Report: Russian missile experts visited Iran after April 2024 attack on Israel, two weeks ahead of October strikes

Missile experts from the Russian military visited Iran about a week and a half after Iran’s missile attack on Israel in April 2024, and roughly two weeks before its subsequent missile attack in October, a Tuesday report from Reuters revealed.

Records reviewed by Reuters show that seven Russian officials were booked on flights to Tehran on April 24 and Sept. 17.

“A senior Iranian defense ministry official said Russian missile experts had made multiple visits to Iranian missile production sites last year, including two underground facilities, with some of the visits taking place in September,” the report said.

It further stated that of the officials who visited Tehran, “two are experts in air-defense missile systems, three specialize in artillery and rocketry,” and “one has a background in advanced weapons development and another has worked at a missile-testing range.”

While Reuters was not able to confirm whether or not the officials were on the April flight, they did confirm that they were on the September flight.

The information was provided to Reuters by anti-Iranian hacker group Hooshyaran-e Vatan.

In response to calls from Reuters, “five of [the officials] denied they had been to Iran, denied they worked for the military or both, while one declined to comment and one hung up.”

While Russia has developed close ties to the Iranian government, it has also maintained its relationship with Israel, where there are approximately 1.3 million Russian speakers, constituting about 15% percent of the population.

Several Russian-Israelis were killed or taken hostage by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023.

Russian officials condemned the attack without naming Hamas directly, and have leveled the majority of their criticisms against Israel’s response.

“We certainly condemn what was done against Israel on October 7, there can be no justification for it,” said Dmitry Polyansky, Russia’s First Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN.

Yet he also described Israel’s response as “the non-discriminatory shelling of peaceful neighborhoods in Gaza and the death of civilians.”

Russian president Vladimir Putin has made similar statements.

“The first thing I want to say is of course we are against terrorism in all its manifestations, against attacks against civilians – at any place and in any country,” Putin said at a conference last June. “But what is happening now in Gaza in response to the well-known terrorist act in Israel does not really look like a war, it is some kind of total destruction of the civilian population.”

Following Israel’s assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, Putin “asked Iran's Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei for a restrained response…advising against attacks on Israeli civilians.”