Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken accused Iran on Tuesday of shipping short-range ballistic missiles to Russia for use in Ukraine and said that the Biden administration was imposing more sanctions against Tehran. The penalties include measures against Iran Air, the country’s main airline, he said.
Russia is likely to use the missiles “within weeks in Ukraine against Ukrainians,” Mr. Blinken said at a news conference in London with the British foreign secretary, David Lammy. He added that dozens of Russian soldiers have been training in Iran to use the missiles, the Fath-360 model with a range of 75 miles, and that the United States had shared intelligence in recent days with its allies on Iran’s aid.
That supply from Iran could greatly aid Russia’s war effort, Mr. Blinken said, allowing it to deploy some of its longer-range missiles against deeper targets in Ukraine rather than using them for short-range attacks.
Mr. Blinken’s remarks were the first public comments by a U.S. or allied official on the missile aid from Iran.
“This is a troubling pattern that we’re seeing from Iran,” Mr. Lammy said in answering a reporter’s question. “It is definitely a significant escalation, and we are coordinating actions.”
The two diplomats also said they would make a joint visit to Ukraine on Wednesday as a show of solidarity with Kyiv, the first such wartime visit by the United States and an allied nation.
“I think it’s a critical moment for Ukraine in the midst of what is an intense fall fighting season with Russia continuing to escalate its aggression,” Mr. Blinken said. Mr. Blinken will travel from Ukraine to Poland, where he will hold meetings on Thursday.
Mr. Lammy suggested that Britain would announce further sanctions on Iran to punish it for the missile shipments. He said he and Mr. Blinken had discussed “our shared commitment to holding Tehran to account for their undermining of global stability.”
For years, across both Republican and Democratic administrations, the United States has imposed harsh sanctions on Iran for its range of military activities in the Middle East and its nuclear program, but those punishments have done little to deter hostile actions by the Iranian government or the militias that it supports, including Hezbollah in Lebanon.
U.S. and European officials had told journalists on the condition of anonymity in recent days that Iran has sent Russia hundreds of short-range ballistic missiles, despite warnings this year from the United States and allied nations that they would impose additional economic sanctions on Iran if it made that move.
The U.S. Treasury Department announced at noon on Tuesday that it was imposing sanctions on 10 individuals and six entities based in Iran and Russia and designated four vessels as blocked vehicles because of Iran’s transfer of ballistic missiles and drones to Russia. The agency said Iran Air was among the designated entities because it is used by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to transport goods.
The department said Russia had signed a contract with Iran in late 2023 to buy hundreds of missiles. Iran trained Russian soldiers this summer in the use of the close-range ballistic missiles, and Russia received the first shipment in September, the department said.
Until now, Iran has mainly been supplying Russia with drones, and it has set up a drone production factory in Russia, U.S. officials say. North Korea has been sending artillery shells to the Russian military. Both have been important to the efforts of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia to seize more territory in the east of Ukraine.
China, Russia’s most powerful partner, has so far refrained from sending arms to Mr. Putin, but has helped Russia rebuild its military industrial base and weapons-production capacity with sales of factory machine tools and microelectronics, Mr. Blinken said on Tuesday, reiterating a criticism that U.S. officials have been voicing for months.
He added that the United States and Britain were working together to punish Chinese entities for that support of Russia. Biden administration officials say they have already imposed sanctions or penalties on more than 300 Chinese entities.
In Brussels on Tuesday, Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell said the components Beijing was sending to Russia constituted “a very substantial effort on the part of China to help sustain, build and diversify various elements of the Russian war machine.” Speaking to a group of journalists in Brussels, he said the U.S. had seen further coordination and efforts at the highest levels of the Chinese and Russian governments to “try to both hide and protect certain elements of this worrisome collaboration.”
William Burns, the director of the C.I.A., and Richard Moore, the chief of the British foreign intelligence service MI6, were asked over the weekend at a conference organized by The Financial Times about Iran supplying Russia with ballistic missiles.
Mr. Burns did not confirm the transfers at the time, but said that they would represent a “dramatic escalation of the nature of that defense partnership.” He also said the weapons trade between Russia and Iran was a “two-way street.” Russia has helped Iran improve its ballistic missiles, making them a bigger threat against Israel, other American partners in the Middle East and U.S. military assets in the region.
While the British government’s policy on Ukraine and Russia has been generally aligned with that of the United States, Mr. Lammy, who has been the top British diplomat only since July, has deviated somewhat from the Biden administration’s line on Israel.
He announced a week ago that Britain would suspend the sales of some arms to Israel because of the large number of Palestinian civilians killed and injured by Israeli military strikes in Gaza. The suspension applies to a small number of arms, and is not expected to make a difference in Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza.
Progressive politicians in the Labour Party, which took power in July, have advocated an arms suspension. And Mr. Lammy has received official legal advice from government lawyers warning that Britain could be in breach of its obligations under international law if it continued to send offensive weapons to Israel.
As Mr. Blinken and Mr. Lammy met at Britain’s Foreign Office, protesters stood outside the entrance. They waved Palestinian flags while denouncing the two governments for aiding Israel in what they called a “genocide” of the Palestinian people. Israeli military strikes have killed an estimated 40,000 Palestinians, following a terrorist attack by Hamas in southern Israel last October that killed about 1,200 people.
Hamas still holds about 100 hostages. Both Mr. Blinken and Mr. Lammy said that they remained determined to try to get Israel and Hamas to agree to a hostage release and cease-fire deal.
Mr. Blinken also made forceful comments when asked about the fact that an American citizen, Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, had been shot dead last Friday by the Israeli military while she was at a protest against Israeli settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank. Israeli officials said earlier on Tuesday that it was highly likely she had been “unintentionally” shot by the military and expressed regret over her killing.
“No one, no one, should be shot and killed for attending a protest,” Mr. Blinken said. “Israeli security forces need to make some fundamental changes in the way that they operate in the West Bank, including changes to their rules of engagement.”
“It’s clear there are serious issues that need to be dealt with,” he added. “And we will insist that they be dealt with.”
He also criticized Israeli security forces for enabling settler violence against Palestinian residents of the West Bank by not enforcing laws against such violence.
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