"The United States has confirmed reports that Iran has transferred shipments of Fath 360 close-range ballistic missiles to Russia, which we assess could employ them within weeks against Ukraine, leading to the deaths of even more Ukrainian civilians," said Pentagon Press Secretary Air Force Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder during a briefing today. He added that right now, the department can't say how many missiles are involved.
The Fath 360 missiles, Ryder said, are believed to have a range of about 75 miles and would allow Russians to reserve more advanced missiles with longer ranges for other uses.
"It is a short-range or close-range ballistic missile system," he said. "What this does is it would enable Russia to employ this capability while preserving its longer-range capabilities for use throughout the battlefield, thus deepening Russia's arsenal and also, again, giving it the ability to strike the kinds of targets that we've seen them striking, to include civilian targets."
Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, and since then, through a variety of security arrangements, including with the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, the U.S. and partner nations have provided military support to Ukraine. A large focus has been on air defense, which Ryder said would continue.
"Air defense has been something that we've been very focused on for a long time now when it comes to Ukraine," he said. "That has been a priority for the Ukrainians, and therefore it's been a priority for us. I point you back to UDCG, almost a year and a half ago, where [Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III] highlighted how critical this was."
Since that time, Ryder said, U.S. and partner nations have been working to provide the Ukrainians with a variety of air defense systems meant to address both short-range and long-range missile threats.
"Building that integrated air defense capability for Ukraine has been going on for a while now, and so we're not going to let up," Ryder said. "And [with] these missiles, while they certainly are going to present a threat, we're going to work with Ukraine to ensure ... that they have the capabilities needed to defend against these missiles and other missiles that Russia is using, to include drones."
The United States has committed more than $55.9 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since the beginning of Russia’s invasion in February 2022. Air defense systems are featured heavily in that security assistance. Among the air defense systems provided are Patriot air defense batteries; National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems, also called NASAMS; HAWK air defense systems; Stinger anti-aircraft missiles; and Avenger air defense systems.
In the same way the U.S. and partner nations have been training Ukrainian service members on the use of equipment such as howitzers and the F-16 Falcon aircraft, the Iranians have trained Russians on the use of the Fath 360. Ryder said the department believes "dozens" of Russian military personnel were trained in Iran to use the missile system.
While it's not known what the Iranians received in exchange for providing the missiles. Ryder said officials speculate intelligence information might have been part of the arrangement.
"Without being able to go into specifics, we see them sharing information as it relates to nuclear programs, space and other technological capabilities that Russia has that countries like Iran want," he said.
Ryder also said given Russia's growing relationships with other bad-faith actors on the global stage, including North Korea, there is a reasonable expectation that there will be continued delivery of missiles from Iran.
"The concerning aspect of this ... is the developing relationship between Russia and Iran," he said. "And you also see Russia developing a relationship with [North Korea], where they become essentially a supplier of capability. So, one has to assume that if Iran is providing Russia with these types of missiles, that it's very likely it would not be a one-time good deal, that this would be a source of capability that Russia would seek to tap in the future."
Ukrainian serviceman of 56th brigade fire by self-propelled artillery towards Russian positions at the frontline on Chasiv Yar direction, Donetsk region, Ukraine, Sept. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka) ASSOCIATED PRESS
AP: KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — The Russian government wants to earmark 32.5% of its spending next year for defense, a record amount and up from a reported 28.3% this year, as Moscow seeks to prevail in the war in Ukraine.
The government’s draft budget released Monday proposes spending just under 13.5 trillion rubles (over $145 billion) on national defense. That is about 3 trillion rubles ($32 billion) more than was set aside for defense this year and was the previous record.
The Ukraine war is Europe’s biggest conflict since World War II and has drained the resources of both sides, with Ukraine getting billions of dollars in help from its Western allies.
Russia’s forces are bigger and better-equipped than Ukraine’s, and in recent months the Russian army has gradually been pushing Ukrainian troops backward in eastern areas.
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited the United States last week in pursuit of continuing financial and military support as the war approaches its three-year milestone next February.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is also looking how to sustain his war effort as military spending has placed a huge strain on the Russian economy.
Earlier this month, Russia’s central bank raised its key interest rate by a full percentage point to 19% to combat high inflation. It held out the prospect of more rate increases to return inflation from the current 9.1% to the bank’s target of 4% in 2025.
According to the draft budget, spending on defense should decline in 2026.
The proposed budget could still change as it goes through three readings in the State Duma, Russia’s lower parliament house, and then goes to the Federation Council, the upper house, before Russian President Vladimir Putin signs it into law.
Meanwhile, Putin on Monday signed a call-up order for 133,000 conscripts in the autumn military draft, which is a routine number for seasonal conscription campaigns.
In September, he ordered the country’s military to increase Russia's number of troops by 180,000 to a total of 1.5 million. Overall military personnel would be about 2.4 million.
Overnight, Russia fired missiles and drones at 11 regions of Ukraine, the Ukrainian air force said Monday, in a 33rd consecutive night of aerial attacks behind the front line and set a new monthly record of drone barrages.
It was the first time Russians launched more than 1,000 Shahed drones in a month. It was also the first time the Iranian-made drones were used in every aerial attack on each day of the month.
In Kyiv, multiple explosions and machine gun fire could be heard throughout the night as the Ukrainian capital’s air defenses fought off a drone attack for five hours.
No casualties were reported in Kyiv or elsewhere, though a “critical infrastructure object” caught fire in the southern Mykolaiv region, Gov. Vitalii Kim said, without elaborating.
Russia has increasingly deployed Shahed drones, rather than more expensive missiles, in its aerial bombardment of Ukrainian cities since its full-scale invasion of its neighbor in February 2022.
It launched more than 1,300 Shahed drones at Ukraine in September alone — the highest number of drone attacks in a single month since the war began.
Ukraine, too, has developed a new generation of drones for the battlefield and for long-range strikes deep inside Russia. More than 100 Ukrainian drones were shot down over Russia on Sunday, Russian officials said.
Also Monday, Putin released a video marking the second anniversary of the annexation of four Ukrainian territories and again accused the West of turning Ukraine into “a military base aimed at Russia.”
Putin was speaking to mark the annexation of the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions of Ukraine after a referendum held in 2022 which was denounced by the West as a sham. Russia also illegally annexed Crimea in 2014.
Since 2022, Putin said, businesses in the occupied areas are being “actively restored” and hospitals and schools are being rebuilt.
Thousands of Ukrainians fled from the four regions as a result of Russia’s invasion, but Putin said Russia’s military operation in the country was to defend residents’ “well-being” and the “future for our children and grandchildren.”
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