The Russian President, Vladimir Putin, congratulated the Iranian leaders on Nowruz and said that Moscow remains a loyal friend and a trusted partner of Tehran, the Kremlin said on Saturday.
The extent of Moscow’s backing of Iran, however, is disputed. Some Iranian sources said they had little real help from Moscow in Iran’s greatest crisis since the US-backed Shah was toppled in the 1979 revolution.
Putin sent congratulations to the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, and to the Iranian president, Masoud Pezeshkian, for the Iranian New Year, the Kremlin said.
“Vladimir Putin wished that the Iranian people overcome the hard trials with dignity and stressed that, at this difficult moment, Moscow remains a loyal friend and a trusted partner of Tehran,” the Kremlin said.
Russia says that U.S. and Israeli strikes against Iran have pushed the entire Middle East into the abyss and triggered a major global energy crisis, while Putin condemned the assassination of the Iranian supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as a “cynical” killing.
The Politico site reported that Moscow proposed a counterproposal to Washington: the Kremlin would stop sharing intelligence with Iran if Washington stopped providing Ukraine with intelligence about Russia, but the United States rejected the idea. The Kremlin dismissed the report as false.
Russia was left without an ally when the United States toppled Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, although Moscow benefited from the high oil prices spurred by U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran, a strategic partner.
The disclosed strategic partnership does not contain a mutual defense clause, and Russia has repeatedly said that it does not want Iran to develop an atomic bomb, a move that Moscow fears could trigger a nuclear arms race in the Middle East.
