🇷🇺🤝🇮🇷 FT: Russia has been secretly helping Iran develop advanced supersonic cruise missiles in one of the most significant known transfers of strategic military technology from Moscow to Tehran.

The multiyear covert programme, codenamed C430L, has enlisted some of Russia’s most experienced missile specialists to help Iran develop a new class of weapon capable of threatening US aircraft carriers and other warships in the Middle East.

An FT investigation uncovered the programme, which began in 2023 and continued into the US-Israeli war against Iran, through leaked Russian correspondence, travel records and analysis of military patents.

The main purpose of C430L is to help Iran to develop a ramjet propulsion system, an engine that allows a cruise missile to sustain flight at several times the speed of sound. Missile and military experts said the technology was almost certainly intended for anti-ship and land-attack cruise missiles.

The supersonic missile assistance programme was arranged by Rosoboronexport, Russia’s state arms exporter, which co-ordinated the project with NPO Mashinostroyenia.

Leaked travel records reviewed by the FT show Russian arms export officials and several senior NPO Mashinostroyenia engineers made repeated trips to Iran before the C430L contract was formally signed with Iran’s Ministry of Defence and Armed Forces Logistics in November 2023.

By 2025, NPO Mashinostroyenia had received a large cache of Iranian technical material relating to the ramjet propulsion system. Russian engineers then analysed data from an Iranian flight test and sent Tehran a detailed set of questions about how the system had performed.

@SimurghRes

Martyr Ibrahim Raisi snubbed Ilham Aliyev, the Zionist puppet dictator of the Baku Republic (Azerbaijan), in favor of relevant countries, while President Pezeshkian snubbed relevant countries, with Aliyev being one of the first officials he met with, doing so with a warm embrace and smile

During the recent Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) meeting in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, President Pezeshkian made several blunders which have come under fire especially given the recent war condition and the deliberate massacre of wedding attendees in Sirik with one of America's most accurate missiles.

One of the first officials the Iranian president met with was Azerbaijan dictator Ilham Aliyev, who sells Azeri oil to the Zionist regime via Turkey, allows Mossad and the Zionist military to use Azeri soil to plan operations on Iran (with eyewitness reports proving that they saw aerial weapons, either drones or missiles or planes, coming into the north of Iran from the Azeri border during the 12 day imposed war). Pezeshkian did so with warm smiles and hugs.

Additionally, Pezeshkian spoke Azeri Turkish with Aliyev, breaking state protocol of speaking the official language of the country, which is Persian. Even Martyr Ayatollah Khamenei, who spoke Arabic more fluently than some of his own translators, still spoke Persian when receiving officials from Arabic-speaking countries.

In contrast, Pezeshkian basically snubbed the leaders of China and Russia — countries which have actual political and economic relevance and have helped Iran economically and militarily during the war, no matter how limited, and have ignored US sanctions no matter the risks involved. When Pezeshkian actually met President Jinping, he didn't have the same warm hugs and smiles as he did with the dictator of the Baku Republic, who has zero economic relevance to Iran and gives zero economic nor military support to the Islamic Republic.

Snubbing Russia and China has long been an act of self-sabotage by the liberal so-called "reformists." They do so as a soft signal to the west, saying that Iran will not get close to the west's adversaries as a gesture of good will to encourage the lifting of sanctions. They will point out the imperfections of policies of Beijing and Moscow as if to say "see, everyone in the world is bad and no one is truly our friend, so what's the harm in bowing down to the west?" They will claim that relations with Beijing and Moscow will make Iran dependent on them, meanwhile they are actually seeking to make Iran dependent on the west. The hypocrisy and mental colonialism is mind boggling.

Rouhani famously turned down large investments by China and even put President Jinping in a hotel room without a toilet, humiliating the Chinese president as an overture to the Epstein class. (Side note: Epstein himself in his emails said he preferred Rouhani over Sayyed Raisi in the 2017 election).

As Iranians suffer from hyperinflation caused by a combination of American pressure and internal neoliberal oligarchs who unfortunately have been given reign over the economy since the Rafsanjani era, economic cooperation with China and Russia could be a great source of relief, such as increasing exports in direct Rial to Yuan/Ruble exchanges or getting Chinese investments for things like high-speed rail and other advanced technological cooperation. But liberals still prefer to retain the same old policy of sitting on their hands and literally doing nothing except waiting for sanctions to be lifted.

The Leader, Imam Mojtaba Khamenei, once again reaffirmed the need to move away from the dollar, but stubborn liberal oligarchs and officials aligned with them aren't listening.

The people have woken up since the war, including many who are part of the reformists' voting bloc. But the heads of the liberal camp themselves have not woken up, not even after the martyrdom of the Leader or massacres of Minab, Lamerd, or Sirik. They should be grateful that the Leader and the people are not impulsive and uphold national unity, but that does not negate accountability.