According to the Carnegie Foundation, even before Middle East tensions escalated, Russia had increased military support for Iran with many new weapons and equipment. According to international sources, Moscow and Tehran have just signed an additional agreement worth about 500 million euros for Russia to provide the 9K333 Verba shoulder-fired air defense system.
This is a shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missile capable of shooting down aircraft, helicopters or low-fly cruise missiles. However, analysts believe that the impact of this deal on the current Middle East war may not be as great as many people imagine.
The Verba system is mainly designed to deal with flying targets at low altitudes and at relatively close distances. This means they are only effective when the target is flying directly over Iranian territory.
Meanwhile, US and Israeli airstrikes are often carried out in a completely different way. In many attacks, missiles are launched from the airspace of neighboring countries, especially from the Iraqi region, to avoid the risk of retaliation.
Northrop B-2 Spirit stealth bombers that once participated in attacking Iranian nuclear facilities also flew at altitudes beyond the reach of many air defense systems. Therefore, even more advanced weapons like Verba are difficult to intercept.
In other words, the weapons Russia supplies to Iran are not designed to directly confront long-range airstrikes by the US and Israel.
According to many military experts, Verba systems may be more useful in other scenarios, such as being transferred to pro-Iranian forces in the Middle East - where they can access near US military bases.
However, even in that case, a greater threat to Western bases is still drones - the type of Iranian UAV that has developed strongly over the years.
Some analysts believe that Russia chose to sell Verba to Iran also because this weapon is not too necessary on the Ukrainian battlefield, where Moscow is facing large-scale UAV attacks.
However, this deal still reflects the increasingly close military cooperation trend between the two countries that are under great pressure from the West.
In recent years, Iran has received a lot of Russian military equipment. In 2023, Tehran received Yak-130 training aircraft, which are used to train pilots for new generation fighters.
Russia is also said to have signed a contract to supply 48 Sukhoi Su-35 fighters to Iran in the period 2026-2028. Recent evidence shows that Tehran also owns a number of Mil Mi-28 attack helicopters.
The appearance of Russian equipment in Iran is often detected through images or videos on social networks, instead of official announcements. This shows that a significant part of military cooperation between the two countries is kept secret.
Russia's continued supply of weapons to Iran shows that Moscow still considers Tehran a long-term strategic partner. If conditions permit in the future, the scale of military cooperation between the two countries may expand further.
However, on March 5, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that in the current conflict, Russia has not received any requests for assistance, including the supply of weapons, from Iran.
