Russia has supported Iran with intelligence, drone expertise, and battlefield lessons from Ukraine.

As Moscow and Tehran deepen cooperation, US lawmakers heard warnings that Iran’s role in Ukraine now extends beyond drones to intelligence, cyber tools, and regional military coordination. Make us preferred on Google Share Facebook X (Twitter) LinkedIn Bluesky Email Copy Copied A man examines Russia Iranian drone a Shahed 136 (Geranium-2), a new exhibit of open air exhibition destroyed Russian equipment in Kyiv on October 27, 2025 (Photo by Sergei SUPINSKY / AFP) Content Share Facebook X (Twitter) LinkedIn Bluesky Email Copy Copied Flip Make us preferred on Google At a US Helsinki Commission hearing on Tuesday, Behnam Ben Taleblu, senior director of the Iran Program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, warned lawmakers that the growing partnership between Russia and Iran should be seen not as an isolated regional problem, but as part of a wider authoritarian alignment that also includes China and North Korea. Taleblu argued that these states, despite their differing political systems and historical rivalries, are increasingly united by anti-Americanism, domestic repression, and revisionist ambitions abroad. He described them as an “authoritarian and anti-American axis of aggressors” that is seeking low-cost ways to expand its power at the expense of the United States and its democratic partners. Follow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official . While the hearing focused heavily on Ukraine, Taleblu stressed that it would be a mistake to examine Russia and Iran in separate silos. The threats posed by Moscow and Tehran, he suggested, are now increasingly intertwined, with the war in Ukraine serving as a key arena for their strategic cooperation. He described the modern Russia-Iran relationship as the product of political choice rather than historical destiny. Over centuries, ties between the two powers were often turbulent and marked by distrust. But in recent years, that relationship has evolved from transactional to increasingly transformational. Tehran’s decision to join the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in 2023 and BRICS in 2024, Taleblu said, reflected Iran’s growing integration into a broader anti-Western bloc. Other Topics of Interest Spain to Deliver 100 VAMTAC Armored Vehicles and Ammunition to Ukraine Madrid says the shipment, confirmed during a visit to Kyiv, will bolster Ukraine’s battlefield mobility and reinforce long-term military support. A major sign of this shift came in 2025, when Russia and Iran signed a 20-year strategic agreement covering security, energy, economic, technological, cyber, and political cooperation. Yet Taleblu noted that the deal stopped short of a mutual defense pact, underscoring that even this strengthening relationship still has limits. Even so, he said, the partnership has already crossed significant thresholds. Iran has supplied Russia with lethal one-way attack drones for use in Ukraine and has helped Moscow establish the capacity to manufacture such drones domestically on Russian soil. That decision, Taleblu said, marked a historic turning point. “For the first time ever, Iran can be considered an active participant in a war on the European continent,” he told the commission. Taleblu argued that Tehran’s role in Ukraine should also be understood in the context of its long-running confrontation with the West. Support for Russia, he said, is not simply a tactical arrangement, but part of a broader ideological and strategic alignment that has deepened since 2022. At the same time, he cautioned that the exchange between the two countries is not one-sided. Although Iran may have provided Russia with an estimated $4 billion in weaponry since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Taleblu said the range of assistance Moscow can offer Tehran remains substantial. That support, he testified, includes cash, gold, captured Western weapons recovered from the Ukrainian battlefield, cyber tools that can be used to surveil and repress Iranian citizens, and, more recently, targeting data on US positions in the region obtained through satellite passes. He also highlighted Russia’s growing role in Iran’s space program, saying Moscow has helped launch eight Iranian satellites into low Earth orbit since 2022 without a single failure. In 2022, he added, Russia even built a satellite for Iran’s sanctioned space agency. Taleblu suggested that the Russia-Iran partnership is now generating cross-regional military lessons, especially in drone warfare. Battlefield experience gained in Ukraine, he said, could have direct relevance for the Persian Gulf, the broader Middle East, and the US Central Command area of responsibility. For that reason, he urged Congress to build on the Joint Interagency Task Force 401, established in last year’s National Defense Authorization Act, and to review whether lessons from Ukraine could be applied to detecting and defeating Iranian and Russian unmanned aerial threats elsewhere. He also called for stronger support for Iranian freedom and internet freedom, backing measures such as the Freedom Act, the Iran Human Rights Internet Freedom and Accountability Act, and the Internet Reach and Access Now Act, known as the IRAN Act. In addition, he urged lawmakers to exercise greater oversight over Iran-related provisions already included in the 2024 supplemental bill for Ukraine, including counter-proliferation, human rights, and oil sanctions measures. Taleblu argued that Congress should also preserve and expand multilateral pressure tools rather than allow them to erode. Among those, he pointed to the snapback of UN sanctions on Iran, even as Russia has said it would not recognize such measures. More broadly, Taleblu said lawmakers should do more to expose the developing Russia-Iran relationship to the American public, the Iranian people, the Ukrainian people, and international audiences. Naming, shaming, and punishing such cooperation wherever it emerges, he argued, should be a central part of US strategy. Kyiv Post is Ukraine’s first and oldest English news organization since 1995. Its international market reach of 97% outside of Ukraine makes it truly Ukraine’s Global – and most reliable – Voice.