Iranian satellite produced in Russia to surveil Ukraine and Israel

Tehran declared on Sunday that it will oversee an Iranian satellite that Russia will launch in the coming days “from day one,” denying allegations that it will first help Moscow in its conflict with Ukraine and that it will have exclusive access to data from the Russian-built Khayyam satellite, which is claimed to provide it better monitoring of Israel.

According to unnamed Western intelligence sources quoted in an earlier Washington Post article, Russia “plans to utilize the Iranian satellite for several months or longer” to support its military operations in Ukraine before handing it over to Iran.

They claimed that Tehran will have “new capabilities, including near-continuous observation of vital sites in Israel” and the Gulf thanks to the Iranian satellite.

But according to the source, Moscow will initially utilise the satellite to “improve its observation of military targets” in the crisis in Ukraine.

The assertions were rejected as by Iran as “untrue,” and the Iranian Space Agency said that because of the satellite’s “encrypted algorithm, no third country is able to access the information” supplied by it.

Putin refuted claims made by US media in June 2021 that Russia will give Iran a sophisticated satellite system that would greatly enhance its espionage capabilities.

Iran maintains that its space programme does not violate any other international accord or the 2015 nuclear agreement between Iran and global powers since it is primarily used for defence and civic objectives.

The ideological branch of Iran’s armed forces, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), declared in March that Nour-2, a military “reconnaissance satellite,” had been successfully launched into space.