Dmitry Orlov

On April 27, an Iranian delegation headed by Minister of Foreign Affairs of Iran Abbas Araghchi was in St. Petersburg, Russia, for meetings with Vladimir Putin and Russian top officials. In his published remarks from their meeting, Putin “confirm[ed] that Russia, just like Iran, intends to maintain our strategic relations.” “Iran-Russia relations are regarded by us as a strategic partnership at the highest level,” Minister of Foreign Affairs of Iran Abbas Araghchi responded.

Note that Araghchi chose to fly to St. Petersburg instead of meeting with some slimy New York City slumlord and Donald Trump’s son-in-law (who is an Israeli stooge) whom Trump inexplicably considers fit to meet with foreign diplomats. Clearly, Araghchi wanted to use his time to solve problems, not to waste time talking to some nobodys.

So, how have Russia and Iran — these two strategic partners — helped each other strategically in recent times? Here is a list of ways in which Russia has helped Iran:

• The Russian army destroyed ISIS* in Syria. If Russia hadn’t destroyed many thousands of ISIS cadres, they would now be used by the US to invade Iran. By eliminating them, Russia eliminated a major threat to Iran.
• In the hapless country formerly known as the Ukraine, which for the past four years and counting has been used by the US and NATO as a proxy to attack Russia, the Russian army has destroyed most of the US and NATO countries’ stockpiles of all types of weapons. If it were not for the Russians, all of this war materiel would now be put to use to destroy Iran. But, as we see, the Americans’ stockpiles are depleted to such an extent that the Americans themselves consider the situation to be dangerous to their own security. This, again, was of major help to Iran.
• Russia is also building a nuclear power plant at Bushehr in Iran. It’s worth remembering that the Iranians had turned to Russia out of desperation: they had first signed a contract with Germany to build this power plant. The Germans screwed them, and only then did the Iranians turn to Rosatom. By the way, Germany was a spectacularly bad choice for this project, given that that country has been busy destroying its existing nuclear power plants, not building new ones.
• Russia has also supplied all kinds of weapons to Iran: air defense systems, fighter jets, bombers, tanks and infantry fighting vehicles, MANPADS, helicopters, small arms, and much more. Western media reports claim Russia is also supplying Iran with intelligence.
• Russia’s Roscosmos has been launching Iranian satellites into space.
Where, then, is the list of ways in which Iran has helped Russia? All we saw from Iran was the sale of Shahed drones during the initial stages of the military operation. These were excellent drones, and Russia was able to modify and improve their original design in many incremental ways, making its Geranium II (initially, a Shahed copy) a highly advanced and formidable weapon.

Was it that the Russians were not in any need of Iranian help, or perhaps too proud to accept it? That is clearly not the case: North Korean troops were most helpful in destroying and expelling Ukrainian Nazi and NATO invaders from Russia’s Kursk region, the southern tip of which was partially occupied by them from May of 2024 to April of 2025. The Koreans fought valiantly and showed themselves to be skilled, disciplined and fearless warriors. In return for their valor, they gained invaluable experience in modern warfare, where the battlefield is saturated with drones and any significant force concentration is automatically detected and targeted. Together with the Russian forces, the Koreans helped destroy some 70 thousand of the invaders, which included professional soldiers from several NATO countries. To commemorate these events, several days ago the Kursk Memorial Complex and Museum were opened in Pyongyang. The event was attended by North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, Russian State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin, and Russia’s Defense Minister Andrei Belousov.

The fact that Russia has done so much more for Iran than Iran for Russia is not in any way unfair or disadvantageous from the Russian point of view. There are many military, geopolitical and economic considerations that make Iran’s security and independence extremely important to Russia — far too many to discuss in a short article.

[…]

Via https://boosty.to/cluborlov/posts/c10c9ae7-ea6c-4aab-ac6b-567bd0db035f