‘Sophisticated’ strikes on American forces made possible through Moscow intelligence, say officials

Memphis Barker Senior Foreign Correspondent, in Washington, DC. 

Henry Bodkin in northern Israel

Published 06 March 2026 9:00pm GMT

Russia is providing Iran with intelligence to strike American military targets in the Middle East.

The information led to “sophisticated” attacks by Iranian missiles and drones against United States’ radar facilities, warships and aircraft.

The intelligence also made it possible to target temporary structures that Iran’s satellites could not spot, including a strike on a makeshift operations centre in Kuwait that killed six US soldiers.

Moscow began to pass information to the Islamic Republic on the positions of US forces as soon as the war began on Saturday, US officials said. It is the first sign of Russia’s active participation in the expanding conflict.

One official told the Washington Post: “It does seem like it’s a fairly comprehensive effort.”

Donald Trump’s spokeswoman did not deny the reports. Karoline Leavitt said Russian intelligence “clearly is not making a difference with respect to the military operations in Iran because we are completely decimating them … we are achieving the military objectives of this operation and that is going to continue.”

On Friday, a major training exercise for elite paratroopers in the US was cancelled, prompting speculation that Mr Trump is preparing for boots on the ground in Iran.

The 82nd Airborne Division includes a brigade combat team of between 4,000 and 5,000 soldiers specialising in ground combat, which is ready to deploy on 18 hours’ notice.

The reports of Russian interference came as Mr Trump said there would be no deal with Iran unless it involved Tehran’s “unconditional surrender”.

Mr Trump also said the US would work with its allies to select an “acceptable” leader once the conflict was over, having killed Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader, in an air strike on Saturday.

Masoud Pezeshkian, the Iranian president, said some countries had begun mediation efforts to end the war, adding that Tehran was “committed to lasting peace”.

The US and Israel carried out attacks on Iran for the seventh consecutive day on Friday. The death toll in Iran climbed past 1,200, while Israeli air strikes also killed 200 people in Lebanon.

An Israeli commander said they were preparing for a large-scale ground invasion there, and The Telegraph witnessed tanks and heavy weaponry massing on the northern border.

A senior Israeli Defense Forces officer in Northern Command told The Telegraph he would have enough troops and equipment in place within two days, and was awaiting an order to advance.

The officer said: “We have plans to go as deep as needed… We’re ready to mobilise if such an order arrives.”

Pete Hegseth, the US defence secretary,warned that the number of strikes on Tehran would increase “dramatically” as Israel and Washington moved into “the next phase” of their military campaign.

Vladimir Putin has long objected to the US providing satellite intelligence to the Ukrainian military, and now appears to be responding in kind.

While Iran has only a small number of military-grade satellites, Moscow has many and has honed their capabilities in its war with Ukraine.

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“The Russians are more than aware of the assistance that we’re giving the Ukrainians,” a US official told the Post. “I think they were very happy to try to get some payback.”

“Much [of Russia’s support to Iran] will be space-based imagery,” said Mike Petersen, principal research scientist at the Centre for Naval Analyses, a federally funded organisation tied to the US military.

“This is good for knowing what bases are being used when, and what aircraft may be parked. It can allow Iran to temporarily slow or halt airfield ops,” he wrote on X.

He added: “Russia may also provide locations on intelligence stations in the region, allowing Iran to put them under drone attack.” Moscow’s satellites can also snoop on US communications so Iran can “understand strategic force dispositions”.

But Mr Petersen pointed out that the US had prepared to “operate in environments like this for years”, and would have “countermeasures for these eventualities”.

Before the war, China reportedly provided Iran with technology to help rebuild its ballistic missile arsenal, which the 12-day war last June had depleted.

However, Beijing has not intervened to provide concrete assistance in the current conflict, two officials told the Washington Post.

Neither Russia nor China’s foreign office responded to requests for comment.

Moscow has around 110 military satellites in orbit, while Iran has around 13 that are still operational, with three registered to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.

On Thursday, Adml Brad Cooper, the head of US central command, announced that US strikes had destroyed Iran’s military space force.

“We’ve also struck Iran’s equivalent of Space Command, which degrades their ability to threaten Americans,” he said.

However, experts doubt it had the ability to do so in the first place. 

“They were not a threat in space capabilities,” Victoria Samson, head of the non-profit Secure World Foundation, told the Defense One website. “The threat that they have [is] for counter-space capabilities, they’re great at jamming and spoofing.”

According to the US space force, Russia’s own space capabilities have suffered in recent years. The number of satellite launches has declined amid “funding shortfalls, international isolation and broader societal problems”.

Increasingly, Moscow relies on civil and commercial satellite imagery for the war in Ukraine, the US space force reported in its fact sheet on foreign threats. That includes purchases from the Chinese company Spacety.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/news/2026/03/06/russia-intelligence-ran-us-military/