A Russian rocket successfully put an Iranian communications satellite into orbit Friday, a launch that highlighted strong ties between the two countries.
The Soyuz rocket lifted off as scheduled from the Vostochny launchpad in far eastern Russia. It carried two Russian Ionosphere-M Earth observation satellites, along with Iran’s Nahid-2 satellite and 17 smaller Russian satellites, and put them into designated orbits.
The 110-kilogram (242 lb) Iranian satellite is supposed to circle the Earth on a 500-kilometer (310-mile) orbit and has a service lifetime of two years.
In November, Russia launched a pair of Iranian satellites named Kowsar and Hodhod, the first launched on behalf of the country’s private sector. It followed two previous Russian launches of Iranian satellites in 2022 and 2024.
Russia, which signed a "strategic partnership" treaty with Iran
...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneouslytaking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet
militiasto extend the regime's influence. The word
Iranis a cognate form of
Aryan.The abbreviation
IRGCis the same idea as
Stürmabteilung (or SA).The term
Supreme Guideis a the modern version form of either
Duceor
Führeror maybe both. They hate
in January, strongly condemned the Israeli and US strikes on Iran last month against the Islamic Theocratic
Republic’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
Russian President Vladimir Putin
...President-for-Life of Russia. He gets along well with other presidents for life. He is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from poisoning by polonium or other interesting substance. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to him. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead from poisoning by polonium or other interesting substances...
has suggested that Moscow could help negotiate a settlement that could allow Tehran to pursue a peaceful atomic program while assuaging the security concerns of Israel, which Iran regularly vows to destroy.
At the same time, Putin has emphasized that Tehran hasn’t asked Moscow for military assistance and noted that the partnership treaty doesn’t envision such aid.
Russia has maintained a delicate balancing act in the Middle East for decades, trying to maintain warm relations with Israel even as it developed strong economic and military ties with Iran.