Russia agreed to supply Iran with 90 helicopter missile launchers
Leaked Vympel schedules name Tehran as recipient of export contract K-10, Trump claimed last month Moscow was doing very little if anything for Tehran
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Vympel, a leading Russian designer of missiles and launch systems, is also believed to have sent six Yak-130 jet trainers to Iran in 2023. Photograph: AFP/Getty
theguardian.com
Leaked Russian defence industry documents detail an order for 90 helicopter missile launchers bound for Iran. A production schedule drawn up by Vympel, the Russian missile designer, in May 2024 lists the launchers under an export contract designated K-10, with internal paperwork naming Iran as the recipient, according to documents obtained by the analytics firm Dallas Analytics and shared with the Guardian.
The launchers are specified for the LMUR, a guided missile fired from attack helicopters, with deliveries scheduled between late 2024 and December 2025. Whether they arrived, the documents do not establish. They surface as Washington weighs its next steps in its war against Iran following the midterm elections, and weeks after Donald Trump claimed Russia was doing "very little, if anything" to help Tehran. European intelligence agencies have separately warned that Moscow was preparing to supply Iran with explosive-laden drones for use against the US and Israel. The Kremlin denies supplying military equipment for the current conflict.
The traffic runs in both directions, and it predates this war. Iran became a crucial supplier of Shahed attack drones after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, drones Russia has since begun manufacturing domestically. A strategic partnership signed in 2025 formalized provisions for countering shared threats, though without the mutual defence commitments Moscow extended to North Korea. Senior Russian and Iranian officials held three high-level meetings in October alone. A separate production schedule in the leak lists six Yak-130 jet trainers destined for Iran in 2023, consistent with publicly reported deliveries of the aircraft.
The arrangement stops short of alliance. Moscow extended Pyongyang mutual defence commitments it withheld from Tehran; each government supplies what it chooses to supply, and the fighting has given both more reason to keep the schedules full.
The last of the 90 launchers was due in Iran in December 2025. What happened after that, the paperwork does not say.