U.S. accuses Iran of sending ballistic missiles to Russia

“We’ve warned Tehran publicly, we’ve warned Tehran privately, that taking this step would be a dangerous escalation,” Blinken said. “Russia has now received shipments of these missiles.”

He added that Russia would likely use the shipments within weeks.

Iranian officials this week denied that they had sent weapons to Russia.

The potent weapons bolster Moscow’s armory at a pivotal moment in its grinding war on Ukraine, as Kyiv pushes into Russia but faces setbacks in its east. With Ukrainians clamoring for expanded U.S. weapons assistance, Blinken said that he would visit Kyiv Wednesday for consultations with its leadership, a rare visit by a cabinet-level official to the wartime capital.

Russia has been on a global hunt to bolster its stockpiles, reasoning that if it can outlast Kyiv’s backers and grind the country into submission, it will eventually prevail. Iran has supplied Russia with attack drones, but until recently held back from offering more powerful weaponry, in apparent deference to U.S. and European warnings that to do so would trigger a wave of painful sanctions.

The Iranian move further extends the realignment of global actors that was accelerated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, coalescing the U.S. antagonists of Russia, China and Iran in an increasingly unified band that is seeking to push back on U.S. influence around the world. Though none of the countries were friendly to Washington before the war, their mutual mistrust of each other previously kept them more in check.