The US and Israeli attack on Iran and the assassination of Supreme Leader Ayotallah Ali Khamenei caused some discomfort in Moscow. Some hawkish Russia critics argue that Russia, despite its vast nuclear arsenal, could be attacked in a similar manner. They see reckless statements by key Western officials about the possibility of war with Russia in the near future as evidence of that intent.
While the attack on Iran is a cause for concern for Moscow, it is also seen as vindication of its geopolitical strategy, including the invasion of Ukraine. This confirms the Kremlin’s long-held view of the US-led West as rogue and irrational actors.
For Russian President Vladimir Putin, the US war against Iran likely reflects the events in Libya in 2011, which had a major impact on his own threat perception. That year, a NATO-led military intervention ousted Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.
The NATO attack on Libya, which Putin’s protégé and then-President Dmitry Medvedev facilitated by a UN Security Council vote that approved Russia’s abstention, was one of the factors that led Putin to decide to return as president.
In October 2011, one month after President Putin accepted his nomination for the next presidential election, Gaddafi was brutally murdered by rebels, and footage of his deathbed spread on the Internet. The end of his regime, celebrated by Western leaders at the time, brought neither democracy nor prosperity to Libya. Instead, it plunged the country into civil war and division.
For Putin, this was a clear indication of what would await him personally and Russia as a whole if he allowed the neoliberal “democracy” movement waged by increasingly reckless and overconfident Western powers. In December of the same year, pro-Western city residents staged protests against fraudulent parliamentary elections in Moscow. This was a further red flag for the Kremlin.
President Putin watched for several months before cracking down on protests decisively on the eve of his inauguration in May 2012. This marked a turning point in Russia’s domestic and foreign policy, and less than two years later Russia intervened in the upheavals of Ukraine’s Maidan revolution.
Looking at the dramatic events currently taking place in Iran, President Putin will be convinced that his actions in Ukraine were justified and will be grateful to his Soviet predecessors for building the world’s largest nuclear arsenal, guaranteeing Russia’s true sovereignty and the impregnability of its personalist regime.
Despite launching a brutal war of aggression against Russia’s closest neighbor in Europe, Putin still considers himself a stalwart of the fading post-World War II order, the end of which, at least in his view, was caused by the US-led West becoming overconfident and intolerably arrogant and reckless.
The idea of launching a full-scale invasion of Ukraine has its roots in the 1930s Soviet doctrine of carrying war into enemy territory. When NATO decided to admit it in 2007, Ukraine and Georgia became “enemy territories.” The idea was first successfully tested during a short-lived conflict in Georgia in 2008.
The 2014 attack on Ukraine and subsequent 2022 invasion were planned by the Kremlin as a preventative measure of the kind of military intervention experienced by Iraq, Libya, and Syria, and now faced by Iran.
By making Ukraine a decisive battleground in the conflict with the West, the Kremlin was able to protect the majority of the Russian population from the obvious effects of war and succeeded in portraying war as inevitable in Russian society.
Given the historically difficult relations between the two countries, Iran entered the scene of the Russia-Ukraine conflict in an unlikely position as an ally of Russia. This provided critical drone technology during the hectic period of Russia’s all-out invasion, when many Western countries believed that deploying Turkey’s Bayraktar drones would give Ukraine a technological advantage over Russia. This assistance was not a selfless act of sincere friendship. Billions of dollars were paid to Tehran, which helped prop up its struggling economy.
However, relations between Russia and Iran are currently not strong enough for the Russian government to intervene on the Iranian side. Additionally, the Kremlin has an informal non-aggression pact with Israel, but Israel refuses to supply critical weapons systems to Ukraine or participate in anti-Russian sanctions. Israel does not apply Western sanctions, making it a safe haven for members of the Russian oligarchy, which historically has close ties to Israel.
Another reason for Russia’s neutrality is US President Donald Trump’s own near-neutral position on the Russia-Ukraine conflict and his attempts to end the conflict at the negotiating table. The Russian government does not want to give European leaders the opportunity to destroy the relationship it has built with the Trump administration and prolong the war.
Even if there had been a genuine desire to prop up the Iranian regime, Russia would have had little ability to do so. The only way to help Iran is to use military technology developed during the four-year war in Ukraine, but that could jeopardize relations with Israel and the United States, and Iran may not have the money to pay for it.
It is also important to note that the US and Israeli operations against Iran actually benefit Russia in the short term. The war has already caused oil and gas prices to rise, which means more income from energy sales for the Russian treasury. Rising energy prices could also affect the ability of the European Union, currently Ukraine’s main financier, to finance the war.
Moreover, a prolonged war in the Middle East would deplete the U.S. arsenal that would otherwise be available to Ukraine, especially when it comes to critical air defense missiles.
The United States’ mire in the Middle East could also mean that Russia could secure greater leverage in ongoing negotiations with Ukraine.
Domestically, Putin also stands to benefit from Iran’s scene of destruction and chaos. The war, which the United States and Israel are now trying to sell as helping Iranians build a freer and more prosperous country, will only strengthen a fortress attitude among Russians and solidify President Putin’s image as a defender of the nation, albeit an authoritarian one.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial stance of Al Jazeera.
