In November 2024, a group of Iranian nuclear scientists and experts made a secret visit to Russia, presumably to obtain classified technology that could be used to create nuclear weapons, according to documents obtained by the Financial Times.
This is not the first visit of Iranian scientists to Russia; The FT previously reported on their first visit, which took place in August of the same year, with the specialists visiting Moscow.
The scientists' next visit to St. Petersburg took place between November 7 and 11, according to flight records checked by the newspaper. According to the FT, scientists visited Russia from Shahid Beheshti University, Islamic Azad University and Malek Ashtar University of Technology, which is controlled by the Iranian Ministry of Defense and is under US and EU sanctions for its work on Iran's nuclear program.
The Iranian specialists met with representatives of the Russian company Laser Systems, which develops technologies for both civilian and classified military applications. The company is subject to US sanctions. According to the FT, the Iranian delegation arrived in St. Petersburg after Dmitri Vasiliev, CEO of Laser Systems, invited Ali Kalvand, a nuclear physicist and owner of Tehran-based consultancy DamavandTec, and four of the company's employees to Russia in April of that year.
The FT previously reported that DamavandTec was a company created to cover the activities of the Defense Research and Innovation Organization (SPND), the research and development arm of the Iranian armed forces. According to documents reviewed by the FT, the Iranians who arrived in November 2024 were not DamavandTec employees, but physicists and engineers from Iranian universities and research centers affiliated with the Iranian defense system.
In February 2025, Andrei Savin, an employee of Laser Systems, flew to Tehran. According to an FT source, he met with representatives of DamavandTec and officials believed to be associated with the SPND.
According to Jim Lamson, a senior fellow at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies and a former CIA analyst, the Iranians, during their visits to Russia, sought to obtain laser technology and expertise “that could help them verify nuclear weapons projects without testing.” Nicole Grayevsky, a researcher at the Carnegie Endowment's Nuclear Policy Program, believes that these visits by Iranian scientists constituted “compelling evidence that Russia was assisting Iran in its nuclear weapons research, with Russian state-affiliated institutions providing dual-use technology and knowledge.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that Moscow opposes the proliferation of nuclear weapons, including by Iran. However, Putin noted that Tehran has the right to use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes, and Russia is ready to support Iran in developing nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.
