MOSCOW CITY. An Iranian satellite was launched yesterday by a Russian rocket just three weeks after its launch. Russian President Putin and supreme religious leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khameneifor closer cooperation against the West.

The Khayyam meteorological satellite, named after the 11th-century Persian poet and philosopher Omar Khayyam, was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan and successfully orbited the Earth’s atmosphere. According to Iran’s state news agency IRNA, the satellite sent the first data yesterday at noon.

Tehran denies accusations that it handed over control of the satellite to the Russian space agency in order for Moscow to beef up its spying capabilities. Last week, the Washington Post revealed the concerns of US officials about the aggravation of Russian-Iranian relations and cooperation between the two countries’ space agencies. These officials claim that Iranian intelligence could gain “unprecedented surveillance capabilities” of military targets inside Israel thanks to a new Iranian satellite.

In July, President Putin made his first foreign visit since invading Ukraine, choosing Tehran as his destination. During the meeting between Khamenei and Putin, an Iranian cleric reportedly warned Moscow against “every trick of the West.”