Iran has sent short-range ballistic missiles to Russia, according to U.S. and European officials, despite sharp warnings from Washington and its allies not to provide those precise armaments to Moscow to use against targets in Ukraine.

The new missiles are expected to help Russia further its efforts to destroy Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure, which President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said this week now involved 4,000 bombs a month across the country.

The U.S. and European officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters, confirmed that after months of warnings about sanctions, Iran has shipped several hundred short-range ballistic missiles to Russia. The delivery was reported earlier by The Wall Street Journal.

Iran denied providing the weapons in a statement released on Friday by its permanent mission to the United Nations and said its position on the war in Ukraine was unchanged.

“Iran considers the provision of military assistance to the parties engaged in the conflict — which leads to increased human casualties, destruction of infrastructure, and a distancing from cease-fire negotiations — to be inhumane,” the statement said. “Thus, not only does Iran abstain from engaging in such actions itself, but it also calls upon other countries to cease the supply of weapons to the sides involved in the conflict.”

The Group of 7 nations warned in March that they would impose coordinated sanctions on Iran if it carried out the missile transfer, a warning repeated at a NATO summit meeting in Washington in July.

Now the question is how Washington and the West will react, a senior European official said.

With the American presidential campaign in full swing and President Biden a lame duck, the official said, it was not clear how strong Washington’s response would be.

Mr. Biden has refused Mr. Zelensky’s repeated requests to send Ukraine longer-range missiles that can attack airfields in Russia. From those sites, Russia can attack Ukraine with heavy bombs equipped with fins to glide and GPS packs to ensure accuracy. Ukraine currently does not have missiles with enough range to reach those airfields.

Mr. Zelensky on Friday went to the Ukraine Contact Group meeting in Ramstein, Germany, to ask for such weapons, and later in the evening, he repeated his plea at a major conference on Europe in Cernobbio, Italy. In those remarks, he pleaded for “air defenses to defend ourselves.” He said that Ukraine would not use any longer-range missiles against civilian targets.

“We want to use them just on military airfields,” he said.

“People are afraid we will attack the Kremlin,” he added. “It’s a pity we can’t.” But even the missiles he has requested could never reach that far, he said.

The supply of Iranian missiles to Moscow could prompt Mr. Biden to approve longer-range missiles to Ukraine, the officials suggested on Saturday. But the European official noted that Mr. Biden has been wary of pushing President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia too far, fearing an escalation of the war and a direct conflict with NATO.

There is also a concern among Western officials not to corner the new president of Iran, Masoud Pezeshkian, who is thought to be something of a moderate in the country’s ruling establishment. Elected in July, Mr. Pezeshkian has said he hopes to improve the domestic economy by winning sanctions relief from Europe and the United States.

Western officials also hope that he will help efforts to restrain Iran’s nuclear enrichment program and to try to keep the war in Gaza and southern Lebanon from spreading into a larger regional conflict.

Farnaz Fassihi and Erika Solomon contributed reporting.

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