Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev has arrived in Iran, RIA Novosti reports with reference to the Iranian news agency IRNA. Analysts at the Institute for the Study of War believe that the purpose of Patrushev's visit is to discuss a potential purchase of ballistic missiles from Iran.
Patrushev's visit is widely covered in the Iranian media, ISW notes. It is reported that Patrushev will hold a series of talks with officials "on the development of bilateral relations and cooperation between Moscow and Tehran in the international arena." According to ISW experts, this was done "to demonstrate to an international audience the deepening cooperation between Moscow and Tehran, and also indirectly make it clear that a high-ranking Russian official is turning to Iran for help in connection with the events in Ukraine."
Earlier, Iran was forced to admit that it supplies Russia with drones, but said that they were delivered before the start of the war. Ukrainian military intelligence found out that this was not the case.
On November 8, Sky News, citing a source, reported that a Russian military aircraft had secretly delivered €140 million to Iran in exchange for drones. In addition, US and British weapons seized in Ukraine were handed over to Iran, including NLAW and Javelin anti-tank systems and Stinger MANPADS. Thus, the Russian side paid for the delivery of 160 Iranian unmanned aerial vehicles. This batch included 100 Shahed-136 kamikaze drones and 6 large Mohajer-6 UAVs.
In October, The Washington Post, citing US security officials and their allies, wrote that new deliveries of Iranian weapons to Russia would include ground-to-ground missiles. These will be the first missiles delivered by Iran to Russia. We are talking about Fateh-110 and Zolfaghar, short-range ballistic missiles. They are capable of hitting targets at 300 and 700 km, respectively.