Iran likely replenished its arsenal with Russian missiles during restocking - Bloomberg
Kyiv • UNN
Tehran has likely restored three-quarters of its missile arsenal and received new weapons from the Russian Federation. The country's industrial base has remained resilient despite prolonged US bombing.
Western allies believe that Iran has likely added new Russian weapons to its arsenal and restored a significant portion of its missile stockpile during the eight-week ceasefire, which will give the Islamic Republic the firepower to strike back at nearly full strength if hostilities resume, Bloomberg reports, according to UNN.
Details
According to intelligence estimates, Tehran possesses about three-quarters of the munitions it had before the war and can easily scale them up. This includes unspecified Russian missiles that likely came off the assembly line within the last year, one assessment says.
U.S. President Donald Trump stated last week that Iran has only 21%-22% of its missiles remaining.
According to intelligence estimates, in March, Iran had about 60% of its pre-war missile arsenal while the U.S. and Israel conducted an air campaign aimed at degrading its long-range strike capabilities.
From February 28 to April 8, when the ceasefire took effect, Iran fired more than 1,850 missiles across the region and at least twice as many "Shaheds."
According to U.S. and Israeli estimates, they destroyed about two-thirds of Iranian launchers in the first month of the war. U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth stated in mid-March that the regime's offensive potential had been reduced by 90%.
It was reported that many Iranian ballistic missiles and launchers were "entombed," meaning buried under rubble that blocked the entrances to Iranian underground storage facilities. Tehran most likely used the ceasefire period to reopen these depots and redistribute supplies, the publication writes.
Iran could build new "Shaheds" if it has access to fiberglass, explosives, guidance systems, and engines, although some of these materials, particularly explosives, may be difficult to obtain after weeks of bombing, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Creating new models would not be a major problem for Iran's industrial base, even in wartime, said Kelly Grieco, a senior fellow at the Stimson Center in Washington.
"It is difficult to completely destroy production, especially when it is distributed across multiple facilities," Grieco said.
The fact that Iran possesses a relatively large portion of its pre-war arsenal now makes the resumption of full-scale attacks a more difficult decision for the U.S., she said.
"Despite all the tactical successes claimed by the United States, they have not achieved their goals of destroying Iran's defense-industrial base or significantly degrading Iran's missile program," said Becca Wasser, head of defense at Bloomberg Economics. "Iran has demonstrated extraordinary resilience and the ability to rebuild its missile arsenal."