Both are top members of BRICS+ and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). Both are seriously implicated as Global Majority leaders to build a multi-nodal, multipolar world. And both have signed, in late January in Moscow, a detailed, comprehensive strategic partnership.
It was up to the Russian Foreign Ministry to re-introduce rationality in what was fast becoming an out of control shouting match:essentially Moscow, alongside its partner Tehran, simply will not accept outside threats of bombing Iran’s nuclear and energy infrastructure, while insisting on the search for viable negotiated solutions for the Islamic Republic's nuclear program.
Essential background to decipher the “Will Russia help Iran” conundrum can be found in these all-too-diplomatic exchanges at the Valdai Club in Moscow.
The key points were made by Alexander Maryasov, Russia’s ambassador to Iran from 2001 to 2005. Maryasov argues that the Russia–Iran treaty is not only a symbolic milestone, but “serves as a roadmap for advancing our cooperation across virtually all domains.” It is more of “a bilateral relations document” – not a defense treaty.
The treaty was extensively discussed – then approved – as a counter-point to “the intensified military-political and economic pressure exerted by western nations on both Russia and Iran.”
The main rationale was how to fight against the sanctions tsunami.
Yet even if it does not constitute a military alliance, the treaty details mutually agreed moves if there is an attack or threats to either nation’s national security – as in Trump’s careless bombing threats against Iran. The treaty also defines the vast scope of military-technical and defense cooperation, including, crucially, regular intel talk.
At the Valdai discussion, Daniyal Meshkin Ranjbar, assistant professor in the Department of Theory and History of International Relations at the Moscow-based RUDN University, made a crucial point: “For the first time in history, the diplomatic outlooks of Russia and Iran converge." He's referring to the obvious parallels between official policies: Russia’s “pivot to the east” and Iran’s “look east” policies.
For Moscow, Iran is an absolutely key geopolitical priority; beyond Iran, to the east, is Central Asia. The obsessive fantasy of regime change in Tehran masks NATO's then penetrating into Central Asia, building military bases, and at the same time blocking several strategically crucial Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects. Iran is as essential to China’s long-term foreign policy as it is to Russia’s.
It's not by accident that Russia and China will meet at the presidential level – Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping – at a summit in Moscow around 9 May, Victory Day in the Great Patriotic War. They will be analyzing in detail the next stage of “changes that we have not seen in 100 years,” as formulated by Xi to Putin in their groundbreaking 2023 summer in Moscow.
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