Iran's Supreme Leader sent his foreign minister to Moscow on Monday to ask President Vladimir Putin for more help from Russia, Reuters reports.
This comes after the largest US military action against the Islamic republic since the 1979 revolution.
US President Donald Trump and Israel have publicly speculated about the assassination of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and regime change - a move that Russia fears could plunge the Middle East into the abyss.
Although Putin condemned the Israeli strikes, he has not yet commented on the US attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities. Last week, however, the Russian leader called for calm and offered Moscow's services as a mediator on the nuclear program.
A senior source revealed that Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi is to deliver a letter from Khamenei to Putin seeking his support.
Iran is unimpressed with Russia's support so far, Iranian sources said, adding that the country wants Putin to do more to support it against Israel and the United States. The sources did not specify what kind of help Tehran was seeking. The Kremlin said Putin would receive Araqchi, but did not specify what would be discussed. The Iranian foreign minister stressed that Iran and Russia were coordinating their positions on the current escalation in the Middle East. Putin has repeatedly offered to mediate between the United States and Iran and said he had conveyed Moscow's ideas for resolving the conflict while ensuring Iran's continued access to civilian nuclear energy. Last week, the Russian leader refused to discuss the possibility of Israel and the United States assassinating Khamenei. Putin said Israel had assured Moscow that Russian specialists helping build two more reactors at Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant would not be harmed in air strikes. Russia, a longtime ally of Tehran, has played a role in Iran's nuclear negotiations with the West as a veto-wielding member of the UN Security Council and a signatory to an earlier nuclear deal that Trump abandoned during his first term in 2018.
Yet Putin, whose military has been fighting a major war of attrition in Ukraine for four years, has so far shown no public desire to confront the United States over Iran, even as Trump seeks to mend ties with Moscow.