Several senior Russian missile specialists have visited Iran over the past year, highlighting Tehran’s growing defense ties with Moscow, according to Reuters review of travel records and employment data.
Documents detailing two group bookings and the passenger manifest for the second flight show seven weapons experts were booked to travel from Moscow to Tehran aboard two flights on April 24 and Sept. 17 last year.
The booking records include the men's passport numbers, with six of the seven having the prefix “20,” which denotes a passport used for official state business.
According to an edict published by the Russian government and a document on the Russian Foreign Ministry’s website, these passports are issued to government officials on foreign work trips and military personnel stationed abroad.
Reuters was unable to determine the purpose of their visits to Iran.
A senior Iranian Defense Ministry official said Russian missile experts made multiple visits to Iranian missile production sites last year, including two underground facilities, with some of the visits occurring in September. The official, who requested anonymity due to security concerns, did not specify the sites.
A Western defense official monitoring Iran’s defense cooperation with Russia, who also requested anonymity, said an unspecified number of Russian missile experts visited an Iranian missile base about 15 kilometers (9 miles) west of the port of Amirabad on Iran’s Caspian Sea coast in September.
Reuters could not confirm whether the visitors mentioned by the officials included the Russians on the two flights.
The seven Russians identified by Reuters all have senior military backgrounds. A review of Russian databases containing employment information, including tax, phone, and vehicle records, shows that two are colonels and two are lieutenant colonels.
Two are experts in air-defense missile systems, three specialize in artillery and rocketry, one has experience in advanced weapons development, and another has worked at a missile-testing range, the records show. Reuters could not establish whether all of them are still in those roles, as the employment data ranged from 2021 to 2024.
Their flights to Tehran came at a precarious time for Iran, which found itself engaged in tit-for-tat strikes with Israel in April and October.
Reuters contacted all seven men by phone: Five denied visiting Iran, denied working for the military, or both. One declined to comment, and another hung up.
Iran’s Defense and Foreign Ministries declined to comment, as did the public relations office of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which oversees Iran’s ballistic missile program. The Russian Defense Ministry also did not respond to a request for comment.
The two countries signed a 20-year military pact in Moscow in January, solidifying their defense ties. Cooperation has already influenced Russia’s war in Ukraine, with large numbers of Iranian-designed Shahed drones deployed on the battlefield.
The flight booking information for the seven travelers was provided to Reuters by Hooshyaran-e Vatan, a group of activist hackers opposed to the Iranian government. The hackers said the seven were traveling with VIP status.
Reuters corroborated the information with the Russian passenger manifest for the September flight, which was provided by a source with access to Russian state databases. However, the news agency was unable to access a manifest for the earlier flight, so it could not verify whether the five Russian specialists booked on it made the trip.
Denis Kalko, 48, and Vadim Malov, 46, were among the five Russian weapons experts booked on the April flight, records show.
Kalko worked at the Defense Ministry’s Academy for Military Anti-Aircraft Defense, according to tax records from 2021. Malov worked for a military unit that trains anti-aircraft missile forces, according to car ownership records from 2024.
Andrei Gusev, 45, Alexander Antonov, 43, and Marat Khusainov, 54, were also booked on the April flight. Gusev, a lieutenant colonel, is deputy head of the faculty of General Purpose Rockets and Artillery Munitions at the Defense Ministry’s Penza Artillery Engineering Institute, according to a 2021 news item on the institute’s website.
Antonov has worked at the Main Rocket and Artillery Directorate of the Defense Ministry, according to car registration records from 2024. Bank data shows Khusainov, a colonel, has worked at the Kapustin Yar missile-testing range.
One of the two passengers aboard the second flight to Tehran in September was Sergei Yurchenko, 46, who also worked at the Rocket and Artillery Directorate, according to undated mobile phone records. His passport number had the prefix “22.” Reuters could not determine what that signifies, though according to the Russian government's edict on passports, it is not used by private citizens or diplomats.
The other passenger on the September flight was 46-year-old Oleg Fedosov. Residence records list his address as the office of the Directorate of Advanced Inter-Service Research and Special Projects, a Defense Ministry branch tasked with developing next-generation weapons systems.
Fedosov previously flew from Tehran to Moscow in October 2023, according to Russian border crossing records viewed by Reuters. On that occasion, as well as for the September 2024 flight, he used a passport reserved for official state business, the records show.
