Iranian scientists quietly traveled to Russia last year to pursue nuclear weapons-related technology, according to documents obtained by The Financial Times, raising new questions about Tehran’s covert efforts and adding weight to Israel’s justification for its June 2025 offensive.

The report details a clandestine trip made by Iranian researchers from November 7–11, 2024, who met Russian military specialists and sought access to advanced laser technology that could enable nuclear warhead validation without triggering an explosive test. The delegation was reportedly linked to academic and military institutions previously implicated in Iran’s weapons program, and the visit was arranged by a Moscow-based organization acting as a front for Iran’s Organization of Defensive Innovation and Research (SPND).

Western governments have long treated SPND as the command center for Iran’s nuclear weaponization efforts. U.S. and European officials have sanctioned the group and say it continues to advance research off the books, despite Tehran’s official position that it abandoned such work more than two decades ago.

The group’s meetings in Russia reportedly included sanctioned military contractor Laser Systems, whose expertise in precision laser technology could help Iran “validate a nuclear weapon design without conducting a nuclear explosive test,” former CIA analyst Jim Lamson, now a senior research associate at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, told FT.

Such laser-based diagnostic technology could provide Iran with a way to cross the threshold from enrichment to weaponization—and do so undetected by international monitors who often rely on explosive testing to confirm research violations.

The FT report also notes this was the second such Iranian visit to Russia in 2024, signaling a pattern of deepening technical engagement between two governments openly aligned against Western sanctions and international inspection regimes.

Israeli officials cited precisely this type of covert advancement when defending their decision to launch a military campaign against Iran earlier this year. Jerusalem has repeatedly warned that Tehran was moving beyond uranium enrichment and taking “concrete steps toward weaponization,” a phrase Israeli leaders used to justify the June 2025 strikes on Iranian facilities and commanders.

The newly surfaced documents could now intensify pressure on Western leaders to re-evaluate their diplomatic strategy toward Tehran—particularly as Iran and Russia continue to grow their military cooperation in the wake of Moscow’s war in Ukraine and both governments’ overt defiance of international norms.

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