https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/p...iran-mhcvdg3pg
Putin tests Biden before Geneva summit with gift of spy satellite to Iran
Russia is to supply Iran with an advanced satellite system that will allow it to spy on military targets across the Middle East, in a move seen as a provocation before President Biden’s showdown with President Putin next week.
The Kanopus-V satellite will give Iran the ability to monitor Gulf oil refineries and Israeli military bases and even Iraqi barracks that house US troops, US and Middle East officials told
The Washington Post.
News of the development will complicate Biden’s efforts to
revive the 2015 nuclear agreement — ended by President Trump — amid domestic criticism from Republicans.
His administration has already lifted sanctions on three former Iranian officials and several companies involved in oil and gas shipping, with talks on the nuclear deal due to resume in Vienna tomorrow. The State Department insisted the change was a routine matter and not, as some diplomats believe, a sweetener…..
The officials who told
The Washington Post about the Kanopus-V deal said that Iranian military officials were “heavily involved in the acquisition, and leaders of Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps have made multiple trips to Russia since 2018 to help negotiate the terms of the agreement”.
Russian experts are said to have travelled to Iran in the spring to help train ground crews that would operate the satellite from a new facility near the northern city of Karaj, perhaps as early as this summer.…