Iran

The White House tells VOA it is “alarmed” by unconfirmed Western news reports that an unprecedented Iranian transfer of missiles to Russia for use against Ukraine recently happened or will occur imminently. Iran is responding to those reports by separately telling VOA that it “abstains” from arming parties engaged in the war that its ally Russia launched against Ukraine.

The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that unnamed U.S. and European officials determined in recent days that Iran has delivered ballistic missiles to Russia in what would be a first for the growing military partnership of the two anti-Western allies.

Prior to the Journal story, Bloomberg and Reuters published reports on Monday and August 10 respectively, citing unnamed European officials as saying an Iranian transfer of ballistic missiles to Russia was imminent.

VOA asked the White House National Security Council on Friday to confirm whether such a transfer already has happened or remains imminent, as the Western news outlets have reported. NSC spokesperson Sean Savett responded with a statement saying the U.S. is “alarmed by these reports.”

“Any transfer of Iranian ballistic missiles to Russia would represent a dramatic escalation in Iran’s support for Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine,” Savett said, leaving it unclear as to whether the U.S. has detected such a transfer or not.

The Reuters report cited two European “intelligence officials” as saying the transfer would involve Iran’s Fath-360 and Ababil missiles, both of which are classified as close-range ballistic missiles with a range of less than 300 kilometers. Such Iranian missiles could free up Russia’s own missile stockpiles for longer-range strikes into Ukraine.

Savett said the United States and its partners in the Group of Seven advanced economies and the NATO alliance have “made clear ... that together we are prepared to deliver significant consequences” for an Iranian missile transfer to Russia. Western powers have supplied weapons worth billions of dollars to their ally Ukraine to push back Russia’s full-scale invasion that began in 2022.

VOA asked Iran’s U.N. Mission in New York for a response to the U.S. warning of significant consequences for any missile transfer to Russia.

In a statement received on Friday, the Iranian U.N. mission said Tehran “considers the provision of military assistance to the parties engaged in the conflict ... to be inhumane.” It added: “Not only does Iran abstain from engaging in such actions itself, but it also calls upon other countries to cease the supply of weapons to the sides involved in the conflict.”

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Ukraine voices concern at reports of Iranian ballistic missiles to Russia

U.S. and Europe-based researchers monitoring Iranian-Russian military cooperation told VOA there are several ways that a missile transfer could be detected by the West. They said the transfer likely would employ one of three methods: Iran shipping the missiles to Russia through the Caspian Sea, whose coastline they share, flying the missiles over the Caspian Sea or via the airspace of Azerbaijan or the airspace of Armenia and Georgia, or transporting them overland through those nations.

The researchers said open information sources such as ship and flight tracking data and satellite imagery could be used to try to detect a missile transfer being prepared or executed. But they said Iranian and Russian efforts to conceal such transfers would make detection more likely by Western intelligence agencies with access to confidential sources.

“The movement of individuals also is something that I’m looking at,” said Nicole Grajewski, a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

“We saw a lot of open-source information about Russian drone operators visiting Iran to be trained in using Iranian drones,” she said. “So tracking Iranian military advisers who train Russians to use these ballistic missiles could provide another indication of a missile transfer.”

The strongest evidence of an Iranian missile transfer to Russia, Grajewski said, may come only after a transfer takes place. Remnants of Iranian missiles fired by Russia and collected by Ukrainian authorities and displayed to the world would be what she called the “smoking gun.”

The researchers interviewed by VOA said Western powers face a dilemma in considering what significant actions to take if they detect an Iranian missile transfer to Russia.

One of the most significant yet also problematic actions would be interdiction of a transfer, said Fabian Hinz, a researcher for the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

“There is no good way of interdicting these kinds of transfers, short of Western powers taking control of the Caspian Sea or the airspace above the Caspian Sea or the airspace above Russia or Iran and triggering an all-out war, which the U.S. is not going to want,” Hinz said.

Ramping up Western sanctions against Iran’s ballistic missile program and tightening export controls to further constrain Iranian access to Western components used in missile production are legal steps that the U.S. and its allies could pursue, the researchers said.

“But for a lot of these missile components, the Iranians have been adept at navigating sanctions and procuring parts,” Grajewski said.

Behnam Ben Taleblu, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said Western powers could try to prevent or thwart a missile transfer by attempting sabotage within Iran’s missile program, or by declassifying intelligence that detects an imminent transfer and publicizing it quickly to try to deter Iran from proceeding.

“You also should make sure that wherever these Iranian missiles are going to be fired, the targeted people have the military systems to defend themselves and to offset this change in the Russian capability,” Ben Taleblu said. “For Ukraine, that means providing it with more air defenses and an independent capability to carry out long-range strikes against Russia.”

The Biden administration announced its latest U.S. military assistance package for Ukraine on Friday, saying it includes air defense missiles. U.S. officials have not authorized Ukraine to use U.S. weapons for strikes deep into Russia, citing concerns that such Ukrainian attacks could provoke Moscow into using its nuclear weapons.

VOA White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara and Pentagon correspondent Carla Babb contributed to this report.

Russia, Iran and China are ramping up efforts to impact the outcome of the U.S. presidential election and down-ballot races, targeting American voters with an expanding array of sophisticated influence operations.

The latest assessment from U.S. intelligence agencies, shared Friday, warns that Russia remains the preeminent threat, with Russian influence campaigns seeking to boost the chances of Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. President Donald Trump over Democratic candidate Vice President Kamala Harris.

Russian actors, led by networks created by the Kremlin-backed media outlet RT, "are supporting Moscow's efforts to influence voter preferences in favor of the former president and diminish the prospects of the vice president," a senior intelligence official told reporters, briefing on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive information.

"RT has built and used networks of U.S. and other Western personalities to create and disseminate Russia-friendly narratives while trying to mask the content in authentic Americans' free speech," the official said.

And RT, the official added, is just part of a growing Kremlin-directed campaign that is looking to impact not just the race for the White House, but smaller elections across the United States, with an added emphasis on swing states.

"Russia's influence apparatus is very large and it's worth highlighting that they have other entities that are active," the official said. "Russia is working up and down ballot races, as well as spreading divisive issues."

Tracking the Russian influence efforts has become more difficult, with U.S. officials saying that there is a greater degree of sophistication and an increased emphasis on amplifying American voices with pro-Russian views rather than seeding social media with narratives crafted in the Kremlin.

"It's not just about Russian bots and trolls and fake social media persona, although that's part of it," White House national security spokesperson John Kirby told VOA Friday.

"We're not taking anything for granted," he added. "There's no question that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin has every intent to try to sow discord here in the United States, to try to pump disinformation and Russian propaganda through to the American people, through what he believes were our credible sources, be they online or on television and we have to take that seriously."

The intelligence officials declined to share additional specifics about Russia's network of influence operations. But indictments Wednesday from the U.S. Justice Department have shed some light on the scope of the Kremlin's recent operations.

In one case, the U.S. charged two employees of RT with using fake personas and shell companies to funnel almost $10 million to Tenet Media, a Tennessee-based company producing videos and podcasts for a stable of conservative political influencers.

The aim, prosecutors said, was to produce and disseminate content promoting what Moscow viewed as pro-Russian policies.

In a separate action, the U.S. seized 32 internet domains linked to an operation directed by a key aide to Putin. The aim, U.S. officials said, was to mimic legitimate U.S. news sites to spread Russian-created propaganda.

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RT publicly ridiculed the allegations while some of the influencers working with Tenet posted statements on the X social media platform saying they were unaware of the company's links to Moscow.

As for the latest U.S. intelligence allegations, the Russian Embassy in Washington has yet to respond to VOA's request for comments, though it has described previous accusations as "Russophobic."

Requests for comment to the Trump and Harris campaigns have also, so far, gone unanswered.

But earlier U.S. intelligence assertions of Russian support for Trump have raised the ire of the Trump campaign, which has pointed to public statements by Russia's Putin supporting Trump's opponents.

"When President Trump was in the Oval Office, Russia and all of America's adversaries were deterred, because they feared how the United States would respond," national press secretary for the Trump campaign, Karoline Leavitt, told VOA in an email this past July.

U.S. intelligence officials, however, said it would be a mistake to put any faith in Putin's words, including public comments Thursday expressing support for Harris.

The U.S. intelligence community "does not take Putin's public statements as representative of Russia's covert intentions," the senior official said. "There are many examples over the past several years where Putin's public statements do not align with Russian actions. For example, his comments that he would not invade Ukraine."

Experts say Iran, China trying to influence results

U.S. intelligence agencies Friday emphasized Russia is not alone in its effort to shape the outcome of the U.S. elections in November, warning both Tehran and Beijing are sharpening their influence campaigns with just about 60 days until America voters go to the polls.

"Iran is making a greater effort than in the past to influence this year's elections, even as its tactics and approaches are similar to prior cycles," the intelligence official said, describing a "multi-pronged approach to stoke internal divisions and undermine voter confidence in the U.S. democratic system.

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Key US adversaries ‘hiding their hand’ as they hone election influence operations

U.S. intelligence agencies previously assessed that Iran has focused part of its efforts on denigrating the Trump campaign, seeing his election as likely to worsen tensions between Tehran and Washington.

U.S. officials last month also blamed Iran for a hack-and-leak operation targeting the Trump campaign, though they said that Iran-linked actors have also sought to infiltrate the Harris campaign.

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US intelligence officials blame Iran for hacks targeting Trump, Biden-Harris campaigns

As for China, U.S. intelligence officials said it appears Beijing is still content to stay out of the U.S. presidential race, seeing little difference between Trump and Harris.

But there are indications China is accelerating its efforts to impact other political races.

U.S. intelligence "is aware of PRC [People's Republic of China] attempts to influence U.S. down-ballot races by focusing on candidates it views as particularly threatening to core PRC security interests," the official said.

"PRC online influence actors have also continued small scale efforts on social media to engage U.S. audiences on divisive political issues, including protests about the Israel-Gaza conflict and promote negative stories about both political parties," the official added.

'Malicious speculations against China'

The Chinese Embassy in Washington, Friday, rejected the U.S. intelligence assessment.

"China has no intention and will not interfere in the U.S. election, and we hope that the U.S. side will not make an issue of China in the election," spokesperson Liu Pengyu told VOA in an email.

Liu added that accusations Beijing is using social media to sway U.S. public opinion "are full of malicious speculations against China, which China firmly opposes."

While U.S. intelligence officials have identified Russia, Iran and China, as the most prominent purveyors of disinformation, they are not alone.

Officials have said countries like Cuba are also engaging in influence operations, though at a much smaller scale.

And other countries are edging closer to crossing that line.

"We are seeing a number of countries considering activities that, at a minimum, test the boundaries of election influence," according to the U.S. assessment. "Such activities include lobbying political figures to try to curry favor with them in the event they are elected to office."

Misha Komadovsky contributed to this report.