The Briefing:
- A Ukrainian intelligence file reviewed by Reuters found Russian satellites scanning 46 sites across 11 countries in the Middle East over ten days in March, shortly before Iranian missiles and drones struck several of them.
- CNN and The Washington Post each reported on March 6 that Moscow was passing along the whereabouts of U.S. troops, warships and aircraft to Tehran.
- Reuters revealed in July that U.S. analysts are probing whether Russian help lies behind Iranian drone strikes on CIA facilities, including a station inside the Riyadh embassy.
- President Trump publicly broke with his own war secretary over the claims, saying Putin and Xi personally assured him neither country was arming Tehran.
- As of September 17, Trump says he believes the fight is nearing its close, though Iran has not confirmed his claim of direct contact.
A Pattern Ukrainian Analysts Say They Uncovered
An undated Ukrainian intelligence file examined by Reuters concluded that Russian reconnaissance satellites carried out at least two dozen passes over 46 sites spread across 11 countries in the Middle East between March 21 and 31, ranging from oil fields to airports to outright military bases. Within a matter of days, several of those same locations came under Iranian missile or drone fire, a sequence the assessment framed as a repeating pattern rather than a coincidence. Nine of the passes concentrated on Saudi territory, five of them circling King Khalid Military City, seemingly hunting for pieces of the American-built THAAD missile shield. Turkish, Jordanian, Kuwaiti and Emirati sites each drew two passes; single passes touched Bahrain, Iraq, Qatar, Israel and the Diego Garcia naval outpost. Analysts also flagged a newer thread in the file: growing satellite attention on the Strait of Hormuz itself, the corridor that moves roughly a fifth of the planet's oil and gas.
How the Suspicion Began
None of this is a new theory. Days after the United States and Israel opened their bombing campaign against Iran on February 28, both CNN and The Washington Post reported, on March 6, that Russia had started forwarding the positions of American ships, aircraft and personnel to Tehran — intelligence CNN's own sourcing traced largely to satellite imagery from Moscow's orbital fleet. That same weekend, six U.S. troops died in an Iranian drone strike in Kuwait. The White House did not dispute the reporting at the time; its press secretary instead argued the alleged assistance wasn't changing the war's trajectory. Roughly ten days later, the Wall Street Journal added that Moscow had also handed over the Kometa-M jamming-resistant guidance system used in upgraded Shahed-136 drones — a claim the Kremlin dismissed as fabricated, a denial it has repeated every time similar reporting has surfaced since.
Zelensky's Repeated Warnings
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has pressed the same argument publicly, twice. On March 28, fresh off a tour of Gulf capitals under Iranian fire, he posted that Russian satellites had photographed a string of strategic sites tied to Iranian interests, including energy infrastructure. He returned to the claim on July 25, telling followers that Kyiv had tracked steady Russian satellite coverage of Gulf bases since the start of that month, singling out four air bases — two in Bahrain, one each in Jordan and Kuwait — that fell under satellite watch during a single 48-hour stretch, July 19 into July 20, just before nearby strikes. He pledged to hand the evidence to Ukraine's partners. The renewed warning landed only a day after President Trump had publicly waved away the idea that Moscow or Beijing were arming Iran at all.
Washington's Own Investigation
By midsummer, U.S. intelligence had opened its own inquiry, reported first by Al Jazeera citing Reuters: whether Russian assistance explains the precision of Iranian drone strikes that hit at least two CIA-linked facilities in March, one tucked inside the Riyadh embassy compound, another in eastern Iraq. Investigators were examining whether the Kometa-M system had guided the drone that punched through the embassy's perimeter wall. Nicole Grajewski, who studies the region at Sciences Po, called Russian involvement plausible, noting bluntly that "Iran doesn't have great space-based capability, unlike Russia," while cautioning that Tehran's own human intelligence networks deserve just as much credit for its targeting.
A Frosty Exchange in Manila
The dispute even surfaced in diplomatic small talk. When Secretary of State Marco Rubio met Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on the sidelines of an ASEAN gathering in Manila, reporters shouted questions about the satellite allegations before the two men sat down. Lavrov brushed them off, and when a reporter tried again as he left roughly half an hour later, he looked her over and replied, "Nice hairstyle," according to footage circulated afterward. The encounter came just days after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had told senators, under questioning, that Moscow and Beijing were both helping Iran to some degree — testimony that set off the very dispute Trump would shortly try to shut down.
Trump Breaks With His Own Pentagon Chief
Pressed at a July 21 Senate hearing, Hegseth acknowledged a degree of coordination between Iran and its partners, saying Russia and China were each "enabling, at different levels, some of the things Iran is doing." Within days, though, Trump went the other way, posting that both countries were staying out of the fight entirely and that Xi and Putin had personally promised him, in separate conversations, that neither would sell Tehran weapons. Behind the scenes, the administration wasn't unified either: Steve Witkoff, the president's special envoy, said Putin had personally told Trump he was passing nothing to Tehran and that the U.S. would take him at his word, while CIA Director John Ratcliffe told senators plainly that he does not.
Where the War Stands Today
The dispute over Russia's role hasn't slowed the fighting itself. On September 3, Iran fired drones at U.S.-linked bases in Kuwait and Bahrain, its second straight night of retaliation after fresh American strikes. The truce framework the two sides signed on June 17, meant to lift America's naval blockade of Iranian ports for 60 days, lapsed on August 17 with no follow-up accord, and the blockade has stayed in place since. Oil markets have registered the strain: Brent crude broke back above $100 a barrel on September 9 and has traded above $107 in the days since, driven partly by an effective 95-percent drop in Hormuz shipping traffic. On September 17, Trump told reporters he believed the war was finally nearing its close and claimed he had spoken directly with Iranian officials — a claim Tehran has not confirmed, and one a former Iranian diplomat dismissed as a one-sided narrative pushed through social media. The conflict has since widened into Yemen as well. Until Moscow acknowledges a direct role, the question of who is helping aim Iran's missiles will likely stay open.
