Russia and the Israel-Iran War

To no one’s surprise, Russia condemned Israeli and US air strikes targeting Iran’s controversial and potentially ominous nuclear program, which appears to have been on the cusp of being weaponized.

Russia’s pro-Iranian stance was expected, since Moscow has a strategic partnership with Iran, one of its closest allies in the Muslim world.

Beyond offering Iran political support and words of comfort, Russia did not lift a finger to help the Iranian regime counter Israeli and U.S. attacks during the 12-day Israel-Iran war.

Soon after it erupted on June 13, the Russian Foreign Ministry issued a strongly worded statement deploring the Israeli strikes as “categorically unacceptable” and warning that “all the consequences of this provocation will fall on the Israeli leadership.”

Moscow urged Israel and Iran “to exercise restraint in order to prevent further escalation of tensions and keep the region from sliding into a full-scale war.”

The deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council and the former Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, went further, broadly hinting that “a number of countries” were ready to “directly supply Iran with their own nuclear warheads” should the war continue indefinitely.

Russian President Vladimir Putin adopted a relatively measured approach. He spoke to both Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, offering to be a mediator to deescalate the war, the first between Israel and Iran.

Following his talks with Pezeshkian, Putin condemned Israel’s strikes on Iran’s nuclear enrichment sites, research centers, ballistic missiles launchers, military bases and the like, and offered his condolences.

In his call with Netanyahu, Putin “emphasized the importance of returning to the negotiation process and resolving all issues related to the Iranian nuclear program exclusively through political and diplomatic means.”

Toward the close of the war, which ended on June 24 with a ceasefire brokered by U.S. President Donald Trump, Putin lambasted the Israeli and U.S. strikes as “unprovoked” and “unjustified.”

Putin issued his condemnation during Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi’s visit to Moscow on June 23. Araghchi thanked Russia for having been Iran’s “partner” and hailed Iranian-Russian relations as “very close and longstanding.”

According to media reports, Russian officials downplayed Russia’s cooperation agreement with Iran, which was signed and sealed this past January. The Russians insisted it was not a mutual defence pact.

When reporters asked Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, how Russia could assist Iran, he vaguely replied, “It all depends what Iran needs. We have offered our mediation services.”

Clearly, Putin was not prepared to assist Iran militarily, a far cry from the days when he helped Syria, Russia’s closest Arab ally.

In 2015, Putin sent an expeditionary force and a contingent of airplanes to Syria to shore up the faltering regime of President Bashar al-Assad, who was embroiled in a civil war he was losing.

A decade on, Putin was evidently reluctant to offer Iran the same degree of support. The reasons are clear. Putin did not want to anger Trump, who seems interested in improving and broadening  U.S. ties with Russia after a period of mutual animosity caused, in part, by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Nor did Putin wish to alienate Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, both of which have established mutually beneficial ties with Russia and fear a hegemonic Iran.

Putin, too, was averse to antagonizing Israel, notwithstanding Russia’s close ties with Iran.

Russia has developed sound political, economic and cultural  relations with Israel in the past 25 years. During the previous Soviet epoch, Russia was staunchly pro-Arab. Moscow broke diplomatic relations with Israel in 1953 and again in 1967 before restoring them in the eve of the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Putin, a pragmatist, has established friendly personal ties with Netanyahu, who visited Russia no less than nine times prior to the current war in Ukraine. Putin’s cordial relationship with Netanyahu was such that Russia and Israel were able to resolve sensitive issues long before the latest developments in Iran.

An excellent case in point: During Russia’s military intervention in Syria, Israel and Russia created a deconfliction mechanism to avoid accidental clashes between the Israeli and Russian air forces. This was a necessity because Israeli aircraft regularly bombed Iranian and Syrian military sites in Syria. The arrangement worked remarkably well, even after an incident in 2018 during which a Russian reconnaissance aircraft with 15 soldiers aboard was shot down by Syrian forces responding to an Israeli air strike.

What was particularly striking about Israel’s understanding with Russia was that Putin usually did not publicly object to Israeli attacks against Iranian military bases in Syria.

Despite Putin’s unwillingness to get directly involved in Israel’s confrontation with Iran, Russia had no problem selling Iran  sophisticated S-300 air defence missile batteries, which the Israeli Air Force destroyed in Iranian territory last October.

More recently, in apparent deference to Israel, Russia has been slow to deliver major weapons to Iran. Russia, in particular, has delayed the shipment of advanced Su-35 fighter jets to Iran, which seeks to upgrade its aging fleet of aircraft.

In a nod to Russian interests, Israel declined to sell the Iron Dome anti-missile system to Ukraine, a gesture that Putin appreciated.

And during the war with Iran, in another signal of its cautious policy toward Russia, Israel did not bomb the Iranian nuclear power plant in Bushehr, which was built by Russia and employs more than 200 Russian technicians. “We agreed with the leadership of Israel that their security would be ensured,” Putin disclosed.

Although Putin sided with Iran during the recent war, Russia — a signatory of the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement — opposes a weaponized Iranian nuclear program. Russia’s position is that Tehran has the right to a peaceful nuclear energy program. And as Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov stated a few days ago, Russia wants Iran to continue working cooperatively with the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Russia has had good ties with Iran for decades, and Putin has met Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, several times in Tehran. But Russia’s bonds with Tehran have grown stronger  since its invasion of Ukraine. For the past three years, Iran has supplied Russia with a steady supply of drones and ballistic missiles, which have been used to pummel Ukraine’s front lines and civilian infrastructure.

Russia and Iran, which are both targeted by stinging Western sanctions, do not agree on every single issue of relevance, but their foreign policy objectives have virtually converged, says The Institute for the Study of War, a think tank in the United States.

Both countries share “a mutually binding interest in challenging and eventually overturning the U.S.-led world order. This shared ideological core allowed the Russo-Iranian relationship to weather and survive tensions and challenges that have arisen since 2022, and the U.S. should not expect this ideological core to weaken in the years.”

It was not surprising that Russia and Iran, this past January, signed a 20-year cooperation pact, which deepened their partnership. It covers all sectors from trade and military collaboration to scientific, educational and cultural exchanges. Putin and his Iranian counterpart, Masoud Pezeshkian, praised the deal as a “real breakthrough” in their bilateral relations.

This agreement did not tie Putin’s hands during the Israel-Iran war. He essentially stayed out of it and kept his pro-Iranian rhetoric to a bare minimum. His calibrated posture doubtless disappointed Iran, but probably satisfied Israel and the United States.