Iran receives combat trainer jets from Russia

Iran’s air force has received a batch of advanced Russian combat trainer jets to “improve the training and combat capability of the air force”, AFP reported on Saturday, citing local media.

“A number of Yak-130 training aircraft entered the country and joined the Shahid Babaei Air Base in Isfahan” in central Iran, said the Tasnim news agency.

Quoting the army’s public relations department, it said the arrival of the Yakovlev Yak-130 came as part of the Islamic Republic’s “arms contracts with the Russian Federation”.

Russia and Iran are both under international sanctions that restrict trade, but have over the past year forged strong ties in various sectors including military cooperation.

In March, Iran announced a deal to buy Sukhoi Su-35 fighter jets from Russia.

Much of the military cooperation between Russia and Iran is related to the war in Ukraine. Last year, the US said it had intelligence indicating that Russia is looking to Iran for UAVs.

Later it was reported that Iran had begun training Russians to use its drones, though it was also noted that Russia is experiencing “numerous failures” and technical glitches with the drones it purchased from Iran.

Last September, Ukraine reported the first Russian attacks carried out using Iranian-made drones, targeting the south of the country, including the strategic city of Odessa on the Black Sea.

In June, a US intelligence finding said that Iran is providing Russia with materials to build a drone manufacturing plant east of Moscow as the Kremlin looks to lock in a steady supply of weaponry for its ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

In response to Iran’s aid to Russia, Ukraine’s parliament recently approved a 50-year sanctions package against Iran.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy blasted Iran over its supply of drones to Russia, saying Tehran’s “support for evil cannot be denied” and appealed directly to Iranians, asking: “Why do you want to be accomplices in Russian terror?”

Responding to Zelenskyy’s comments, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani said that the Ukrainian President “repetition of false claims” against the Islamic Republic was “in harmony with the propaganda and media war of the anti-Iranian axis.”

“It is done with the aim of attracting as much military and financial aid from Western countries as possible,” Kanani said. Ukraine, he added, had “specific political goals and motives behind such accusations” and was “avoiding expert negotiations with the Iranian side to investigate the claims.”