How the Israel-US axis in Middle East pushed Russia and Iran closer

In the second week of October, Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Iranian counterpart Masoud Pezeshkian met for the first time at a forum in Turkmenistan commemorating the 18th-century poet Magtymguly Pyragy.

Also at this gathering were the heads of state from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.

But it was the Putin-Pezeshkian meeting which was in the spotlight, highlighting how the Russia-Iran entente remains strong despite some recent tensions over Azerbaijan’s Russia-backed Zangezur corridor.

As both leaders stressed at the meeting, Russia and Iran share similar perspectives on important global issues. Moscow and Tehran see their partnership as key to challenging the Western-led order and accelerating the world’s transition from unipolarity.

On the sidelines of this conference, Putin was quoted as telling Pezeshkian, “We actively work together in the international arena, and our assessments of current events in the world are often very close.”

In response, the Iranian president reportedly said to his Russian counterpart, “Our positions in the world are much closer to each other than to others.”

Help for Iran on the way?

At a time in which Iran is bracing for Israel’s response to Tehran’s two-wave ballistic missile attack, the country is looking to Moscow for greater support.

For Iran, there is no alternative to Russia in terms of a military partner. Tehran will likely seek much from Moscow as hostilities with Israel threaten to escalate.

Tehran will probably try to convince the Kremlin to support non-state actors in the 'Axis of Resistance', such as Yemen’s Houthi movement, and do more to defend Syria from Israeli airstrikes.

What Moscow would do to either help Tehran deter Israel from attacking Iran – or help it respond to such an Israeli attack –is unclear. However, some experts suspect that the Kremlin possibly has a new outlook toward the possibility of Iran becoming a nuclear-armed state.

“At this point, Moscow’s rivalry with Washington and the West is so great that Putin may no longer feel any need to cooperate with them in preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons,” says Mark Katz, professor emeritus at George Mason University.

According to him, Russia is “less fearful of a nuclear Iran than of an Iran with improving relations with the West”.

“Israeli-Iranian hostility serves Putin's interests by preventing even the slim possibility of rapprochement that Pezeshkian's election raised,” he tells TRT World.

However, what Moscow does in practice for Tehran during this period of intensifying hostilities in the Middle East could fall short of Iranian expectations.

Russia will ultimately look after its own interests, and Iran’s leadership might end up somewhat disappointed with the Kremlin.

One key question is whether Russia would equip Iran with Su-35 Flanker fighter jets or S-400s air defence missile systems.

For a considerable amount of time, there has been talk of Moscow doing so. But that has yet to occur.

“Russia does not want a strong Iran, hence its reluctance to provide it with sophisticated weaponry and air defence systems. However, Moscow does not want Iran to disintegrate or its regime to be replaced by a pro-Western government,” says Shireen Hunter, an honorary fellow at the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University, who served as an Iranian diplomat before 1979.

“Therefore, it might overcome its reluctance. However, Russia does not want to antagonise Israel. Consequently, I doubt that it would change its position in this regard and supply Iran with sophisticated weaponry,” Hunter tells TRT World.

There is also something to say about Moscow’s balanced geopolitical position in the Gulf between Iran and the Gulf Cooperation Council members, some of which are unlikely to welcome Russian moves that strengthen Iran’s military posture in the Middle East.

Katz says that Putin’s unwillingness to transfer Su-35s or S-400s to Iran was mainly to avoid irritating Saudi Arabia and the UAE in particular.

“(However), I would not be surprised if Putin is now willing to transfer S-400 missiles to Iran as a way of either deterring Israeli attacks or defending Iran against them. Transferring Su-35s to Iran, though, is something Putin might not want to do just yet due to his continued desire to maintain cooperation with Riyadh and Abu Dhabi,” Katz adds.

The Ukraine variable

Although it is unclear how far Putin’s government will go to strengthen Iran’s defence capabilities, it is safe to assume that Russia will continue to see Tehran as an important partner in view of Moscow’s growing hostility with the West. The Ukraine war is an extremely important factor.

When the Trump administration pulled the US out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, commonly referred to as the Iran nuclear deal, in May 2018, Tehran was forced to turn to Moscow.

Those circumstances made Iran quite dependent on Putin’s government. However, because of the extent to which Russia has needed Iranian support in the Ukraine war, Moscow and Tehran’s relationship has become significantly more balanced.

The drones and also, according to Washington, the close-range ballistic missiles that Iran has provided Russia since 2022 have increased the value which Moscow places on its relationship with Tehran.

Aside from Belarus, no other country has been as supportive of Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine as Iran, notes Samuel Ramani, an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute.

“It’s quite telling when Aleksandr Dugin and other ultranationalist pundits repeat the old trope that ‘the only friends that Russia has in the world are army, air force, and navy, but now we’ve got Iran, Belarus, and North Korea,’” he tells TRT World, referring to the Russian political philosopher and analyst often referred to as “Putin's brain”.

There are, however, limits as to how far Iran will go to back Russia in Ukraine.

In various ways, Tehran has distanced itself from Moscow’s war in Ukraine while also refusing to recognise the sovereignty of the breakaway regions of Donetsk and Luhansk.

Nonetheless, the hardline elements in Iran voice their agreement with the Kremlin’s argument that NATO’s eastward expansion is to blame for the Ukraine war.

Furthermore, given Russia’s importance to Iran in the face of Western pressure and Israeli hostilities, the chances are good that Tehran will continue supporting Moscow in the Ukraine war.

“It’s clear that Iran is one of Russia’s core military allies and partners in this conflict, and that’s not changing any time soon,” Ramani says.

Ultimately, Putin and Pezeshkian attending the meeting in Ashgabat spoke to the extent to which the two leaders value the partnership between their countries, as well as Moscow and Tehran’s interest in maintaining positive relationships with leaders of Central Asian republics.

Although both Russia and Iran will likely only go so far for the other, it is clear that the Moscow-Tehran entente continues strengthening with growing solidarity between Putin’s government and Pezeshkian’s Iran.