Six American service members are dead. Their names were released by the Pentagon: Chief Warrant Officer Robert Marzan, Major Jeffrey O’Brien, Sergeant Declan Coady, Sergeant First Class Noah Tietjens, Sergeant First Class Nicole Amor, Captain Cody Khork. All from the 103rd Sustainment Command in Iowa. All killed, according to reporting from multiple outlets including AP News, in strikes that Russian intelligence helped Iranian forces execute. And the man who sent them to the Middle East called it “not a big deal.”
Trump’s Dismissal of Russian Complicity Is Not a Gaffe – It’s a Pattern
When AP News first reported that US officials confirmed Russia had provided Iran with targeting intelligence – information describing the locations of American warships, aircraft, and military assets – the normal presidential response would have been unambiguous condemnation. What America got instead was deflection. Trump told reporters that if Russia was sharing such information, “it’s not helping them much” given Iran’s military losses. Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said the intelligence “clearly is not making any difference.” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth suggested Trump had “a knack at knowing how to mitigate those risks.”
This was not a measured, strategic response calibrated to avoid escalation. This was a president protecting an adversary from accountability for contributing to the deaths of American soldiers. The Washington Post reported that the intelligence sharing was described by officials as “a pretty comprehensive effort.” AP News documented the White House’s refusal to confront the issue directly. The pattern – dismiss, deflect, minimize – is precisely what you would expect from a commander-in-chief who has spent two years systematically dismantling every institutional check on Russian conduct.
The Full Record Makes the Dismissal Inexplicable on Its Own Terms
According to NBC News, the Trump administration entered 2025 by ending US financial support for Ukraine, ordering US Cyber Command to cease offensive operations against Russia, and disbanding task forces targeting Russian oligarch assets. The Kremlin publicly welcomed Trump’s national security strategy – the first time Moscow had “so fulsomely praised” such a document from Washington, according to the Moscow Times.
Now Russia is providing targeting intelligence to an adversary actively killing American troops, and the same president who dismantled every anti-Russia measure in his first year is calling the revelation not worth discussing. The logic of the dismissal is only coherent if you accept the premise that Russian interests and American interests are aligned – a premise that, in this specific case, requires ignoring six flag-draped coffins.
AP News also documented the reaction from Congress: Democratic Representative Ted Lieu called the administration’s simultaneous grant of a 30-day waiver to India to continue purchasing Russian oil – while Russia was helping Iran target US troops – “traitorous conduct.” The administration’s response was to say it was “confronting” the issue “strongly” without specifying what that meant. Six service members are dead. No confrontation has been announced.
What the Press Is Missing
The extraordinary nature of what AP News reported is being buried under daily battlefield coverage. Russia actively helping Iran target US military personnel is not a diplomatic tension. It is an act of war by proxy – the same kind of action that, under any prior American president, would have triggered immediate diplomatic consequences at minimum and potentially direct military confrontation. The press is framing it as a political controversy. It is a national security crisis of the first order.
The Russia-Iran military partnership is not new – the two nations have run an “axis of convenience” since at least the Syrian conflict, according to Foreign Affairs, and Iran supplied Russia with Shahed drones used to kill Ukrainian civilians. But intelligence sharing to actively target US forces crosses a threshold that has no precedent in the post-Cold War era. Trump’s dismissal of that threshold is the story that should be leading every front page.
What This Actually Means
The presidency is, among other things, a sacred obligation to the men and women who serve under the commander-in-chief. When a president is presented with evidence that a foreign power helped kill his own soldiers and responds by calling it irrelevant, the only honest conclusion is that the relationship with that foreign power matters more to him than the lives of those soldiers. That is not a partisan attack. It is the only reading of the available facts that is internally consistent. AP News reported the intelligence. The Washington Post confirmed it. The White House dismissed it. The names of the dead are public record.
Background
What is the 103rd Sustainment Command? The 103rd Sustainment Command is a US Army Reserve unit based in Iowa, responsible for providing logistical support to combat operations. The six service members killed in the Iran conflict were among the earliest US fatalities in what began as a US-Israeli operation targeting Iranian nuclear and military infrastructure in late February 2026.
Sources
AP News | The Washington Post | The New York Times | Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty | NBC News