The Kremlin said on Tuesday it sees dialogue with Iran as necessary and urged restraint after President Donald Trump warned Tehran against rebuilding its missile and nuclear programs and said he would back possible Israeli strikes.
“We believe it is necessary to develop a dialogue with Iran,” the Kremlin said, urging parties “to refrain from escalation” after President Donald Trump warned Tehran against rebuilding missile and nuclear capabilities.
Trump, speaking Monday alongside Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Florida, said the US would hit Iran hard if it recovers militarily from the June war and that he would back possible Israeli strikes if Iran continues missile development.
Asked about support for strikes, Trump said: “If they will continue with the missiles, yes… The nuclear… absolutely.”
"I hope Iran is not trying to build up, as I've been reading, that they're building up weapons and other things. And if they are, they're not using the sites that we obliterated, but they're using possibly different sites. We know exactly where they're going, what they're doing, and I hope they're not doing it, because we don't want to waste the fuel on B-2, it's a 37-hour trip both ways. I don't want to waste a lot of fuel," he said.
The United States held five rounds of negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program earlier this year, for which Trump set a 60-day deadline.
When no agreement was reached by the 61st day on June 13, Israel launched a surprise military offensive followed by US strikes on June 22 targeting key nuclear facilities in Isfahan, Natanz and Fordow.
The attacks killed nuclear scientists along with hundreds of military personnel and civilians. Iranian counterattacks killed 32 Israeli civilians and an off-duty soldier.
Iran denies seeking nuclear weapons and says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has said dealing with Trump is beneath the dignity of the Islamic Republic, while Iranian officials have rejected US demands to end uranium enrichment and curb missile capabilities.
The satellites were placed into orbit from Russia’s Vostochny Cosmodrome in a multi-payload launch that Iranian officials described as the country’s seventh satellite mission carried out using Russian launch vehicles.
“These satellites were designed and manufactured by Iranian scientists, and both government bodies and the private sector have been involved,” Iran’s ambassador to Russia, Kazem Jalali, said in remarks published ahead of the launch.
“Two of the satellites belong to the government and one belongs to the private sector, and our knowledge-based companies and universities are active in this field.”
Jalali said Iran had continued to advance its space capabilities despite international pressure. “Despite all the threats and sanctions that exist, we have something to say in this field.”
Iran’s space agency chief, Hassan Salarieh, said the launch reflected what he described as Iran’s standing among a small group of countries with end-to-end space capabilities.
“Iran is among 10 or 11 countries in the world that simultaneously possess the capability to design and build satellites, launch vehicles and the infrastructure for launching, receiving data and processing images,” he said.
Salarieh said Iran aimed to expand both the number and precision of its satellites. “What is necessary for us is increasing the number of satellites, improving their accuracy and quality, and developing different classes of satellites,” he said.
Iranian media identified the satellites as Paya, also known as Tolou-3, Zafar-2, and a prototype satellite called Kowsar-1.5. The spacecraft were launched alongside a large cluster of mainly Russian satellites into a sun-synchronous low Earth orbit.
Paya (Tolou-3), built by the Iranian Space Agency, is Iran’s heaviest Earth-observation satellite to date, weighing about 150 kilograms.
Iranian officials say it is capable of producing black-and-white images with a resolution of about five meters and color images with a resolution of around 10 meters, and is intended for applications including agriculture, water management, environmental monitoring and disaster assessment.
Zafar-2, developed by Iran University of Science and Technology, is also an Earth-observation satellite designed for mapping, environmental monitoring and tracking natural hazards.
Kowsar-1.5 combines imaging and internet-of-things capabilities and is aimed primarily at agricultural and farm-monitoring uses, Iranian officials say.
Jalali described Iran’s space cooperation with Russia as extensive and said Moscow’s experience had played a key role.
“Russia is advanced in the space field, including satellites, launch vehicles and satellite launches, and we have been able to transfer part of the technology and work together,” he said.
He also described the Soyuz rocket as highly reliable. “Before Russia’s relations with the West deteriorated, many Western satellites were launched using Soyuz,” Jalali said.
The launch also carried Russian Earth-observation satellites, internet-of-things platforms and university-built spacecraft, according to launch data, as well as satellites from partner countries including Belarus, Kuwait and Montenegro.
Iran says its space program is civilian and focused on scientific and economic goals, but Western governments argue that satellite launch technology overlaps with systems used to develop intercontinental ballistic missiles.
The group, known as Handala, said in a post on the social media platform X that it had hacked an iPhone belonging to Braverman and would release documents later in the day related to what it called “Bibi Gate,” an apparent reference to allegations surrounding Netanyahu’s inner circle.
Israel’s Prime Minister’s Office said no breach had been identified. “No breach has been found. The issue is being investigated,” it said in a statement.
Handala has previously claimed responsibility for cyber intrusions targeting Israeli figures and institutions.
Earlier in December, the group said it had accessed data from the phone of former prime minister Naftali Bennett, though Bennett later said his device itself had not been hacked and that unauthorized access had instead been gained to his Telegram account.
On Sunday, the group released what it described as initial files allegedly taken from Braverman’s phone, including lists of phone numbers it said belonged to senior Israeli officials and individuals close to Netanyahu, as well as documents and videos that appeared to relate to official government matters.
In its posts, the group alleged it possessed encrypted communications, financial records and other sensitive information. It did not provide evidence supporting those claims. Iran International could not independently verify the authenticity of the material.
The alleged threat comes amid heightened political tensions in Israel over investigations known collectively as the “Qatargate” affair, in which two advisers to Netanyahu are accused of having worked for Qatar while employed in the prime minister’s office. Netanyahu and his aides have denied wrongdoing.
One of the advisers, Eli Feldstein, has separately admitted leaking classified information to Germany’s Bild newspaper, according to Israeli media, in a case Israeli authorities say is under investigation. Feldstein has alleged that Braverman was aware of an internal military probe into the leak, an accusation Braverman has denied.
Braverman, who has been named as Israel’s next ambassador to Britain, has rejected any link to the scandals.
Cybersecurity researchers and Western officials have widely described Handala as being tied to Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence, though Tehran has not publicly acknowledged any connection.
The group is believed to be part of a broader cyber operation that researchers link to a unit known as “Banished Kitten,” which has been associated with attacks on Israeli infrastructure, public institutions and media organizations.
Handala has also been linked by researchers to cyber operations targeting Iran International, a London-based Persian-language broadcaster critical of the Iranian government.
