World
Is Iran supplying ballistic missiles to Russia for the Ukraine war?
Tehran, Iran – Ukraine’s Western allies claim Iran has sent short-range ballistic missiles to Russia in a major escalation – a claim Tehran has rejected as “completely baseless and false” and pointed to what it sees as Western hypocrisy.
The United States, Britain, France and Germany on Tuesday imposed more sanctions on Iran for what they called Tehran’s “escalatory” decision. They provided no evidence and the weapon has not been observed in the battlefield yet.
Tehran has described the latest sanctions on Iranian firms and individuals as “economic terrorism”.
The Kremlin, however, has not refuted the reports, instead branding Iran an “important partner”.
What’s the significance of the missiles?
The Western allies have accused Iran of giving Russia some 200 ballistic missiles of the Fath-360 model potentially slated to be used in Ukraine within weeks. Russia has been fighting a war with Ukraine, which has been backed by the West, since 2022.
The satellite-guided projectile, also known as BM-120, is a single stage, surface-to-surface, solid propellant ballistic missile that can be launched from up to six-round canisters mounted on the back of trucks.
The range is only up to 120km (75 miles) and it can carry an explosive payload weighing up to 150kg (330lb), with maximum speeds reaching Mach 4 – four times the speed of sound, or about 4,900 kilometres per hour (3,050mph). The missile is believed to have an accuracy of below 30 metres (98 feet).
The weapon by itself is unlikely to turn the tide of any war, but could potentially help Russia better manage its offensive on Ukrainian soil. The Fath-360 has often been compared with the US-made HIMARS systems that Ukraine has been using against Russian forces.
As the US has also pointed out, the Iranian missiles could be deployed to hit targets nearer to the front lines, allowing Russia to reserve its own precision-guided munitions for targets deeper inside Ukrainian borders.
Since shortly after the start of the war in 2022, Iran has also been accused of sending explosives-laden drones to Russia and helping train Russian forces and set up a drone production line, with Ukraine displaying parts of destroyed drones in battlefields as proof.
For its part, Iran has said it sold drones to Russia – but this happened “months” before the start of the war. It has also emphatically denied sending the missiles on multiple occasions since the claim was first made by Western officials in late 2022, with the foreign ministry on Wednesday promising to respond to the sanctions.
Would sending the missiles violate Iran’s nuclear deal?
The nuclear deal that Iran signed with world powers in 2015 to get relief from United Nations sanctions in exchange for limiting its nuclear programme also included provisions on missiles.
As part of the accord’s sunset clauses, a longstanding conventional arms embargo imposed on Iran expired in October 2020. More restrictions on Iran’s missile programme expired in October 2023, but the US and European Union kept their own sanctions to pressure the Iranian arms industry.
Technically, there are no international legal hurdles stopping Iran from sending the ballistic missiles.
But United Nations Security Council Resolution 2231, which underpins the nuclear accord, used the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) that was formed by the G7 to define the prohibitions imposed on Iran as part of the arms embargo. Russia and China are MTCR partners, but the regime does not impose legally binding obligations.
The MTCR Category I stipulates that adhering states should not export missiles and drones with a range of more than 300km (186 miles) and a payload greater than 500kg (1,100lb).
The Fath-360 falls comfortably within the confines of Category I, which could mean that – if the allegations are true – Iran is treading carefully by not sending longer-range missiles. Earlier reports had speculated Tehran could be sending ballistic missile variants with ranges of up to 700km (435 miles) that could travel far beyond Ukraine.
Limiting the range of the exported missiles could shield Iran against the nuclear deal’s “snapback” mechanism that could reinstate all UNSC sanctions on Iran. If longer-range missiles were to be exported, the E3 could argue Iran was violating Category I Resolution 2231, which expires in October 2025.
Would missile exports to Russia make strategic sense for Iran?
Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian and his cabinet have come to power with support from Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei while emphasising they want more diplomatic engagement with the West and negotiations to lift sanctions.
Russia has also stirred the pot in Iran by supporting Azerbaijan’s Turkey-backed plan to establish the controversial Zangezur Corridor, linking mainland Azerbaijan to Nakhchivan through Armenia and cutting off a vital export line to Europe for Iran.
For these two reasons, a decision by Iran to send missiles to Russia would not appear to make strategic sense, according to Hamidreza Azizi, and visiting fellow at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP).
But beyond the timing, the Iran expert told Al Jazeera that Tehran could be expecting to finally take delivery of the advanced Russian Su-35 fighter jets that it has said it wants to procure, while looking to other military technology and joint weapons production with Russia.
“Furthermore, Iran and Russia have been cooperating in other strategic areas, such as space and nuclear programmes. Iran may also seek to deepen collaboration in these areas. So, while the timing might be questionable, these broader factors could be driving Iran’s incentives to proceed with the missile deliveries,” Azizi said.
What do we know about the latest Western sanctions on Iran?
In response to what they called a “dramatic escalation”, the US and E3 have further piled on sanctions on Iranian civil aviation, blacklisting flagship airliner Iran Air and cutting off its access to Europe.
Citing a “direct threat to European security”, the E3 said they would pursue designating entities and individuals involved with Iranian weapons programmes.
The US and United Kingdom blacklisted three senior military commanders who have been allegedly involved in exporting arms to Russia, along with four Iranian entities including the organisation running the Anzali Free Trade Zone in northern Iran. Five Russian ships and three aviation units were designated as well.
Did the US withdrawal from the nuclear deal get us here?
The landmark 2015 Iranian nuclear accord has been in limbo for years because Washington unilaterally abandoned it in 2018 and imposed the harshest-ever sanctions on Iran that remain in place today.
But the move, and the “maximum pressure” policy of the administration of former President Donald Trump that his predecessor Joe Biden has mostly continued, prompted Iran to increasingly veer towards Russia and China.
Iran and Russia have been cooperating in Syria as well, working for more than a decade to keep the government of President Bashar al-Assad in power.
Iran and China signed a 25-year cooperation agreement in 2021, but no major deals have been announced as part of the agreement. China, however, continues to be the largest buyer of Iranian crude oil despite the sanctions.
On the other hand, the Russian invasion of Ukraine led Moscow to seek new partners.
The US pressure on Iran has been a “major factor” driving further cooperation with Russia, and abandoning the nuclear deal was a “key moment” that pushed Iran to pursue a “look to the East” policy, Azizi said.
The expert said Iran and Russia share a desire to challenge US influence and hegemony globally, but this does not equal a formal military or economic alliance, even though there have been agreements.
“There’s no mutual defence pact or binding agreement that would, for example, commit Russia to defend Iran in a conflict, nor are there concrete agreements in other strategic areas,” he said.
“The strategic partnership agreement, which is reportedly in its final stages, is expected to focus more on generalities rather than specific mutual commitments. While their growing cooperation undoubtedly presents challenges for the US and Europe, it’s important not to overstate the relationship as a formal alliance. Still, both countries seem eager to continue expanding their cooperation.”
A magnitude 7.1 earthquake shook north-central Venezuela on Wednesday afternoon, near capital Caracas, with residents in neighboring Colombia also reporting feeling tremors.
Residents in Caracas rushed to evacuate as the quake shook buildings. One witness said that cracks had formed up the side of their apartment and glass in the entryway had shattered.
The U.S. Tsunami Warning System issued a tsunami threat for Puerto Rico and the U.S. and British Virgin Islands following the earthquake, adding that islands off the coast of Venezuela – Aruba, Curacao and Bonaire – could also be hit by hazardous waves.
(Reporting by Reuters staff; Editing by Chris Reese and Daina Beth Solomon)
World
Israel slams UN report as ‘political blood libel’ for alleging deliberate targeting of Palestinian children
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
Israel reacted angrily over a new United Nations’ Commission of Inquiry report alleging the Jewish state had engaged in the “deliberate targeting of Palestinian children.”
Prior reports from the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Including East Jerusalem, and Israel garnered accusations of antisemitism and incitement to violence.
The latest report, released Wednesday, said that, “based on the evidence reviewed, and consistent with its previous reports, the Commission finds on reasonable grounds that the Israeli authorities and the Israeli security forces have continued to commit the crime of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in the Gaza Strip and war crimes in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.”
UN EXPERT REPEATS ISRAEL ‘GENOCIDE’ CLAIMS AFTER US CALLS FOR HER REMOVAL
A woman kneels by a memorial site in Kibbutz Kfar Aza, southern Israel, as the community commemorates members killed, taken hostage, or who died in captivity following the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack. (Hannah McKay/Reuters)
Israel’s Ambassador to the U.N., Danny Danon, told Fox News Digital that “this is not an investigative report. It is a political blood libel disguised as a U.N. document. This commission reaches its conclusions before examining the facts and repeatedly publishes reports that serve one purpose only: to vilify Israel. Instead of addressing Hamas’ crimes, the October 7 massacre, the hostages, and Hamas’ cynical use of children and civilians as human shields, the commission has once again chosen to place Israel in the dock.”
Danon added that “Israel will continue to defend its citizens and fight terrorism, regardless of how many false reports are published by fringe actors within U.N. institutions.”
Representatives from the COI and Human Rights Council did not respond to Fox News Digital’s requests for comment on the concerns addressed about the report.
Asked for a reaction from U.N. chief Antonio Guterres to the report, his spokesman, Stéphane Dujarric, told Fox News Digital “it’s not his report to comment on.”
ISRAELI AMBASSADOR LASHES OUT AT UN OFFICIAL, CONDEMNS UK, FRANCE, CANADA STATEMENT ON AID
A bloodied handprint stains a wall inside a house in the Nir Oz kibbutz near the Gaza border after a Hamas attack days earlier. (Alexi J. Rosenfeld/Getty Images)
Srinivasan Muralidhar, Chair of the Commission told reporters during a press briefing that, “The evidence shows that Palestinian children have been deliberately targeted and killed by the Israeli security forces.” He said “Even after the October 2025 ceasefire, children continue to be killed and seriously injured, with continued disregard by Israel for the ceasefire and for the protection owed to Palestinian children under international law.”
SIGN UP FOR ANTISEMITISM EXPOSED NEWSLETTER
Anne Bayefsky, President of Human Rights Voices and Director of the Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust, told Fox News Digital that the COI’s “sham ‘inquiry’ makes the totally unjustified claim of legal authority, while at the same time systematically violating every conceivable legal rule of fairness, impartiality, and due process. Since its creation in 2021, every call for submissions, every consultation and every hearing held, has been contrived to take seriously the allegations of only one side – trashing literally millions of data points both historical and current to the contrary.”
She said, “the first COI report focused on children…fails to even mention the sickening murders of 9-month-old Kfir Bibas and 4-year-old Ariel Bibas.” She says that “also ignored in the COI report are the hundreds of thousands of Israeli children traumatized by October 7th, by the subsequent mass displacement, and by the excruciating longing for parents absent while defending their country against an inhumane foe.”
Photos of the Bibas family and Oded Lifshitz, 84, who were kidnapped during the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack and later killed, are displayed next to candles in the dining room in Kibbutz Nir Oz, Israel, on Feb. 25, 2025, the day of Lifshitz’s funeral after their bodies were returned under a ceasefire agreement. (Amir Cohen/Reuters)
NETANYAHU SHOWS PICTURE OF BIBAS FAMILY AT COMBAT OFFICERS’ GRADUATION: ‘REMEMBER WHAT WE ARE FIGHTING FOR’
Bayefsky complained that though the current COI report “was produced weeks ago,” the COI members “deliberately withheld” the report when appearing before the Human Rights Council last week. “They didn’t publish it until June 23, minutes prior to holding a stage-managed press conference designed to avoid accountability for their wild, unverified accusations,” she claimed.
Another member of the commission told reporters in Geneva that, “There can be no doubt in anyone who reads today’s report that every international legal norm has been violated by the actions of the Israeli authorities towards Palestinian children and they need to be held accountable.”
United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres speaks during a Security Council meeting at the United Nations headquarters in New York on April 18, 2024. (Yuki Iwamura/AP)
Jonathan Conricus, senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and former Israel Defense Forces spokesperson, told Fox News Digital that the latest report contains “no evidence to support any of the claims against Israel” and is filled with “inconsistencies in methodology.”
He said the report represents “an escalation, and it marks maybe the most severe attempt by the U.N. ecosystem to delegitimize Israel.”
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP
Salo Aizenberg, director of media watchdog group HonestReporting, who has researched and debunked many of the claims made by those claiming genocide in Gaza, told Fox News Digital that the COI’s “report is built on a fictional battlefield where Hamas and [Palestinian Islamic Jihad] do not exist, and where hospitals are treated as purely civilian spaces despite extensive evidence of their military use and infiltration by Hamas operatives. It then accuses Israel of deliberately targeting children without producing a single incident supported by evidence of intent.”
Conricus said the report erases “Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad from the battlefield to create the false kind of perception that Israel was operating out of wanton aggression in a vacuum without there ever being a need for Israeli operations and this is a reoccurring theme.” He also noted that this report and others “use the statements of medical professionals as evidence, even when it’s way beyond their medical expertise, specifically when it comes to how wounds were inflicted.”
Published on
Europe is breaking heat records. These extreme events pose a threat to people’s health both at home and at work. The European Trade Union Institute (ETUI), a research centre affiliated with the European Trade Union Confederation, presented a report on Thursday laying out solutions aimed at safeguarding workers’ health in the face of climate change.
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
One of the report’s authors emphasised that the danger is not limited to the south of the continent.
“The problem is the worst in the south, of course; that’s where we see most of the accidents. At the same time, though, we have been recording the highest increases in accidents in central and northern Europe,” said Andreas Flouris, professor of physiology at the University of Thessaly.
“The south is already hot, and it’s a problem. But the centre and the north are catching up very fast.”
According to the report, around 130 million workers across Europe are exposed to workplace heat stress, resulting in 277,000 related injuries and 230 deaths annually.
An EU-OSHA (European Agency for Safety and Health at Work) survey from 2025 found that around one in five workers in the EU reported exposure to extreme heat at work in the previous 12 months. Climate change is increasing the frequency and intensity of these heatwaves, which affect health and reduce work capacity.
“The optimum temperature to work at is 16°C. Beyond that, for every 1°C rise, there is an average productivity loss of around 2%,” Flouris told Euronews.
“During an average heatwave in southern Europe, productivity losses reach around 20 to 25%. In central Europe, the figure is between 8 and 14%, and even in Scandinavia, we have recorded losses of 3 to 6% due to heatwaves over the course of a year,” he added.
Based on scientific evidence, the report’s authors propose that the European Union introduce legislation specifically targeting heat risks in the workplace.
“What we propose is a mandatory heat risk assessment, in order to oblige employers to assess and identify the risks related to heat exposure in their workplace. Only by knowing what we are dealing with can we protect workers and prevent the risks associated with heat exposure at work,” said Marouane Laabbas-el-Guennouni, a researcher at the European Trade Union Institute.
The report also proposes using a broader index to assess heat stress exposure. The authors argue that temperature should not be the sole indicator, and that humidity and wind speed should also be factored in when determining exposure levels.
The researchers emphasised that heatwaves are a measurable, predictable, and therefore preventable phenomenon.
-
Arizona5 minutes agoWired Up: 400 Marines in southern Arizona ‘reinforcing’ border wall
-
Arkansas12 minutes agoArkansas Governor joins national A.I. workforce initiative
-
California14 minutes agoCDFW News | California Fish and Game Commission Takes Emergency Action to Prevent White Shark Take and Reduce Potential Interactions Between Hooked Sharks and Swimmers
-
Colorado20 minutes agoKids escape unscathed after van slips off Colorado mountain road and down Blue River embankment
-
Connecticut27 minutes agoWorkers say violent disturbances followed staffing shortages at CT youth psychiatric facility
-
Delaware30 minutes agoThousands moving to Delaware County fuels need for more housing
-
Florida34 minutes agoAerial photos show sprawling algal blooms. What causes them in Florida?
-
Georgia42 minutes agoGeorgia election bill deadlines: New law delays ballot QR code removal
