Russia wants the Iranian nuclear dossier resolved, as it considers this in its national interests, while conditioning its assistance on obtaining concessions from the West.
*The text reflects the author’s opinions and does not necessarily correspond to Khayrion’s views.
The US and Iran are in nuclear talks to resolve their conflicts. After unilaterally withdrawing from the 2015 nuclear agreement known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) during his first term in office in 2018, President Donald Trump sent a letter to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in his second term, threatening to attack Iran unless there talks to resolve the nuclear conflict take place.
The result of sending this letter was successful, and the negotiations that took place in several rounds, mediated by the Foreign Minister of Oman, have met with positive reactions from a number of countries, including Russia. Moscow sees these talks as a way to resolve nuclear conflicts and has expressed interest in advancing them. However, given Russia’s interest in developments between Iran and the West, the question arises regarding how much Russia can contribute to resolving conflicts between Iran and the US in these negotiations, and to what extent it is willing to conclude a nuclear agreement between Iran and Western countries.
Fearful Relationships
Iran-Russia relations have been growing significantly since the time of former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Before that, Iran had good relations with Russia, but Ahmadinejad placed special emphasis on the “Pivot to the East” strategy, which is why developing relations with China and Russia was put on the agenda. During the presidency of the late Ebrahim Raisi, this strategy became the main axis of Iran’s foreign policy, and relations with Russia were seriously pursued, with both sides interested in working towards a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Agreement. Ultimately, this 20-year agreement was signed on January 17 between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.
The main feature of Russia’s involvement in Iran’s nuclear industry was its participation in the construction of a nuclear reactor in the southern Iranian port of Bushehr in 1992, when no other country was willing to build it. Despite numerous promises to build the plant, Moscow did not complete it until 2013. Relations then strengthened in 2015 following Russia’s entry into the Syrian civil war, culminating in the war in Ukraine in 2022 and the export of Iranian drones to Russia to help it be more effective in the war.
However, this is not the whole story of the growing Iran-Russia relationship. What is more visible is the two countries’ partnership as like-minded countries rather than allies committed to a strategic relationship, especially as the Trump-Russia honeymoon period has begun. This has given Iranians a sense of fear of being consumed by Russia’s goals.
Russia and the US: A New Beginning?
Since Trump took office, the US has moved away from its traditional role as Ukraine’s leading supporter and has blamed Kyiv for the ongoing war. This stance has clearly earned Trump a warm welcome from Russian officials. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov called Trump “the first, and so far, only Western leader” to acknowledge what Moscow sees as the real cause of the war. Meanwhile, Secretary of State Marco Rubio suggested that after the war ends, Washington and Moscow could pursue “potentially historic economic partnerships,” including cooperation in Arctic development and rare earth mining.
Trump’s close relationship with Putin has led him to consider using Putin’s role as a facilitator for nuclear talks. Trump, who has vowed to bomb Iran for not attending the talks, is well aware that starting a war, whether unilateral or managedby Israel, risks contagion in the Middle East, possibly endangering the US installations and troops in the region. The US intelligence community estimates that an attack on Iran’s nuclear sites would have a mild effect at best, setting back Tehran’s nuclear program by only “weeks or months” without destroying its ability to rebuild. That’s why the Iran issuewas one of the topics discussed at a February 18 meeting between senior Russian and US officials in Saudi Arabia.
Trump’s willingness to use Putin’s role in mediation and behavioral changes between Russia and the US has caused concern in Iran, as Tehran believes that it may become a bargaining chip in the diplomatic back-and-forth between Moscow and Washington.
In fact, the agreement between Trump and Putin in a phone conversation to prevent the Iranian regime from acquiring nuclear weapons to destroy Israel is seen as a kind of Moscow’s willingness to sacrifice Tehran for the larger goal of restoring relations with Washington by Iran’s clerical rulers. The leaked audio file of the April 2021 interview of former Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who was in charge of Iran’s JCPOA negotiations on Iran’s behalf, exposes Russia’s destructive role in the nuclear negotiations.
“Lavrov wanted to blow everything up on the night of the deal,” and “Russia and France wanted the JCPOA to be reviewed and renewed every six months at the UN Security Council,” he said in the interview.
Russia’s Support for Iran
So far, Russia’s official position on the nuclear issue has been to affirm Iran’s right to “peaceful nuclear technology” following the rules of the International Atomic Energy Agency and to oppose a military attack on Iran. The visit of Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi to Russia before the second round of talks with the US in Rome and the delivery of Khamenei’s message indicate that the Iranians expect Russian support. “We hope and expect that Russia will continue its supporting role in any new agreement,” Lavrov also tried to maintain this hopeful trend for the Iranians by declaring his readiness.
However, Russia has limitations and variables that constrain its support for Iran. It is bound by the limits set in its national structures, interests, and strategies. These conditions indicate the limitations or strategies intended for Iran’s instrumental use.
A. Obstacles and Limitations
There are several restrictions that prevent Russia from having the same maneuvering power over the Iranian nuclear negotiations as it did in the past. These include three components.
I. Trump’s Personality
Trump’s personality is a major factor in limiting Russia’s influence in the Iran nuclear talks. Trump has a controversial personality that he has acquired through his self-confidence and self-centeredness in business and transactional negotiations in his professional life.
Some see him as a hardline conservative nationalist who believes that the best approach to world politics is to project the US power through tough talk and reminding other countries of America’s military might. His attitude toward most small and medium-sized powers is one of “What have you done for me lately?” or “Why does America owe your people anything?”
He left Europe out of the Iran nuclear talks – the Europe that Barack Obama, with his “multilateralist” policy, co-created the JCPOA. His self-aggrandizing personality allows him to be extremely achievement-oriented and, when he gets what he wants, to hype up the “I could do it” discourse in the media (Such as claiming that after imposing tariffs on all countries in the world, including allies and strategic partners, they were ready to beg for the tariffs to be lifted. “They are dying to make a deal. ‘Please, please, sir, make a deal. I’ll do anything, sir,” he imitated a begging foreign leader).
Trump’s bullying behavior makes him, unlike his predecessors, unilaterally resolve international issues, including nuclear negotiations with Iran. Therefore, Russia, along with the European Union (EU), is less able to implement and carry out its intentions regarding Iran.
II. Conflicting Interests with the US
The US is competing with Russia in various military, economic, and geopolitical areas, showing a lack of trust towards Russia’s policies. One of these areas is Iran. The close ties and alliance between Tehran and Moscow in the Ukraine war have raised fears in the US that a coalition has been formed between Russia and Iran that could develop into a fully strategic relationship at any time. The Institute for the Study of War has argued that joint activities between Russia and Iran have deepened in recent years in seven strategic areas: arms transfers, integration of defense industrial bases, technical cooperation and knowledge transfer, joint military exercises, as well as economic, political, diplomatic, media, and information space cooperation.
The US distrusts Russia’s mediation in the nuclear negotiations and may not consider it impartial. The US officials are pleased with Russia’s indirect mediation, but see Russia’s direct entry into the talks as a concession from the US side, especially in the Ukraine crisis. For this reason, for the US side, disrupting the strategic alliance between Moscow and Tehran is a goal that even some of the country’s officials do not hesitate to express publicly.
Keith Kellogg, the US special envoy for Ukraine, told in a session at the Munich Security Conference that such a coalition did not exist during the previous Trump presidency and that Washington was seeking to change Moscow’s behavior toward Iran. He even suggested that the US could pressure Russia to reconsider its relations with Iran by imposing sanctions.
III. Diplomatic Restrictions
Diplomatic restrictions have caused Russia to lose its previous power of maneuver and influence in the Iranian nuclear issue. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has intensified Western and the US action against Russia, leading to the imposition of hundreds of sanctions against Russia and the blocking of Russian funds in the EU.
According to World Bank statistics, the Russian economy shrank by 2.1% in 2022. During this period, the value of the ruble fell by 40%, and at the same time, the Russian government was forced to allocate more than 40% of its budget to military affairs in 2024.
Given the possibility of European presence in the future of the nuclear negotiations, such as the forced intervention of the US to waive the snap back of the four European countries if the future process of the talks is successful, or the holding negotiations in European capitals, such as the second round in Rome, Russia will see its maneuverability and influence in the negotiations diminished and will lose its chance as an influential factor.
B. Variables
Russia’s support for Iran’s nuclear program is contingent on variables, in which the protection of Russia’s national interests and the use of Iran’s nuclear card as a bargaining chip are the most important factors influencing it.
I. Continuation of the Nuclear Program in a Limited and Supervised Manner
Russia’s support for Iran’s nuclear program is conditional on peaceful use and limited applications, and the construction of an atomic bomb or plans to operationalize it would be considered a red line for Moscow.
Russia is concerned that equipping Iran with a nuclear bomb could lead to a regional nuclear arms race, as Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman promised in an interview with CBS in March 2018. This could, in turn, lead to new conflict in the region and a larger US military presence.
In September 2023, Lavrov said on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly meeting, “Nobody on Earth wants to see the emergence of new nuclear states.” He had taken this assumption for granted for Iran and emphasized that we are proceeding from the assumption that they do not have a bomb, then Iran’s neighbors will not be tempted to follow this path.
II. Progress of Negotiations under the Promotion of National Interests
The desire to advance Iran’s nuclear negotiations and Russia’s assistance to Iran in resolving its disputes with the US is not a commitment to a long-standing partner, but a function of ensuring and advancing Russia’s national interests. In the past, Russia has often avoided adherence to formal written treaties and alliances, and Iran, in this case, may be considered as a mere tool in Russia’s game for global ambitions and blackmailing the West. For instance, despite the Collective Security Treaty of 1994, Russia declined to deploy troops to southern Kyrgyzstan in response to the anti-Uzbek pogroms that erupted after the 2010 revolution. Additionally, it did not offer military support to Armenia during the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War in 2020.
Similarly, less than a month after the invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, Russia took the Iran nuclear deal hostage after 11 rounds of talks in Vienna, bringing the negotiations to a standstill. The request, which was prompted by crippling sanctions and Western opposition to the invasion of Ukraine, Russia had demanded that any return to the deal should include guarantees that any future Russian trade with Iran would be exempt from EU and US sanctions. This request was to strike a balance and score in the nuclear negotiations in favor of securing Russia’s national interests, albeit to the detriment of its ally Iran.
A similar experience was repeated in the Ukraine crisis in 2014, and Russia used the Iran card again at the negotiating table to advance its national interests. In November 2014, while more than 45,000 Russian troops were stationed on the Ukrainian border and arming separatists, the New York Times reported on Russia’s key role in advancing the nuclear talks. After talks stalled over a dispute over Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium, Russia offered to take Iranian uranium that could be used in nuclear weapons and convert it into nuclear fuel that could only be used in the Bushehr reactor. Putin used this trump card to convince the Obama administration in 2014 to ignore the presence of Russian troops on the Ukrainian border.
Russia’s national interests require Tehran not to lean towards the West because a “Western-oriented Iran” would endanger Russian interests. In the leaked interview, Zarif notes that after the negotiations were concluded and all parties reached an agreement, when Lavrov returned to Moscow, he was attacked by the Russian media. They criticized Lavrov for allowing Iran to lean towards the West by agreeing.
Rajab Safarov, a member of the political-advisory council with the president of the Russian Federation and head of the Iran commission at the Moscow Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said in an interview in March 2022 that “a Western-oriented Iran is much more dangerous for Russia than a nuclear Iran.”
III. Regional risk creation
Supporting Iran is acceptable to Moscow to the extent that it does not damage relations with other countries sensitive to Iranian activity. The Persian Gulf Monarchies, Israel, Azerbaijan, and Turkey are among Iran’s rivals. “We do not want Russia to be dragged into resolving another conflict,” Deputy Foreign Minister Andrey Rudenko said.
Regarding the Persian Gulf Monarchies, Russia has extensive relations with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. Six rounds of strategic dialogue have been held between them so far, and trade between the two exceeded $11 billion in 2022, of which $9 billion was with the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Relations with them were so close that Russia supported the claim of occupying the Greater Tunb, Lesser Tunb, and Abu Musa islands in the Persian Gulf, which the UAE claims are occupied by Iran. This Russian position angered the Iranian people and drew protests from the Foreign Ministry.
Regarding Israel, in 2005, when hardline Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called for Israel to be wiped off the map, Lavrov responded that no UN member state should be able to threaten the existence of another country in the UN. Russia’s permission to target Iranian military personnel and facilities in Syria under Bashar al-Assad is further evidence of Israel’s appeasement of Iranian interests.
Conclusion
Iran’s relationship with Russia has been growing over the past two decades, reaching its peak after Iran adopted the Pivot to the East strategy and helped Russia in the Ukraine war. Russia played an active role in the JCPOA negotiations and helped facilitate the talks. Russia was responsible for building the Bushehr nuclear power plant, and its political support for Iran in international forums further strengthened their relationship.
However, the experience of the two countries’ conflict in Syria, the refusal to sell the S-400 and deliver the Su-35 fighters, and support for Israel against Iran in Syria, has made Tehran understand that it cannot count on Russia in times of crisis. Rudenko’s assertion that military assistance to Iran is not obligatory in the event of a US military attack suggests that Russia may sell its neutrality to the US as a concession if the conflicts are not resolved. Russia wants the Iranian nuclear dossier resolved, but it considers this in its national interests and conditions its assistance on obtaining concessions from the West.
