US President Donald Trump’s decision to launch strikes on Iran presents Russian President Vladimir Putin with peril and opportunity: the attacks hit a strategic partner of Moscow, but they may open a potential window for Russia’s diplomatic relevance.
Following the US strikes on key nodes of Iran’s nuclear complex, Tehran is looking to Moscow. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said Sunday he would be heading to Russia for consultations with Putin Monday.
Speaking at a press conference on the sidelines of a meeting in Istanbul of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, Araqchi said he would hold "serious consultations with the Russian president” on the escalation of a conflict that has now drawn the United States in directly.
That’s little surprise. Iran and Russia have deepened ties in recent months, with the two countries concluding a strategic partnership deal during a visit by Iranian President Masud Pezeshkian to the Kremlin in January. And Araqchi’s visit seems to have already been in the works: Andrea Mitchell of NBC News said Friday the Iranian foreign minister told her he would be heading to Moscow.
The official reaction of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the US strikes on Iran has been one of unequivocal condemnation. In a statement published Sunday, the Russian MFA said Moscow “decisively condemns” US strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities, saying the “irresponsible decision to subject the territory of a sovereign state to missile and bomb attacks, regardless of the arguments surrounding it, grossly violates international law, the UN Charter, and UN Security Council resolutions, which previously unequivocally classified such actions as unacceptable.”
Strong words, despite the clear irony: One aspect of Moscow’s partnership with Tehran has been the transfer of drone technology that has allowed the Russian military to continue its bombardment of Ukrainian cities.
But Iran-Russia strategic partnership is not a mutual defense pact. The Russian government has also made clear in recent weeks that the partnership deal does not oblige it to come to Iran’s defense if it is attacked. And in his most recent public comments on the Israel-Iran conflict, Putin has taken a somewhat measured tone.
In remarks at the plenary session of the 28th St Petersburg International Economic Forum Friday, Putin referred to Tehran’s “legitimate right” to carry out uranium enrichment for civilian nuclear energy development but nodded to what he called “Israel’s security concerns” over Iran’s nuclear ambitions. And the Russian president suggested – in somewhat roundabout fashion – that Russia could play an intermediary role in ending the conflict.
“We have set forth our position to both parties,” he said. “As you know, we maintain contact with Israel as well as with our friends in Iran. We do have certain proposals involving Russia.”
“I must emphasize that we are by no means positioning ourselves as intermediaries,” Putin added. “We are merely putting forward ideas.”
Ahead of Israel’s launch of a surprise aerial campaign against Iran on June 13, Russian diplomats had already put forward one concrete proposal: That Russia could take custody of Iran's nuclear material for conversion into reactor fuel.
Russia’s diplomatic leverage over Iran has been an important card in Putin’s hand. Russia was one of the signatories to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the 2015 deal to curtail Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Even though Russia has been increasingly isolated from the West since the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the subsequent full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Moscow’s influence over Tehran has been often viewed as a key to any negotiated agreement with Iran.
In a commentary published before the US strikes on Iran, Andrey Kortunov of the government-linked Russian International Affairs Council said Russia’s strategic partnership with Iran could potentially give Russia the ability to play the role of “impartial mediator” for resolving or ratcheting down the conflict.
“In this way, Moscow would strengthen its influence in the region following the fall of Bashar Assad's Syrian regime” last year, Kortunov wrote. “However, the ongoing escalation is accompanied by serious risks and potential costs for Moscow. The fact remains: Russia failed to prevent Israel's massive strike against a state with which it signed a comprehensive strategic partnership agreement just five months ago. Moscow is clearly not ready, beyond political statements condemning Israel's actions, to provide Iran with military assistance as well.”
Much has changed since the JCPOA was signed: Trump withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal in 2018; Iran responded by expanding its program of enriching uranium; and the collapse of the regime of Assad, a client of both Russia and Iran, and Israel’s decapitation of Hezbollah dealt a debilitating setback to Iran’s so-called “axis of resistance.”
The conflict in the Middle East is now evolving even more rapidly following direct US military intervention. Russia is now on a less sure footing economically – Russian Minister of Economic Development Maksim Reshetnikov said last week the Russian economy was on the brink of recession – although a spiraling crisis in the Middle East could spike oil prices, a cornerstone of Russian economic power.
Speaking last week in St. Petersburg, Putin quoted Mark Twain when asked about the impact of the war on Ukraine on Russia’s economy, saying “As a well-known writer once said: ‘The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.’”
But that war continues unabated, at a high human and economic cost to Russia. With the US entering into a direct military involvement in Iran, it is unclear if Putin will continue to enjoy the same geopolitical leverage he had in the past.
