THE Iran Air Force has taken delivery of several Russian training aircraft to “improve its combat capabilities and training”, local media reported today.

According to the Tasnim news agency, “a number of Yak-130 training aircraft” were delivered to Tehran and are already at Shahid Babai Air Base in Isfahan. The agency, citing the military’s public relations service, added that the delivery of these aircraft was made in the framework of “the arms contracts between the Islamic Republic and the Russian Federation.”

Russia and Iran are subject to international sanctions that restrict trade. Last year they signed a series of agreements in many areas, including military cooperation. In March, Iran announced that it had agreed to buy Sukhoi-35 fighter jets from Russia.

Ukraine and many of its Western allies accuse Tehran of arming Moscow with weapons systems intended for war against Kiev, which Iran denies. In May, the US assured that the two countries were “expanding their defense cooperation” while recently White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said that since August 2022, Iran has delivered more than 400 drones to Russia and that Tehran is seeking to acquire helicopters, radars and Russian Yak-130 planes.

To this day, the Iranian Air Force has Soviet-era Russian MiG and Sukhoi fighters, as well as some Chinese and a few American F-4s and F-5s acquired before the 1979 Islamic Revolution.