U.S. Sanctions Four Freighters for Delivering Iranian Weapons to Russia

 

The U.S. Treasury has slapped sanctions on four vessels and ten people for trading Iranian weapons to Russia, including close-range ballistic missiles and UAVs that Russian forces will use to batter Ukrainian forces on the front lines. The shipments will help advance the Russian offensive in eastern Ukraine. 

In 2023, Tehran and Moscow reached a formal deal for the sale of hundreds of Project 360 (Fath 360) ballistic missiles to the Russian military. These small, tactical ballistic missiles have a range of about 75 miles and a payload of 150 kilos. Training for Russian servicemembers began in summer 2024, and the first shipment arrived this month. 

The goods arrived in Russia via the Caspian Sea route, carried aboard the cargo ship Port Olya-3. The ship and three other vessels - Boris Kustodiev, Port Olya-4 and Kompozitor Rakhmaninov - have been added to Treasury's blacklist. Owner and operator Dzhamaldin Emirmagomedovich Pashaev has also been sanctioned. 

Other equipment arrived via Iran Air, the nation's main airline, which has a long history of providing logistics for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Treasury doubled down on previous sanctions on the airline by adding a new listing for trafficking in Iranian arms. 

"Anyone who is providing assistance to Russia, whether it's direct lethal assistance like Iran and North Korea, whether it's support to their defense industrial base like China, is fueling the conflict," said U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken in a press conference Tuesday. "It's a threat to all of Europe."