The language coming out of Russia in response to attacks on Iran has been typically bombastic.
Former president Dmitry Medvedev, the ever-frenzied deputy chairman of Russia’s security council, claimed the United States air strikes on nuclear sites had failed, while claiming several other nations were set to supply Iran with nuclear warheads. The Kremlin condemned the raids, and its ambassador to the United Nations stoked memories of the disastrous 2003 war in Iraq: “Again we’re being asked to believe the US’s fairy tales, to once again inflict suffering on millions of people living in the Middle East,” said Vassily Nebenzia. “This cements our conviction that history has taught our US colleagues nothing.”
Tehran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi rushed to Moscow on Monday with a letter from the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei pleading for help from Vladimir Putin. Iran is, after all, a member of the “axis of autocrats” that banded together after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine three years ago alongside China and North Korea, supplying many of the drones to Moscow that have played an increasingly important role in its vile war.
Yet the Russian President responded cautiously to his diplomatic visitor, stating there was no justification for the US bombing but adding only that they were “making efforts” to assist the Iranian people.
Reports suggest that Khamenei – facing threats of regime change and holed up in a bunker while some of his most senior soldiers and nuclear scientists are being killed – has been dismayed by Putin’s muted response to his plight.
There is, however, no doubt that this potentially explosive confrontation in the Middle East places Putin in a difficult position. But the big question is whether this will end up corroding his vainglorious attempts to revive Russia as a global power– or actually boost his position by assisting his land grab and bloodstained atrocities in Ukraine?
Certainly the Kremlin could do without the weakening and potential loss of another despotic ally in the Middle East. Putin’s prestige and his pose as a guarantor of stability was damaged badly by the dramatic fall late last year of Bashar Al-Assad’s dictatorship in Syria.
Russia wasted financial and human resources propping up a gangster regime left hollowed out by corruption and drug-dealing in its crumbling economy. Moscow lost control of the port that was its only foreign naval base, along with an air base used to ferry mercenaries and weapons to Africa. Then it saw Hamas and Hezbollah – Iran’s terrorist front organisations – smashed up by Israel using lethal brute force and technological ingenuity.
Yet Putin is no enemy of Israel, despite its close relationship with the US. Speaking last week at an economic forum in St Petersburg he went out of his way to draw attention to the two million Russian and Soviet Union exiles in Israel. “It is almost a Russian-speaking country today and, undoubtedly, we always take this into account in Russia’s contemporary history,” he said. Israel, meanwhile, pursued its policy of strategic ambiguity with Russia even after the unspeakable assault on democratic Ukraine, rejecting pleas from a Jewish President in Kyiv for help while retaining its relations with Moscow. This infuriated officials in Ukraine, many of whom admired Israel’s determination to survive amid an existential threat from bigger neighbours.
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Putin’s focus – and possibly survival – rests on his botched attempt to seize Ukraine, which according to Britain’s Ministry of Defence just passed the grim milestone of leaving one million Russian soldiers dead or seriously wounded. All his financial and military resources are aimed at this war. And it has become a fight dominated by drones and the use of electronic warfare to thwart them.
Yet Russia’s reliance on Iranian-made Shahed drones lessened after Tehran helped it build its own factory to churn them out. Moscow is also developing other unmanned military devices, shaking off the shackles of its Soviet past to innovate and scale up production fast – seen with the recent wave of drones trailing long fibre-optic cables to thwart jamming efforts.
The Kremlin has been offering to mediate peace talks between Iran, Israel and the US, along with a new nuclear deal for Tehran, sparking a sharp rebuttal from Donald Trump to “take care of their own conflict”. Russia was, after all, involved in Barack Obama’s 2015 deal that was stupidly torn up by Trump during his first presidential term.
Now Putin will not want to provoke the White House by offering too much support for Iran at a time when his patsy Trump parrots his propaganda on Ukraine while undermining both the Nato alliance and essential Western support for Kyiv. And Russia’s despotic leader would be more than happy to see US attention – and munitions – diverted even more to the Middle East if the conflict with Iran intensifies.
Putin has been banking on the US President to help him out of his financial hole by lifting sanctions on Moscow and unfreezing assets. Although the Russian economy has proved resilient, aided by a splurge on military-linked spending and high global commodity costs, there have been recent signs it is spluttering.
Energy prices have fallen with predictions of a continuing slide, Russian interest rates are high, and inflation is more than twice the central bank target, with wages driven up due to labour shortages caused by battlefield slaughter, conscription and the flight of skilled workers. But now oil and gas prices are going up as tensions rise, hitting a five-month high to boost Kremlin coffers. And Iran is threatening to shut down the Straits of Hormuz, which would send energy prices soaring higher and spark retaliation.
So Putin is right to say these alarming events in the Middle East – with blood flowing and bombs falling from Gaza to Isfahan – “brings the world to a very dangerous line”. But that does not mean necessarily that Russia will spring into action to save Khamenei’s hideous regime, nor that its own dictatorship is despondent over this latest burst of global turbulence.
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