Belarus, Iran vow closer defense ties and denounce US unilateralism

In 2019, an Iranian man calling himself Saeed Alikhani approached a Swiss lawyer in Zug with a request to arrange mortgages on tankers through a Panama-based broker, Ocean Glory Giant.

The mortgages, normally used as security on shipping loans, were instead employed as guarantees for oil trades. Within months, at least nine tankers were registered, later expanding to more than 30 worth nearly $1b.

The FT, working with research group C4ADS, traced the ships’ movements and found they were carrying sanctioned oil.

“This oil network and its suppliers show in intimate detail how tools and tactics used to resist western sanctions have proliferated among sanctioned states,” said Andrew Boling, an investigator at C4ADS.

Tankers tied to China

Each vessel was nominally owned by a separate shell company with Chinese directors who often had little connection to shipping. Phone numbers and addresses in the mortgage files linked several of the firms to Chinese nationals sanctioned by the US under President Donald Trump's first term.

In one case, the Swiss lawyer signed a $24m mortgage for a Hong Kong firm whose director was later sanctioned for trading Iranian oil.

He said the procedures seemed routine: “I received a draft mortgage agreement, I checked whether the counterparty or the vessel was on any sanctions list, and I signed the document.”

From Iran to Russia

Tracking data showed mortgaged vessels carried Iranian crude from Kharg Island to China, later expanding to Russian Urals shipments after 2022. One tanker, Skadi, transported both Iranian and Russian oil while under a $20m mortgage.

While active, the network handled about 130m barrels worth nearly $10b, with 93 percent of deliveries ending up in China, according to FT and C4ADS analysis.

By late 2024, Ocean Glory itself was placed under US sanctions. “Its dark fleet and support networks have become a model — if not a resource — for helping shadow oil volumes flow eastwards,” said Claire Jungman, maritime risk director at Vortexa.

China’s foreign ministry responded that “normal cooperation between countries and Iran within the framework of international law is justified, reasonable, and legal, and should be respected and protected.”

“In recent weeks, multiple reports have surfaced about a facility in Shahin Shahr officially designated as a ‘prison employment site,’ which in practice has become a warehouse for holding hundreds of inmates in harsh, inhuman conditions,” the group said.

The facility is described as a large warehouse with a small yard fenced off with barbed wire, lacking the basic standards of an official prison. Photographs published by the group show the area but do not provide verifiable coordinates due to concealment and security measures.

“Despite its name, no job training or rehabilitation takes place there. Instead, around 100 prisoners are bussed out daily from 5 a.m. and put to work in conditions resembling forced labor.”

Iran International can not independently verify the report.

Harsh conditions and deprivation

Prisoners endure overcrowding without cooling or ventilation systems, the rights group added. Water and electricity are cut for three days each week, and detainees are given only minimal food.

“Food and bread are provided in very small and poor-quality amounts… daily rations are just two loaves of bread and low-quality food.”

No medical services are available, and the only drugs regularly distributed are sedatives and methadone, pushing many inmates to forced consumption, wrote the Iran Human Rights Society.

“Reports from Shahin Shahr prison paint a disturbing picture of a hidden and illegal detention site… a place for added deprivation, forced labor, and psychological and physical pressure,” the report said, urging international bodies to press Iran to meet its human rights obligations.

The daily compared the situation to Iran’s missile strike on a US base in Qatar during the June conflict, saying Tehran must make clear that “if threats arise from the soil of neighboring states, security considerations will prevail over diplomacy.”

The article comes after a US-brokered peace deal between Armenia and Azerbaijan earlier in August granted Washington leasing rights to develop the Zangezur transit corridor, now renamed the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP).

The deal allows a US company to build and manage the route connecting Azerbaijan with its exclave Nakhchivan, a project Tehran has repeatedly described as a geopolitical risk.

“Nobody cares, but I am too. I sent those planes,” Trump told radio host Mark Levin.

Talks with Tehran under the Trump administration began with a 60-day ultimatum. On the 61st day, June 13, Israel opened a military campaign. Nine days later, US bombers hit three Iranian nuclear sites, which Trump has repeatedly said “obliterated” the country’s program.

“We wiped out Iran’s entire nuclear capability overnight, which they’d have used against Israel in two seconds if they’d had the chance—but we took it out. Iran was four weeks from a nuclear bomb,” Trump said.

Trump also described hosting the pilots behind the Iran strike. “I sent those planes. You know, 22 years. The pilots came, I rewarded them, I brought them all into the Oval Office, the people having to do with that operation, which was so perfect.”

During the intense 12-day conflict in mid-June 2025, Israel’s airstrikes on Iran resulted in over 1,000 Iranian deaths, while Iran’s retaliatory missiles and drones killed 31 Israelis. The conflict also claimed the lives of over 30 senior Iranian commanders and 11 nuclear scientists.

“The missiles we used in the 12-day war were built several years ago. Today we possess missiles with far better capabilities, and if the Zionist enemy embarks on another adventure, we will certainly use them,” Defense Minister Brigadier General Aziz Nasirzadeh told reporters in Tehran, according to state media.

He said the confrontation was not only with Israel but with “all the logistical, intelligence and support capabilities of the United States” behind it. Despite this, he said, Iranian forces relied entirely on domestically produced systems.

“The world saw that the missiles we used struck their targets and inflicted heavy losses on the Zionist enemy,” Nasirzadeh said. He added that while Israeli media censored footage of strikes, “the information gradually emerged, showing the strength of Iran’s armed forces.”

Nasirzadeh said Israel’s defense systems – including the US-made THAAD and Patriot batteries, the Iron Dome and Arrow – had been unable to stop most of the projectiles.

“In the early days, about 40% of our missiles were intercepted, but by the end of the war, 90% were striking their targets,” he said. “This showed that our experience was growing while the defensive power of the other side was decreasing.”

Earlier in August, Israel’s military chief said the army is prepared to launch more strikes on Iran if necessary, after what he described as a successful preemptive war in June that halted an emerging existential threat to Israel.

Israel launched a surprise military campaign on June 13 targeting military and nuclear sites, assassinating senior Iranian commanders, and killing hundreds of civilians.

During the 12-day conflict, Israel killed more than 30 senior security officials and at least 11 senior nuclear scientists.

According to an Iranian government spokesperson, 1,062 Iranians were killed, including 786 military personnel and 276 civilians.

Iran retaliated with missile strikes that killed 31 civilians and one off-duty soldier.

Israel's military says that the interception rate for missiles and drones during the 12-day war was about 90%.