According to our article months ago, Moscow has taken initiatives behind the scenes on Iran and the possibility of US military intervention, with the sending of select commandos.

Since June 2019, a Russian consultant has been reported to the Iranian General Staff to strengthen Iranian air defense, consisting of Russian S-300 missile systems deployed at the Bushehr nuclear reactor complex.

Members of the Russian military intelligence service, e-war experts and advisers to the Iranian air command and control system have moved to Iranian territory to support Iran in a possible attack by the US and their allies.

Today, January 22, 2020, in the context of a possible very serious military conflict in the Middle East (US-Iran), Russia is alleged to have sent 80 Russian commandos to Iran, with the main task of safeguarding the country's main military installations.

Absolute discretion from Moscow

Moscow has not provided official information on the matter, however, given the appearance of the Iranian Foreign Minister in Russia prior to the Iranian missile attacks on the "licensed" US base (as it turned out) sources in Russian, Chinese and Turkish news agencies, many defense analysts have linked it to the Russian-Iranian defense agreement.

The United States, for its part, has very unpleasant problems with the possibility that the Iranian regime is secretly preparing nuclear weapons because it believes it will seriously affect the vital interests of the United States and Israel, whose security is guaranteed.

Iran's resolute refusal to allow any US inspection of its nuclear facilities, in combination with US sanctions against Tehran, has created a very heavy climate between the two sides.

"Russia, and President Putin personally, are watching the situation very carefully, and for this reason he has decided to send 80 Russian commandos to Iran's military and nuclear facilities to prevent possible US attacks," the Chinese news agency said. Sohu.

Recall that a powerful defense agreement still in force between Iran and Russia has been signed, the outcome of which is the dispatch of Russian warships "at a distance of the Kalibr rocket launchers" off the coast of Iran, while the airspace above Iran. , is scanned daily by Russian radars at bases in southern Russia.

This means that if Tehran is notified via Russian radar that the country may be attacked by US cruise missiles targeting Iran's air defense, and in particular reactors, military installations and warehouses, then Tehran is reportedly launching a missile. missiles on US warships and aircraft at their bases in the area with Russian "help" and targeting Saudi oil refineries and pipelines in the Gulf.

"Iran's Armed Forces Alert"

"The armed forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran," said a Russian military source requesting anonymity, "will have all the air defense systems ready to attack air, sea and land targets."

Russian specialists are now working in Bushehr and that means the S-300s are exclusively about Bushehr protection, "he concluded. A Russian military source said there is now active coordination between Russia and Iran in the Iranian General Staff of Armed Forces.

It all shows that Moscow is doing something similar to Venezuela, by sending forces to "secure" critical facilities and the country's political and military elite, seeking to prevent a possible American attack.

Civil aviation authority says investigation ongoing to assess the impact TOR-1 missiles had on the accident.

Iran has confirmed two missiles were fired at a Ukrainian airliner mistakenly brought down earlier this month amid heightened tensions with the United States.

The country's civil aviation authority said it has yet to receive a positive response after requesting technical assistance from France and the US to decode black boxes from the plane that crashed shortly after takeoff from Tehran on January 8, killing all 176 people on board.

"Investigators ... discovered that two Tor-M1 missiles... were fired at the aircraft," Iran's Civil Aviation Organisation said in a preliminary report posted on its website late on Monday.

However, the report said "the impact of these missiles on the accident and the analysis of this action is under investigation."

The statement confirms a report in The New York Times which included video footage appearing to show two projectiles being fired at the Kyiv-bound Ukraine International Airlines.

The Tor-M1 is a short-range surface-to-air missile developed by the former Soviet Union that is designed to target aircraft or cruise missiles.

Iran had for days denied Western claims based on US intelligence reports that the aircraft had been shot down, before admitting to the "disastrous mistake" on January 11.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' (IRGC) aerospace commander Brigadier General Amirali Hajizadeh accepted full responsibility but said the missile operator who opened fire had been acting independently.

Black-box impasse
The downing triggered days of student-led protests mainly in the Iranian capital.

Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Friday that the demonstrations were unrepresentative of the Iranian people and accused the country's enemies of exploiting the air disaster for propaganda purposes.


In its report, the Civil Aviation Organisation said it was "impossible" for it to read the flight data and cockpit voice recorders - commonly known as black boxes - because they were so advanced.

But it suggested Iran wants to keep them for now.

"If devices are provided, the information (on the black boxes) can be restored and retrieved in a short period of time," it said.

The aviation body said it had asked its French and US counterparts, the BEA and NTSB respectively, to provide a list of the equipment required to read the black boxes.

It said it had also sought the transfer of the equipment, but added that neither the BEA nor NTSB had "so far responded positively".

The organisation said it had acquired the list nonetheless, without saying how, and hinted it would use it to buy the equipment itself.

The report said that based on passports used to board Flight PS752, there were 146 Iranians, 11 Ukrainians including nine crew members, 10 Afghans and four Swedes on the ill-fated airliner.

Canada, which says 57 of its nationals were on the plane, has repeatedly asked Iran to hand the black boxes over to Ukraine or France for expert analysis.

US-Iran tensions
The aircraft was downed when Iran's air defences had been on high alert hours after its armed forces fired more than 20 ballistic missiles at US targets in Iraq.

That was carried out in reprisal for a January 3 US drone strike that killed Iran's most prominent military commander, Qasem Soleimani, near Baghdad airport.

US President Donald Trump had threatened to hit back if Iran struck US citizens or assets in retaliation for Soleimani's killing, but refrained after the missiles caused no casualties.

It was the second time in little more than six months that the two countries were on the brink of war.

In June 2019, Trump had approved a strike on Iran in response for the downing of a US drone in the Gulf, before calling it off at the last minute.

Longstanding US-Iran tensions have soared since May 2018 when Trump withdrew from a landmark nuclear deal that offered Tehran sanctions relief in return for curbs to prevent it acquiring nuclear weapons.

Washington says it seeks to rein in Tehran's ballistic missile programme as well as its "destabilising behaviour" in the region.

It has since slapped punishing sanctions on Iran, which denies it wants to acquire nuclear weapons and has hit back by progressively rolling back commitments to the unravelling nuclear deal signed in 2015 between Tehran and world powers.