The White House says it's very concerned that Iran may provide ballistic missiles to Russia for use in the war against Ukraine. National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby says it would be a disastrous development for the Ukrainian people if that were to happen.
Why would Russia, a major producer of rockets missiles, and associated technology need ballistic missiles from Iran?
It was the Soviet Union that developed the technology and produced the missiles. The rocket engineer, Sergei Korolev, was from the Ukraine. Much of the research and production was done in the Ukraine. With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the subsequent decline, Russia lost much of its skilled labor and technologies. All Soviet production chains and skilled labor ceased to exist. Russia was unable to reproduce the best Soviet rocket engines.
In the 2000s, the Russian “Federation” (actually a neo-empire) restored some production using modern European machinery. Now, because of sanctions, Russia doesn’t have enough of the essential components (e.g. ball bearings) it used to import from Europe. And it has a hard time maintaining European machinery without European engineers.
Russia spent a lot of Soviet missiles attacking Ukrainian cities to intimidate Ukrainians and leave them without electricity and heat in the winter. It didn’t work. Now, in desperation, Pootin and his fellow criminals are trying to get more missiles from other dictatorships.