Why is West threatening Iran with new sanctions?

Reports of Iranian ballistic missiles going to Russia are "ugly propaganda" to conceal Western military support to Israel, Iran's foreign ministry has said, after Western powers announced they would impose new sanctions on Tehran over the issue.

"The publication of false and misleading reports about the transfer of Iranian weapons to some countries is simply an ugly propaganda to conceal the large illegal arms support of the United States and some Western countries for the genocide in Gaza," foreign ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani said in a post on X, without mentioning the new sanctions.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Tuesday that Russia had received ballistic missiles from Iran and would likely use them in Ukraine within weeks, warning that cooperation between Moscow and Tehran threatened wider European security.

Alongside the United States, Britain, Germany, and France said they would impose new sanctions on Iran, including measures against its national airline Iran Air.

London, Berlin and Paris also announced the cancellation of bilateral air services agreements with Tehran.

"This action by the three European countries is the continuation of the West's hostile policy and economic terrorism against the people of Iran, and it will face a proportionate response by Iran," Kanaani said in a later statement published on the foreign ministry's Telegram page.

Fatah ballistic missiles

The US says that Iran has shipped Fatah-360 close-range ballistic missiles to Russia, which they say could be employed within weeks against Ukraine.

"To echo our State Department and White House colleagues, this is a deeply concerning development," spokesman Air Force Maj Gen Pat Ryder told reporters.

Ryder said the Iranian and Russian partnership threatens European security and "illustrates how Iran's destabilising influence reaches beyond the Middle East and around the world."

"We do believe that dozens of Russian military personnel were trained in Iran to use this missile system. I'm not able to get into the intelligence in terms of the specific number of missiles. Needless to say, this is a concerning development, as I highlighted," he said.

The Kremlin has dismissed reports that Iran had shipped missiles to Russia, saying the claims about various arms transfers were baseless.