Russia shares with the enemies of the West the secrets of Western weapons

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NATO countries, including the US, are gathering a lot of useful information from the war in Ukraine. But Russia’s biggest supporters, such as Iran, China and North Korea, are also learning from this conflict.

NATO has been keeping a close eye on how the Russian military is behaving in Ukraine and has gathered valuable information on everything from Moscow’s battle tactics and procedures to some of its more advanced weapons systems.

But it is not only NATO that benefits from the information that comes out of the war. Moscow’s supporters – some of whom are fierce opponents of the US – are also learning by studying how Western weapons behave on the front and how they can be countered, a military expert warned, quoted by Business Insider.

“Just as we benefit from what Ukraine shows and teaches us, we must also think about the other side,” Massicot said. “Russia’s allies and their partners are learning from the Russians, and this is now a bargaining chip that Russia has to give to Iran, China, North Korea,” says Dara Massicot, a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Iran, China and North Korea have provided Russia with varying degrees of military and economic assistance throughout the war, and the deepening ties between these countries and Moscow have raised alarm bells in the US and among NATO countries.

Weapons against information

Closer ties between Russia and countries such as Iran, China and North Korea raise the risk that Moscow could give them unprecedented access to Western weaponry sent to Ukraine. There have been indications that this is already happening.

For example, CNN reported last year that Russia was sending Western weapons captured in Ukraine to Iran. Tehran could then use this information about Western weapons to further its own interests in the Middle East, which is of great concern to the US and its regional allies who use these weapons.

Russia said it recovered intact European-made Storm Shadow missiles as well as components of the US Army’s Tactical Missile System (ATACMS). It also seized Western armored vehicles, among others.

Moreover, in its war in Ukraine, Russia has discovered ways to defeat the type of precision-guided munitions the West relies heavily on, defeating a variety of electronic warfare weapons. Shared with Western enemies, this knowledge could create new headaches for the West in a potential future conflict.

These states are also able to gather data on how their weapons perform on the battlefield. An example of this came in April, when Iran launched a massive airstrike against Israel using missiles and drones, including those used by Russia in Ukraine.

“The attack package was modeled after the Russians’ high-impact ones in Ukraine,” analysts at the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War wrote after Iran’s attack in mid-April.

Experts warned that “the Iranians will learn lessons from this strike and work to improve over time their ability to overcome Israeli defenses, just as the Russians did after repeated series of strikes against Ukraine.”

The North Koreans are also learning how its weapons work in real combat conditions. In Ukraine, the performance of North Korean weapons has been a bit of a mixed bag, with some systems exploding in flight and others doing unexpected things.