When Israel launched a complex and successful strike on Iran on the night of June 13, Russia criticized Tel Aviv's move as one that contradicted the norms of international law and led to an escalation in the region.
This, of course, was logical: Tehran is a strategic partner of Moscow. The two countries have a number of coincidences of interests, political and economic.
For example, Russia and Iran found themselves on the losing side of history when the regime of Bashar al-Assad fell from power at the end of last year. The two countries are partners in the BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. They are developing, together with India, the International North-South Transport Corridor, passing through the Caucasus region. In the context of the war between Russia and Ukraine, Iran supplied the former with unmanned aerial vehicles (various modifications of the Shahed and Mohajer), and according to some sources, with short-range ballistic missiles (Fath-360 and Ababil). The two countries also participate in regular joint military exercises, usually with third countries (such as China).
At the beginning of the year, the presidents of the countries, Vladimir Putin and Massoud Pezeshkian, also signed a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, which envisages the deepening of economic, political and military cooperation between Moscow and Tehran over the next 20 years. In this spirit, about ten days ago, the two countries reached an agreement for Russia to build 8 nuclear reactors in Iran (the one operating at the Iranian Bushehr nuclear power plant is also Russian).
However, this does not mean that everything between Russia and Iran is without problems.
For years, Russia has been reluctant to sell the S-400 anti-missile system and Sukhoi 35 fighter jets to Iran (Tehran periodically announces that it has reached an agreement with Moscow about the Russian fighter jets in question, but none have ever landed in the Middle Eastern country). Iran and Russia also had quite different positions regarding the latest escalation between Azerbaijan and Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in 2023.
In fact, Russia has good relations with Azerbaijan, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the Kurds, each of which poses a different challenge for Tehran (a reason for regular dissatisfaction with Iran is, for example, that Russia supports the position of the UAE and the Arab League regarding the disputed islands of Abu Musa, Greater and Lesser Tunb in the Persian Gulf between the Emirates and Iran).
But despite the critical statements of the official Kremlin regarding the escalation of the conflict between Tel Aviv and Tehran initiated by Israel, this conflict definitely has favorable consequences for Russia.
For example, the escalation is already diverting the already not very extensive American attention from the war in Ukraine.
If the conflict in the Middle East continues long enough, it will diverts an increasing amount of American weapons and ammunition from Kiev to Tel Aviv (either directly to Israel or to American bases in the region that are involved in neutralizing Iranian strikes on Tel Aviv). Still, Israel will need to replenish its ammunition supplies, which will come from the United States.
When Russia attacked Ukraine, China won, as the Americans - with some annoyance and boredom - had to turn their attention back to Europe. The situation is similar now: Israel escalates, and Russia wins, because the US will have to invest new resources in the Middle East.
It was particularly telling that in the last conversation between Trump and Putin, the two emphasized the conflict between Israel and Iran, leaving the war in Ukraine as a secondary topic.
Vladimir Putin has something to thank Benjamin Netanyahu for: the Russian president prefers to talk about foreign wars, not those he is fighting.
Any tension in this region leads to uncertainty in the production and logistics of hydrocarbons and an increase in their prices. Russia also benefits from this, as the country wants to appear as a secure alternative source of natural resources and needs to finance its ongoing war in Ukraine.
And Israel has already struck an installation in Iran's South Pars, which is the richest natural gas field in the world (Tel Aviv and Tehran are also attacking each other's refineries and storage facilities, but it remains to be seen whether they will also attack their energy export infrastructure, which would cause even greater stress on the markets).
The escalation between the two Middle Eastern countries in question is also helping to boost the image of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who traditionally offers himself as a mediator between Israel and Iran.
The Kremlin leader has good relations with both Benjamin Netanyahu and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The difference in this case is that the prospect of Putin acting as a mediator between the authorities in Tel Aviv and Tehran is met with understanding from Donald Trump. It is Putin who is offering his services in another aspect: Russia, as it has done before, to enrich and provide the uranium necessary for Iran's nuclear program. However, further increasing Tehran's dependence on Moscow cannot be a useful goal of American foreign policy.
As for the fact that a prolonged conflict with Israel will force Iran to cease its exports of unmanned aerial vehicles to Russia, this was already happening before the escalation in the Middle East. Russia has developed its own production line of improved modifications of the Iranian "Shahed" (Geran-2 and Geran-3), minimizing its need for Iranian drone imports.
However, the issue of the export of Iranian short-range ballistic missiles to Russia is more murky, as there is no information in the media about their quantity.
Despite Masoud Pezeshkian's assurances that since he was elected President of Iran, his government has not sent weapons to Moscow (not to mention that the Pasdaran has never needed government sanction to send weapons left and right), the media speaks of "hundreds" exported to Russia Iranian ballistic missiles.
However, Moscow has another option as a source of such ammunition in the person of North Korea, which, in addition to troops, artillery shells and ammunition, also sends Moscow short-range ballistic missiles (148 KN-23 and KN-24).
The basic issue is that the Iranians cannot provide the Russians with what the Americans can take away from the Ukrainians if the conflict between Tel Aviv and Tehran expands and the US is eventually involved in it on an offensive basis.
However, all this does not mean that Russia has an interest in the overthrow of the ayatollahs' regime in Iran.
The hardliners in Tehran and Moscow share common ground: authoritarian rule as a construct and anti-Americanism/anti-Westernism as a value base. An additional layer of their partnership is their close economic and military relations. Just as during the Cold War, Iran, together with Pakistan, Iraq and Turkey, formed a "wall" against the spread of communism to the south under the umbrella of the 1955 Baghdad Pact, today Tehran is seen by Russia and China as a key element against American influence in the region.
One of the US strategic mistakes in the Middle East - started by George W. Bush, who in 2002 equated Iran with Iraq and North Korea in the "axis of evil", and continued by Donald Trump, who withdrew the US from the Iran nuclear deal in 2018 - was the policy of heavy sanctions against Iran. The goal of this American policy was the international isolation of the regime and its economic "stifling", so as to create conditions for a change in the ayatollahs' rule.
However, the result of this American policy was radically different: the hardliners in the Middle Eastern country in question established control over Iran's economy and security, and it, due to its lack of options, was pushed even more forcefully into the arms of the Russian-Chinese axis.
However, before the Russians did so, it was the Chinese who signed a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership with Iran for a period of 25 years in 2021. And today, about 80% of Iranian oil sold is purchased by the Celestial Empire.
The biggest victim of this integration of Iran into the security architectures built by Russia and China was neither the US nor Israel, but Europe, which became the collateral victim of this process.
The impossibility of normal political and economic relations with the Persian state has made Europe a hostage to Russian hydrocarbons.
The ideal option for Russia is for the escalation between Israel and Iran to continue long enough, but not qualitatively enough. Long enough so that the media counts the missiles falling in Iran and Israel, and not those in Ukraine. But not qualitatively enough so that these missiles do not overthrow the regime in Tehran.