A Russian flagged cargo vessel appears to have been pictured delivering ballistic missiles from Iran. Satellite imagery from Maxar, shows the ship docked at a port in Russia around one week ago.
Port Olya 3 ship had moved around 220 short-range ballistic missiles – with a range of over 70 miles – to Russia via the Caspian Sea to be used in Vladimir Putin‘s war in Ukraine, a Ukrainian source told Sky News.
According to the source, the ship arrived pulled into the Russian port last week, on September 4.
Sky News said satellite photos examined by its data & forensics team showed the vessel at the port on that day, while ship-tracking data shows the Port Olya 3 at the port of Amirabad in Iran on August 29, just six days earlier.
The source said it’s believed Fateh-360 ballistic missiles were loaded onto large cargo train after the vessel arrived in Russia.
The image shared by the outlet of the ship, which was taken by a Maxar satellite, was captured at 0751 UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) last Wednesday in Astrakhan, a region in southern Russia.
Another satellite image two days later appeared to show the ship had left the port, though no data has been shared since August 29. The ship arrived at the Russian port six days after last sharing its position.
Any ship of at least 300 gross tonnes is required to have AIS transponders, which allow vessels to receive data from other ships and transmit their identity and location, by the International Maritime Organization.
But the news outlet says its analysts often see ships switching tracking off to hide their movements, claiming untraceable ships are becoming more common in the Caspian Sea as Tehran and Moscow continue to trade arms.
In the Caspian Sea, untraceable ships have become more common as Iran and Russia continue to trade weapons. These secretive dockings are known as “dark port calls”.
Sky News says the Port Olya 3 travels between Iran and Russia regularly, according to the small amount of tracking data available.
It’s not known where the cargo was taken after it arrived, the outlet says.
The source said an assumption is that they will be sent to Ashuluk, a military training ground, tests and training ahead of them being unleashed upon Ukraine.
It comes as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced on Tuesday that Washington believes the Russian military had recieved shipments of the Iranian-made rockets.
Both Moscow and Tehran have denied the claims. Mr Blinken warned that Russia‘s forces “will likely use them within weeks in Ukraine against Ukrainians”.
Iran has been providing Russia with its Shahed drones – relatively cheap and unmanned craft often used for “kamikaze” bombings – since 2022, and the addition of possible Iranian ballistic missiles to Russia‘s arsenal has worried governments in the West.
The rockets would enable Kremlin forces to strike Ukrainian cities close to the Russian borders or areas already under their control, while unleashing longer-range missiles deeper into Ukraine, BBC News reports.
