🇮🇷❌🇺🇸🇧🇭 — An Iranian drone has seemingly struck the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet base in Bahrain overnight, with a fresh burn scar visible on a warehouse inside the base.

🏹 🇷🇺 🇮🇷 FT: Russia has been secretly helping Iran develop advanced supersonic cruise missiles in one of the most significant known transfers of strategic military technology from Moscow to Tehran.

The multiyear covert programme, codenamed C430L, has enlisted some of Russia’s most experienced missile specialists to help Iran develop a new class of weapon capable of threatening US aircraft carriers and other warships in the Middle East.

An FT investigation uncovered the programme, which began in 2023 and continued into the US-Israeli war against Iran, through leaked Russian correspondence, travel records and analysis of military patents.

The main purpose of C430L is to help Iran to develop a ramjet propulsion system, an engine that allows a cruise missile to sustain flight at several times the speed of sound. Missile and military experts said the technology was almost certainly intended for anti-ship and land-attack cruise missiles.

The supersonic missile assistance programme was arranged by Rosoboronexport, Russia’s state arms exporter, which co-ordinated the project with NPO Mashinostroyenia.

Leaked travel records reviewed by the FT show Russian arms export officials and several senior NPO Mashinostroyenia engineers made repeated trips to Iran before the C430L contract was formally signed with Iran’s Ministry of Defence and Armed Forces Logistics in November 2023.

By 2025, NPO Mashinostroyenia had received a large cache of Iranian technical material relating to the ramjet propulsion system. Russian engineers then analysed data from an Iranian flight test and sent Tehran a detailed set of questions about how the system had performed.

https://archive.ph/95cnY

📎 barry with the NED