Exiled princess says Iran ‘regime has never been this close’ to falling

The agreement, signed in Moscow in December, commits Russia to deliver 500 man-portable Verba launch units and 2,500 9M336 missiles over three years, the FT reported, citing leaked Russian documents and several people familiar with the deal.

The Verba is described as one of Russia’s most modern shoulder-fired, infrared-guided air defense systems, capable of targeting cruise missiles, low-flying aircraft, and drones. Operated by small mobile teams, it allows forces to create dispersed defenses without relying on fixed radar installations, which are more vulnerable to strikes, the report said.

Under the €495 million contract, deliveries are scheduled in three tranches from 2027 through 2029, the FT said, adding that one person familiar with the transaction suggested a smaller number of systems could have been delivered earlier.

Tehran formally requested the systems last July, days after the end of a 12-day conflict in which the US briefly joined Israel in strikes on Iran’s three key nuclear facilities, according to a contract seen by the newspaper.

A former senior US official told the FT that Moscow likely viewed the agreement as a way to repair ties with Tehran after failing to come to its ally’s aid during the June conflict.

The deal was negotiated between Rosoboronexport, Russia’s state arms export agency, and the Moscow representative of Iran’s Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics (MODAFL), FT’s report said.

The contract was arranged by Ruhollah Katebi, a Moscow-based MODAFL official who previously helped broker Iran’s sale of hundreds of Fath-360 close-range ballistic missiles for use in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

One Russian Ilyushin Il-76TD cargo plane has made at least three runs from Mineralnye Vody in Russia’s northern Caucasus to the Iranian city of Karaj in the past eight days, FT’s report said. At least one more Il-76 flew the same route in late December.

Iran reportedly received up to six Russian Mi-28 attack helicopters in January and operated one of them in Tehran this month.

According to documents seen by the newspaper, Rosoboronexport is selling the 9M336 missiles at €170,000 per unit and the launch systems at €40,000 each.

The deal also includes 500 “Mowgli-2” night-vision sights designed to track aircraft and other targets in darkness, the report added.

Unlike larger Russian strategic air defense systems such as the S-300 and S-400, the Verba systems do not require extensive training or integration and can be deployed more quickly, FT’s report said.

The report added that Verbas have not played a significant role in Russia’s defenses against Ukrainian drone attacks, which could make Moscow more willing to part with them than other air defense systems.

Iran has agreed a secret €500 million arms deal with Russia to acquire thousands of advanced shoulder-fired missiles in a major effort to rebuild air defenses damaged during last year’s war with Israel, the Financial Times reported.

The agreement, signed in Moscow in December, commits Russia to deliver 500 man-portable Verba launch units and 2,500 9M336 missiles over three years, the FT reported, citing leaked Russian documents and several people familiar with the deal.

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In a striking break from convention, thousands of families gathering for 40th-day rituals in homes and cemeteries across the country in recent days replaced the traditionally solemn, religiously infused ceremonies with clapping, cheering, and dancing — open displays of defiance.

The iconoclastic ceremonies have angered state supporters. Alireza Dabir, a conservative politician and former wrestling champion, lashed out at grieving families. “Their children got killed and they’re dancing over the corpses. I can't help but take a dig at these useless people. May God give these useless people some brains,” he told reporters.

But for many mourners, the dancing is neither celebration nor denial. It is a refusal to grieve on prescribed terms. The music and dance have become a language of protest — one that transforms funerals into acts of collective memory and, perhaps, the foundation of a new tradition.

Raha Bohloulipour was 23, a student of Italian language at Tehran University. On social media, she wrote about justice and equality and appeared in videos laughing lightheartedly with friends. Before leaving home for what would be the last time, she posted a simple message on Instagram: “Woman, Life, Freedom forever.” She was shot on a street in Tehran.

At her 40th-day memorial in Firouzabad, her hometown in southern Iran, hundreds gathered as her parents danced solemnly to traditional Qashqai folk music, waving green kerchiefs — her favorite color. Some parents in other places danced as long as they could, then broke into tears and collapsed into the arms of relatives, wailing.

Mourners in Mobarakeh in central Iran danced to a pro-monarchy anthem in an act of defiance at the 40th-day memorial for protester Rostam Mobarakabadi, who was shot dead by security forces on January 9 in Esfahan.

The song references Kaveh the Blacksmith, a mythological figure who leads an uprising against the tyrant Zahhak.

Weddings at memorials

When a young unmarried person dies in Iran, families often erect a hejleh: a mourning display decorated with flowers, candles, mirrors, lights and framed photographs. The structure resembles a wedding canopy, symbolizing a life cut short before marriage.

This time, however, the symbolism has expanded beyond décor. Confetti was thrown into the air as women cheered and danced beside the grave of a young man, shouting, “There’s a wedding here.”

At another cemetery, a bride-to-be dressed in white danced and cried, waving her bouquet over a grave. Outside a shrine where only religious songs would once have been permitted, mourners danced with red kerchiefs to a pop song, blurring the line between wedding and wake.

Roots in ancient traditions

The fusion of music, mourning, and defiance is not entirely new in some tribal regions.

The Malekshahi and Shuhan tribes recently held a traditional Chamara ritual on the 40th day of Saeed Tarvand, a 33-year-old oil engineer and father of a three-year-old who was killed in Abadan.

A very large crowd dressed in mourning attire gathered in his village in Ilam province. A riderless horse with an empty, inverted saddle, adorned in black and red and flanked by rifles and cartridge belts, was paraded through the crowd. Drums beat, wind instruments known as sornai played solemnly, and men carrying sticks performed a symbolic war dance — an ancient choreography of sorrow and resistance.

Political defiance and divergence from state ideology

The memorials are highly charged political spaces. Mourners chant “Death to Khamenei", “Death to the Dictator”, and "Long Live the King”, referring to Prince Reza Pahlavi. Crowds also vow to continue the path of the fallen until “Iran is free” or until “the mullahs are in shrouds.”

Instead of clerical speeches and Quranic recitations, many families have chosen to read heroic verses from the Shahnameh, Iran’s national epic, invoking pre-Islamic symbols of resistance, or to sing revolutionary songs inspired by it.

At the 40th-day ceremony for 30-year-old truck driver Rostam Mobarakabadi, his mother held his photograph high above her head, stamping her feet resolutely and leading the crowd in a revolutionary song invoking “Kaveh the blacksmith,” a legendary symbol of uprising against tyranny.

In Firouzabad, Raha’s grandfather drew on a different literary reference. In his speech, he called her “The Little Black Fish,” the protagonist of a beloved children’s story about a curious fish who leaves her narrow stream to explore the world despite warnings and fear — a tale widely read as an allegory of individual freedom and courage.

The language, too, reflects a shift. Rather than calling the dead “martyrs” — shahid — many families now describe them as “javid-nam,” meaning their names will be eternal. The distinction between these matters greatly in a country where martyrdom is closely tied to state ideology. Authorities have reportedly banned the use of “javid-nam” on some gravestones, reinforcing the political weight of the term.

Mohammad-Javad Akbarin, a dissident Islamic scholar living in exile in France, said the 40th-day gatherings show that society is “dissociating itself from the state and the ideology that it promotes”.

“Instead of religious lamentations, it sings songs; instead of religion, it speaks of the homeland; and it describes its beloved not as shahid, but as one whose name will be eternal,” he told Iran International.

Ali Azadeh, a protester detained during nationwide protests in January, faces the risk of a death sentence following his arrest in Amlash in northern Iran, people familiar with the matter told Iran International.

A source told Iran International that after the protests in Amlash, Azadeh went to stay with relatives in Rasht in northern Iran, where he was later arrested along with several others.

Sources close to his family said he is under “severe torture” in custody.

The family has also been informed by the prosecutor’s office that there is a possibility a death sentence could be issued against him, the sources said.

Pressure from authorities on Azadeh’s family has increased, the sources added. The family has been threatened and told to remain silent about his detention and the status of the case, and to deny any information published about it, they said.

Mohammad Javad Larijani, has gone viral on Iranian social media since Saturday after Iranian media said it shows him telling a student protester to “go look for your friends at Kahrizak morgue.”

The remark, made during a confrontation with protesting students at Sharif University in Tehran, refers to the Kahrizak forensic complex in southern Tehran, which became a flashpoint after videos emerged showing families searching among body bags following the January 7–8 crackdown that left more than 36,500 people dead.

The footage circulated widely as universities reopened and students held memorial gatherings for those killed in the January unrest.

Online reaction intensified after users identified Abolhasani as the son-in-law of Javad Larijani, brother of Ali Larijani, secretary of Iran’s Supreme Council for National Security.

The US Treasury on January 15 sanctioned Ali Larijani and other senior officials it described as architects of a “brutal crackdown on peaceful demonstrators,” citing thousands of deaths and injuries since protests began in December.

Abolhasani, who has held senior administrative roles at Sharif University and has publicly backed hardline political figures, has not publicly commented on the video.