On two fronts thousands of kilometers apart, in Ukraine and the Middle East, Russia and Iran are sharing reconnaissance asset and strike technology in real time to build a single, vast war system.
Experts said the two conflicts have now evolved from separate local wars into a "connected war" that trades drones and reconnaissance asset. Whereas past wars were territorial disputes between countries sharing physical borders, now satellite imagery, drone technology, and cyber capabilities are crossing fronts and erasing a sense of distance.
On the 7th (local time), Ukrainian intelligence announced intelligence that Russian satellites had conducted dozens of precision images of U.S. military bases and key military facilities in the Middle East and provided them to Iran. Ukrainian intelligence said Russia operated a standing communications channel to pass along reconnaissance materials, and that it is highly likely this data was used to prepare strikes on actual U.S. bases, airports, and energy facilities. Reuters added that "Russian and Iranian hackers are working closely in the cyber domain," noting the two countries are conducting concrete cyber military actions.
Iran and Russia began full-fledged, intensive military cooperation in the fall of 2022, about half a year after Russia invaded Ukraine. At the time, Iran supplied large quantities of the Shahed-136 suicide drone to Russia, supporting the Ukrainian battlefield. This drone makes a fierce engine noise, rushes quickly toward its target, and explodes. The Iranian-made Shahed drone was notorious among Ukrainian forces and civilians because it was faster and more explosive than the drones Russia had previously used. After the drones it provided to Russia received good marks, Iran agreed that same year to also provide surface-to-surface missiles.
At that time, the flow was Iran unilaterally helping Russia's air raids on Ukraine. As a result, Iran's provision of drones became the driving force that now leads Russia to help Iran in the Middle East. The two countries eventually signed a comprehensive strategic partnership treaty in January last year with a 20-year term. The treaty specified close information sharing as well as security and defense cooperation. This means the political and security infrastructure for linking the war in Ukraine and the conflict in the Middle East was already in place.
Russia is said to have begun reverse support for Iran by providing advanced reconnaissance asset under this treaty starting Feb. 28. As a structure of sharing battlefield experience, targeting information, and cyberwarfare techniques solidified, real combat data accumulated on the Ukrainian front was immediately used in drone tactics on the Middle East front. Ukrainian intelligence said, "Since the war began, Russian satellite activity has surged across the Middle East," and "Russia is playing a role in supplementing the reconnaissance information essential for Iran to conduct precision strikes on U.S. forces."
Strategically, Russia seeks to escalate tensions in the Middle East to disperse U.S. power. President Trump has vowed to end the war in Ukraine early and to exert strong pressure on Iran. The more the United States pours resources into the Middle East battlefield, the more likely its focus on supporting Ukraine will wane. Iran, for its part, gains an opportunity, with satellite information and cyber support provided by Russia, to create gaps in the U.S. and Israeli defensive nets. In effect, the two countries are mounting a massive pincer operation against their common adversary, the West, from opposite ends of the Eurasian landmass.
Russia also expects to partially restore its shaken great-power status, undermined by the protracted war in Ukraine, through intervention in the Middle East. Foreign Policy, citing experts, assessed that "Russia is trying to showcase that it still is an actor capable of shaking the Eurasian security order." The aim of not turning away from Iran, which has offered tangible help on the Ukrainian front, and binding it as one axis of the anti-Western front, is also at work.