Russia is negotiating with the Houthis to supply them with anti-ship missiles

Russia is conducting secret negotiations with the Yemeni Houthis to supply them with anti-ship missiles.

Iran acts as a mediator in the negotiations. The countries are discussing the transfer of P-800 Onyx anti-ship missiles to the Houthis, Reuters reports.

One of the newspaper’s interlocutors reported that the negotiations began even under the president of Iran, Ibrahim Raisi, who died in a plane crash at the end of May. Two regional officials say representatives of Russia and the Houthis have met in Tehran at least twice this year, and more meetings are expected in the coming weeks. At the same time, according to seven Reuters sources, Russia has not yet made a decision on the transfer of missiles.

The P-800 Onyx missiles, with a range of about 300 km, experts say, will allow the Houthis to more accurately target commercial vessels in the Red Sea and increase the threat to US and European warships. Earlier, as Reuters found out, Russia supplied the same missiles to Hezbollah.

Three Reuters sources suggest that the decision to supply missiles to the Houthis may be related to the position of Western countries, which are discussing the possibility of allowing Ukraine to strike targets deep inside Russia with long-range weapons.

The official representative of the Yemeni Houthis, Mohamed Abdel-Salam, in response to journalists’ questions about the negotiations on missiles, said that he had “no idea” about it.

USM previously reported that the Sounion tanker attacked by the Houthis was successfully towed to safety.