Washington has put fresh sanctions on the weapons pipeline connecting Moscow and Tehran — and for the first time, the American blacklist names the Russian companies sitting at both ends of the exchange: one that sent advanced combat aircraft to Iran, and one whose ships carried Iranian missiles back toward Russia's war against Ukraine.
The measures, announced jointly by the US Treasury and State Departments on September 29, target 13 individuals and entities across Russia, China, Hong Kong and Pakistan accused of helping Iran's Ministry of Defense procure weapons and components. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the effort is aimed at degrading Tehran's ability to rebuild its weapons programmes and raising the cost for those who enable its procurement.
The Russian names on the list
Two Russian companies landed on the State Department's blacklist. The first is the Joint Stock Company Experimental Design Bureau named after A.S. Yakovlev, the aircraft manufacturer behind Russia's Yak-130 advanced jet trainer. The second is MG-Flot LLC — formerly TransMorFlot — a Russian shipping firm whose vessels the United States says transport weapons for the Russian government.
State also blacklisted Saha Airlines, an Iranian carrier linked to the Islamic Republic Air Force. Alongside them, Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned ten individuals and entities in Iran, China, Hong Kong and Pakistan, including a Beijing-based representative of Iran's defense ministry accused of coordinating the purchase of finished weapons systems and dual-use components inside China.
“Under Operation Economic Outcast, Treasury will continue to target and disrupt those who provide material, technological, or financial support that allows the Iranian regime to sustain its terrorist enterprise,” Bessent said, adding that the department “will not tolerate any support to the regime and will continue to identify, expose, and isolate Iran's enablers.”
Jets for Tehran, missiles for Moscow
The documentation behind the listings lays out the pipeline in both directions. Washington says Yakovlev delivered around 24 Yak-130 advanced training aircraft to Iran between the end of 2023 and December 2025 — a major transfer of Russian combat aviation to Tehran.
The flow in the opposite direction is just as well documented. The State Department attributes to MG-Flot the use of its vessels to transport Iranian-made short-range ballistic missiles to Russian territory in 2024, and air-defense systems by the end of 2025. The ships reportedly run frequent transits across the Caspian Sea, moving cargo between Iranian and Russian ports.
That maritime link is the crucial one for Ukraine. Iranian missiles and drones shipped to Russia are the same weapons that strike Ukrainian cities — and the attacks are intensifying. Russia has adapted Iranian-designed Shahed drones with jet engines, flying them at up to 500 km/h and striking during daylight hours, well above the reach of most mobile air defenses. On Tuesday alone, more than 100 drones were launched at Ukraine, 29 of them jet-powered, while overnight missile and drone strikes on Kyiv and the surrounding region killed a child and injured five people, according to Ukrainian officials.
What it means for Ukraine
The new sanctions land as the Trump administration tries to use economic pressure to force Iran to negotiate an end to the war that began with the US-Israeli strike on Iran on February 28. But for Kyiv, the significance is more direct: Washington is now publicly naming and punishing the Russian firms that keep the Iranian weapons pipeline to Ukraine's battlefield running.
MG-Flot's ships and Yakovlev's jets are two sides of the same trade — a barter of Russian airpower for Iranian missiles that ends, ultimately, with ballistic missiles pointed at Ukrainian cities. Cutting off the companies that operate the pipeline raises the cost of every future transfer, and signals that the United States is watching the Caspian Sea route as closely as it watches the front line in Donetsk.
Sanctions alone will not stop the next drone wave over Kyiv. But by exposing the exact vessels, manufacturers and middlemen involved, Washington has given Kyiv's allies — and its air defenses — a clearer picture of the supply chain feeding Russia's war.
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