made for precisely this purpose.

As is clear, this is not a matter of ‘equipment’, nor is it the supply of vehicles or vehicle parts: it is a transfer of know-how, and as one expert told the Financial Times, ‘a sixty-year-old engineer who comes to you to solve problems, thanks to his experience, is of enormous value’. According to correspondence between Russia and Iran in June, the second phase of the programme is currently being negotiated.