Russian President Vladimir Putin will host his Iranian counterpart this week for the signing of a “comprehensive strategic partnership” treaty between Moscow and Tehran, the Kremlin said Monday.
Putin and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian will discuss plans for expanding trade and cooperation in transport, logistics and humanitarian spheres along with “acute issues on the regional and international agenda,” during a visit to Moscow Friday, Russia said.
Ukraine and the West have accused Tehran of providing Moscow with hundreds of exploding drones for use on the battlefield in Ukraine and helping launch their production in Russia. The Iranian drone deliveries, which Moscow and Tehran have denied, have allowed for a barrage of long-range drone strikes on Ukraine’s infrastructure.
Iran, in turn, wants sophisticated Russian weapons like long-range air defense systems and fighter jets to help fend off possible attacks by Israel. Both countries are heavily sanctioned by the US.
Tehran has long hoped to obtain advanced Sukhoi Su-35 fighter jets from Russia to upgrade its aging fleet that’s been hobbled by international sanctions, but only received a few Yak-130 trainer jets in 2023.
Pezeshkian will visit Moscow three days before the inauguration of US President-elect Donald Trump, who has pledged to broker a peace deal on Ukraine, but who is thought likely to take a harder line against Iran.
Tehran likely hopes to secure financial and defense promises from Moscow. Putin signed a similarly named treaty with North Korea last year, further strengthening his alliance with Pyongyang.
Under that agreement, both sides committed to provide military assistance in case the other was invaded or attacked. North Korea has since sent thousands of soldiers to fight against Ukrainian troops in Russia’s western Kursk region, hundreds of whom have been killed or wounded, according to South Korean, Ukrainian and Western intelligence.
The West and Ukraine have also long accused North Korea of sending millions of artillery shells and missile components to Russia.
The trip comes with Iran facing increasing pressure as Israeli military planners flirt with the possibility of taking action against the country’s nuclear program following previous strikes that knocked out many of its air defense batteries.
The last several months have also seen Iran’s so-called “axis of resistance” shattered after attempting to open up a multi-front war against Israel in support of the Hamas terror group in Gaza.
Iran’s most important proxy, Hezbollah, was largely incapacitated by a punishing Israeli offensive launched in September after nearly a year of cross-border rocket fire, and Hamas has been pulverized by Israel’s offensive in Gaza, sparked after the Palestinian terror group stormed southern Israel on October 7, 2023, massacring some 1,200 people and kidnapping 251 more, over a third of whom remain hostage.
Syria’s Bashar Assad regime, long funded by tens of billions of dollars from Iran, has also collapsed, removing another key ally; earlier this month Israel revealed that its commandos had destroyed a secret Iranian missile production plant dug deep into a Syrian mountain.
Iran’s economy remains in tatters after the collapse of its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. Trump pulled the United States out of the accord in 2018, and also ordered the killing of an IRGC general in a drone strike in Iraq in early 2020.
At a summit of the BRICS group in Kazan last year, Putin told Pezeshkian he valued “truly friendly and constructive ties” between Russia and Iran.
However, there has been growing discontent over Russia within Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard, a paramilitary force answerable only to Iran’s 85-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Last week, an audio recording leaked into the Iranian media with a Guard general blaming Russia for many of the woes Iran had suffered in Syria.
On Friday, Iranian state TV showed the head of the Guards touring an underground missile plant in Iran and claiming that production had ramped up, denying claims that Israel’s strikes had harmed its ability to produce new weapons.
Iran was set to hold nuclear talks with France, Britain and Germany in Switzerland on Monday. Since the US pulled out of the deal, Iran has enriched large stockpiles of uranium to 60 purity, a level with no civilian application, and only a short step away from weapons-grade levels.
In January, US news website Axios reported that White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan had presented President Joe Biden with options for a potential US strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities if Tehran moved toward developing an atomic weapon before January 20, when Trump takes office.
Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei criticized the reports, saying threats against the country’s nuclear facilities were “a gross violation of international law”.
Iran maintains that its nuclear program is solely for peaceful purposes and denies any intention to develop atomic weapons.
Source » timesofisrael