Following Israel's AI-driven analysis of Iranian surveillance camera footage to pinpoint the location of Supreme Leader Khamenei, Russia temporarily suspended part of its surveillance system protecting President Putin.
On February 28, 2026, local time, Israel
AI spying tools unnerve Putin as surveillance risks mount – The Irish Times
It has been reported that Israeli intelligence agencies used AI to analyze millions of hours of footage collected by thousands of cameras before launching a preemptive strike in a joint operation with the United States, in order to pinpoint the location where Supreme Leader Khamenei and his close associates would meet.
Furthermore, according to sources familiar with the operation, as reported by the Wall Street Journal and Axios, the United States used Anthropic's Claude to support the operation. Anthropic had restricted the use of Claude to 'massive domestic surveillance' and 'fully autonomous weapons,' and refused the Secretary of Defense's request to lift these restrictions, leading the Secretary of Defense to instruct Anthropic to be designated as a 'supply chain risk to national security.' Meanwhile, it is possible that Claude was used in the military operation against Iran carried out on the same day as these instructions. However, it is unclear exactly what purpose Claude was used for, and the type of AI used to analyze surveillance camera footage is also unknown.
Reports that the US military used the AI 'Claude' in a preemptive strike against Iran come shortly after the US declared it had severed ties with its developer, Anthropic - GIGAZINE
In Iran, nationwide protests against the currency collapse and soaring prices have been ongoing since December 2025, and in response, the regime has installed new surveillance cameras to monitor the crowds. According to local officials familiar with the situation, Israel has succeeded in hacking these new cameras in real time and obtained information on members of the Basij , a paramilitary organization used by the regime for maintaining security. In addition, video data collected from dashcams and general traffic cameras, as well as movement patterns at checkpoints captured by drones, are also important elements of the intelligence gathering network.
Following reports that surveillance cameras had been extensively analyzed using AI, Russian security agencies shut down part of their surveillance system to protect President Putin and his close associates. According to two sources familiar with the matter, a separate surveillance system from the approximately 300,000 cameras monitoring Moscow citizens was temporarily shut down, and the network was reactivated after technicians conducted a thorough investigation to completely disconnect the cameras from the internet.
In fact, around the first week of June 2026, Alexander Bortnikov, head of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) , warned regional security officials that 'Russia's large-scale surveillance system has become a weakness, and the system designed to monitor its own people could easily become a surveillance system for enemy countries.' According to reports from Russian state news agencies, Bortnikov also stated that 'the assassination of the Iranian leader by the United States and Israel is a clear warning. The victim's location was identified through a software backdoor embedded in Tehran's surveillance system.'
Regarding the reports, President Putin's spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, did not respond to requests for comment from the media.
In a similar example, the Indian government set a strict deadline of April 1, 2026, approximately one month after reports of Israeli hacking into Tehran's surveillance camera system, to ban the import of Chinese-made cameras into the country.
Related Posts:
in Note, Posted by log1e_dh