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Russian Missile Experts Flew to Iran Amid Clashes With Israel
The S-300 missile system is seen during the National Army Day parade ceremony in Tehran, Iran, April 17, 2024. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
Several senior Russian missile specialists have visited Iran over the past year as the Islamic Republic has deepened its defense cooperation with Moscow, a Reuters review of travel records and employment data indicates.
The seven weapons experts were booked to travel from Moscow to Tehran aboard two flights on April 24 and Sept. 17 last year, according to documents detailing the two group bookings as well as the passenger manifest for the second flight.
The booking records include the men’s passport numbers, with six of the seven having the prefix “20.” That denotes a passport used for official state business, issued to government officials on foreign work trips and military personnel stationed abroad, according to an edict published by the Russian government and a document on the Russian foreign ministry’s website.
Reuters was unable to determine what the seven were doing in Iran.
A senior Iranian defense ministry official said Russian missile experts had made multiple visits to Iranian missile production sites last year, including two underground facilities, with some of the visits taking place in September. The official, who requested anonymity to discuss security matters, didn’t identify the sites.
A Western defense official, who monitors Iran’s defense cooperation with Russia and also requested anonymity, said an unspecified number of Russian missile experts visited an Iranian missile base, about 15 km (9 miles) west of the port of Amirabad on Iran’s Caspian Sea coast, in September.
Reuters couldn’t establish if the visitors referred to by the officials included the Russians on the two flights.
The seven Russians identified by Reuters all have senior military backgrounds, with two ranked colonel and two lieutenant-colonel, according to a review of Russian databases containing information about citizens’ jobs or places of work, including tax, phone, and vehicle records.
Two are experts in air-defense missile systems, three specialize in artillery and rocketry, while one has a background in advanced weapons development and another has worked at a missile-testing range, the records showed. Reuters was unable to establish whether all are still working in those roles as the employment data ranged from 2021 to 2024.
Their flights to Tehran came at a precarious time for Iran, which found itself drawn into a tit-for-tat battle with arch-foe Israel that saw both sides mount military strikes on each other in April and October.
Reuters contacted all the men by phone: five of them denied they had been to Iran, denied they worked for the military or both, while one declined to comment, and one hung up.
Iran’s defense and foreign ministries declined to comment for this article, as did the public relations office of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, an elite military force and internally designated terrorist organization that oversees Iran’s ballistic missile program. The Russian defense ministry didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Cooperation between the two countries, whose leaders signed a 20-year military pact in Moscow in January, has already influenced Russia’s war on Ukraine, with large numbers of Iranian-designed Shahed drones deployed on the battlefield.
ROCKETS AND ARTILLERY
The flight booking information for the seven travelers was shown to Reuters by Hooshyaran-e Vatan, a group of activist hackers opposed to the Iranian government. The hackers said the seven were traveling with VIP status.
Reuters corroborated the information with the Russian passenger manifest for the September flight, which was provided by a source with access to Russian state databases. The news agency was unable to access a manifest for the earlier flight, so couldn’t verify that the five Russian specialists booked on it actually made the trip.
Denis Kalko, 48, and 46-year-old Vadim Malov were among the five Russian weapons experts whose seats were booked as a group on the April flight, the records showed.
Kalko worked at the defense ministry’s Academy for Military Anti-Aircraft Defense, tax records for 2021 show. Malov worked for a military unit that trains anti-aircraft missile forces, according to car ownership records for 2024.
Andrei Gusev, 45, Alexander Antonov, 43, and Marat Khusainov, 54, were also booked on the April flight. Gusev is a lieutenant-colonel who works as deputy head of the faculty of General Purpose Rockets and Artillery Munitions at the defense ministry’s Penza Artillery Engineering Institute, according to a 2021 news item on the institute’s website. Antonov has worked at the Main Rocket and Artillery Directorate of the Defense Ministry, according to car registration records from 2024, while bank data shows Khusainov, a colonel, has worked at the Kapustin Yar missile-testing range.
One of the two passengers onboard the second flight to Tehran in September was Sergei Yurchenko, 46, who has also worked at the Rocket and Artillery Directorate, according to undated mobile phone records. His passport number had the prefix “22”; Reuters was unable to determine what that signified though, according to the government edict on passports, it isn’t used for private citizens or diplomats.
The other passenger on the September flight was 46-year-old Oleg Fedosov. Residence records give his address as the office of the Directorate of Advanced Inter-Service Research and Special Projects. That is a branch of the defense ministry tasked with developing weapons systems of the future.
Fedosov had previously flown from Tehran to Moscow in October 2023, according to Russian border crossing records viewed by Reuters. On that occasion, as he did for the September 2024 flight, Fedosov used his passport reserved for official state business, the records showed.
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UK, France, Germany Urge Gaza Ceasefire, Ask Israel to Restore Humanitarian Access
People walk among destroyed buildings in Gaza, as viewed from the Israel-Gaza border, March 20, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen/File Photo
The governments of Germany, France and Britain called for an immediate return to a ceasefire in Gaza in a joint statement on Friday that also called on Israel to restore humanitarian access.
“We call on Israel to restore humanitarian access, including water and electricity, and ensure access to medical care and temporary medical evacuations in accordance with international humanitarian law,” the foreign ministers of the three countries, known as the E3, said in a statement.
The ministers said they were “appalled by the civilian casualties,” and also called on Palestinian Hamas terrorists to release Israeli hostages.
They said the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians could not be resolved through military means, and that a long-lasting ceasefire was the only credible pathway to peace.
The ministers added that they were “deeply shocked” by the incident that affected the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS) building in Gaza, and called for an investigation into the incident.
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Israeli Military Says It Intercepted Missile Fired from Yemen; Houthis Claim Responsibility
FILE PHOTO: Houthi military helicopter flies over the Galaxy Leader cargo ship in the Red Sea in this photo released November 20, 2023. Photo: Houthi Military Media/Handout via REUTERS/File Photo
The Israeli military said it intercepted a missile fired from Yemen on Friday, one day after shooting down two projectiles launched by Houthi terrorists.
Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis claimed responsibility for the attack, saying that it fired a ballistic missile toward Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv, the group’s military spokesperson, Yahya Saree, said in a televised statement in the early hours of Saturday.
Saree said the attack against Israel was the group’s third in 48 hours.
He issued a warning to airlines that the Israeli airport was “no longer safe for air travel and would continue to be so until the Israeli aggression against Gaza ends and the blockade is lifted.”
However, the airport’s website seemed to be operating normally and showed a list of scheduled flights.
The group’s military spokesman has also said without providing evidence that the Houthis had launched attacks against the US aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman in the Red Sea.
The group recently vowed to escalate attacks, including those targeting Israel, in response to US strikes earlier this month, which amount to the biggest US military operation in the Middle East since President Donald Trump took office in January. The US attacks have killed at least 50 people.
The Houthis’ fresh attacks come under a pledge to expand their range of targets in Israel in retaliation for renewed Israeli strikes in Gaza that have killed hundreds after weeks of relative calm.
The Houthis have carried out over 100 attacks on shipping since Israel’s war with Hamas began in late 2023, saying they were acting in solidarity with Gaza’s Palestinians.
The attacks have disrupted global commerce and prompted the US military to launch a costly campaign to intercept missiles.
The Houthis are part of what has been dubbed the “Axis of Resistance” – an anti-Israel and anti-Western alliance of regional militias including Hamas, Lebanon’s Hezbollah and armed groups in Iraq, all backed by Iran.
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Columbia University Agrees to Some Trump Demands in Attempt to Restore Funding
A pro-Palestine protester holds a sign that reads: “Faculty for justice in Palestine” during a protest urging Columbia University to cut ties with Israel. November 15, 2023 in New York City. Photo: Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
Columbia University agreed to some changes demanded by US President Donald Trump’s administration before it can negotiate to regain federal funding that was pulled this month over allegations the school tolerated antisemitism on campus.
The Ivy League university in New York City acquiesced to several demands in a 4,000-word message from its interim president released on Friday. It laid out plans to reform its disciplinary process, hire security officers with arrest powers and appoint a new official with a broad remit to review departments that offer courses on the Middle East.
Columbia’s dramatic concessions to the government’s extraordinary demands, which stem from protests that convulsed the Manhattan campus over the Israel-Gaza war, immediately prompted criticism. The outcome could have broad ramifications as the Trump administration has warned at least 60 other universities of similar action.
What Columbia would do with its Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies department was among the biggest questions facing the university as it confronted the cancellation, called unconstitutional by legal and civil groups, of hundreds of millions of dollars in government grants and contracts. The Trump administration had told the school to place the department under academic receivership for at least five years, taking control away from its faculty.
Academic receivership is a rare step taken by a university’s administrators to fix a dysfunctional department by appointing a professor or administrator outside the department to take over.
Columbia did not refer to receivership in Friday’s message. The university said it would appoint a new senior administrator to review leadership and to ensure programs are balanced at MESAAS, the Middle East Institute, the Center for Palestine Studies, the Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies and other departments with Middle East programs, along with Columbia’s satellite hubs in Tel Aviv and Amman.
‘TERRIBLE PRECEDENT’
Professor Jonathan Zimmerman, a historian of education at the University of Pennsylvania and a “proud” graduate of Columbia, called it a sad day for the university.
“Historically, there is no precedent for this,” Zimmerman said. “The government is using the money as a cudgel to micromanage a university.”
Todd Wolfson, a Rutgers University professor and president of the American Association of University Professors, called the Trump administration’s demands “arguably the greatest incursion into academic freedom, freedom of speech and institutional autonomy that we’ve seen since the McCarthy era.”
“It sets a terrible precedent,” Wolfson said. “I know every academic faculty member in this country is angry about Columbia University’s inability to stand up to a bully.”
In a campus-wide email, Katrina Armstrong, Columbia’s interim president, wrote that the her priorities were “to advance our mission, ensure uninterrupted academic activities, and make every student, faculty, and staff member safe and welcome on our campus.”
Mohammad Hemeida, an undergraduate who chairs Columbia’s Student Governing Board, said the school should have sought more student and faculty input.
“It’s incredibly disappointing Columbia gave in to government pressure instead of standing firm on the commitments to students and to academic freedom, which they emphasized to us in almost daily emails,” he said.
The White House did not respond to Columbia’s memo on Friday. The Trump administration said its demands, laid out in a letter to Armstrong eight days ago, were a precondition before Columbia could enter “formal negotiations” with the government to have federal funding.
ARREST POWERS
Columbia’s response is being watched by other universities that the administration has targeted as it advances its policy objectives in areas ranging from campus protests to transgender sports and diversity initiatives.
Private companies, law firms and other organizations have also faced threatened cuts in government funding and business unless they agree to adhere more closely to Trump’s priorities. Powerful Wall Street law firm Paul Weiss came under heavy criticism on Friday over a deal it struck with the White House to escape an executive order imperiling its business.
Columbia has come under particular scrutiny for the anti-Israel student protest movement that roiled its campus last year, when its lawns filled with tent encampments and noisy rallies against the US government’s support of the Jewish state.
To some of the Trump administration’s demands, such as having “time, place and manner” rules around protests, the school suggested they had already been met.
Columbia said it had already sought to hire peace officers with arrest powers before the Trump administration’s demand last week, saying 36 new officers had nearly completed the lengthy training and certification process under New York law.
The university said no one was allowed to wear face masks on campus if they were doing so intending to break rules or laws. The ban does not apply to face masks worn for medical or religious purposes, and the university did not say it was adopting the Trump administration’s demand that Columbia ID be worn visibly on clothing.
The sudden shutdown of millions of dollars in federal funding to Columbia this month was already disrupting medical and scientific research at the school, researchers said.
Canceled projects included the development of an AI-based tool that helps nurses detect the deterioration of a patient’s health in hospital and research on uterine fibroids, non-cancerous tumors that can cause pain and affect women’s fertility.
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