In his first official comment on the coordinated US-Israeli attacks in Iran, Russian President Vladimir Putin called the targeted assassination of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei a “cynical assassination,” the Russian state media agency reported. TAS reported.
Putin said Khamenei’s assassination violated “all norms of human morality and international law.”
On Saturday, the Russian Foreign Ministry condemned the attacks, calling them “a pre-planned and unprovoked act of armed aggression against a sovereign and independent member state of the UN.” The attacks occurred a day after negotiations over Tehran’s nuclear enrichment capabilities collapsed in Geneva.
Moscow and Tehran have long been allies and elevated their ties to a comprehensive strategic partnership in 2025.
Among Moscow’s allies, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro was captured in January and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was overthrown in December 2024. Khamenei’s death marks a major strategic setback for the Kremlin.
Why is Iran important to Moscow?
China is Tehran’s largest trading partner and buys more than 80% of the oil exported by Iran, the backbone of its economy. Bilateral trade between the two amounted to $37 billion in 2022.
By comparison, Iran’s trade with Russia peaked at around $5 billion the same year, when Moscow faced sweeping sanctions over the war in Ukraine. However, the ties between Tehran and Moscow go far beyond trade.
Story continues below this ad.
During Russia’s war in Ukraine, Iran provided crucial military support, supplying Moscow with Shahed drones, a series of inexpensive “suicide drones” with a range of up to 2,000 km. Tehran also helped Russia build a manufacturing facility to produce these drones.
Being part of the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC), Iran provides Moscow with essential transit for its goods through the ports of Bandar Abbas and Chabahar. This helps Russia avoid the risks of trade through the Mediterranean and Baltic regions amid the war with Ukraine and rising tensions with Europe.
Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Treaty
In 2025, the countries signed the Iran-Russia Treaty on Comprehensive Strategic Partnership.
The twenty-year partnership agreement was signed after Tehran’s most valued partner in the Levant, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, was overthrown and its regional proxies Hamas and Hezbollah (part of its “axis of resistance” against Israel) were decimated.
Story continues below this ad.
The document repeatedly referred to promoting a multipolar world order, and countries agreed to closely coordinate their strategies and cooperate in international forums.
They also agreed to continue cooperating in defense, intelligence and counterterrorism, as well as in trade, energy, finance and other economic areas.
Iran-Russia nuclear cooperation
Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant, the country’s only operational one, was built with Russian help (construction began in the mid-1970s and began supplying electricity in 2011).
The facility generates 1 GW of energy. Iran has been building two more reactors at the site, using uranium produced in Russia.
Story continues below this ad.
The site was one of the few that was not targeted by Israeli-American attacks on nuclear facilities in June last year.
According to a Reuters According to the report, Russia is building more nuclear facilities in Bushehr. Staff from the Russian state nuclear company Rosatom are still working at the site after Saturday’s attacks.
How Russia backed Iran in global forums and vice versa
On June 12, 2025, the 35-member Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) passed a resolution declaring that Tehran had violated its safeguards obligations.
Among the three members who voted against the move on the junta dominated by US allies were Russia and China. India abstained from the vote.
Story continues below this ad.
In November, the IAEA passed a resolution calling on Iran to grant the U.N. nuclear watchdog access to information about its enrichment program. Russia, again, opposed this resolution.
The UN imposed sanctions in the wake of these resolutions, causing inflation and a cost-of-living crisis in Iran that then led to deadly anti-regime protests in January 2026.
In March 2022, a few weeks after Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the United Nations passed a resolution rejecting the military campaign by an overwhelming majority of 141 to 5. Among the 35 countries that abstained from voting was Iran.
The fate of the Islamic Republic
After the joint attack, the Islamic Republic launched retaliatory drone and missile strikes against Tel Aviv and Washington’s allies in the Middle East – the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Jordan and Qatar – which host US military bases.
Story continues below this ad.
Several world leaders condemned the Iranian attack, including Germany, France and the United Kingdom, whose heads issued a joint statement calling for the resumption of negotiations between the United States and Iran.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned the escalation in the region and called for an “immediate cessation of hostilities.”
Ayatollah Arafi, who currently serves as vice president of the Assembly of Experts, the body that appoints the Supreme Leader, has been appointed to lead Iran temporarily.
Tehran has a long list of hardliners to replace its “martyred” leaders, and before his death, Khamenei had already named four levels of succession to military and government roles.
Story continues below this ad.
According to a NYT According to the report, Ali Larijani, the country’s top national security official and former IRGC commander, has been effectively running the country.
