October 12: Russia and China Are Not Helping Iran "At All." October 19: "Russia Could Have Done a Lot More to Help Iran... I View That as Being a Very Positive Thing."

Seven days, one reversal, no follow-up question. The Monday post denied the help existed and said the United States would know fast if it did. The Monday gaggle conceded the help existed, said it could have been larger, and credited the restraint. What the United States actually knew: in March, officials said Russia gave Iran locations and movements of American troops, ships and aircraft, mostly satellite imagery, described by one official as a comprehensive effort, and concluded that Russian imagery aided the March 27 strike on Prince Sultan Air Base that wounded twelve Americans — fourteen Russian recon satellites passed over two days before it. In September, four sources described assessments that Chinese geospatial data materially improved Iranian targeting, including the July 17 strike on Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan that killed three American service members at a precision officials believed Iran could not reach alone. Russia has also supplied drones refined in Ukraine and engineers working on supersonic cruise missiles. The denial ran as "contradicting US intelligence" and the concession ran as nothing at all, because it sat in the middle of a transcript whose news value the room had already decided was Zelenskyy. In the same gaggle he called Moscow and Beijing "very well-behaved on Iran" and listed Iran next to Ukraine, hostages and diesel as the four things he is negotiating with Putin. Three days earlier he waived the Russia sanctions law. The sentence to keep is "we would know about it, and know about it very fast." They did know. Since March.