Despite what Putin says, Russia and Iran are linking the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East
Screenshot form TassWASHINGTON—On July 25, Ukraine struck an Iranian cargo ship in the Caspian Sea, killing a sailor in the attack. At the time, Ukraine stated that the ship was carrying military equipment to Russia, while Iranian officials claimed it was a commercial ship and warned Kyiv of reprisal. In the days that followed, Tehran reportedly considered carrying out a retaliatory strike, until Iranian Foreign Minister Abas Araghchi spoke with his Ukrainian counterpart, Andrii Sybiha, easing t
Screenshot form TassWASHINGTON—On July 25, Ukrainestruckan Iranian cargo ship in the Caspian Sea, killing a sailor in the attack. At the time, Ukraine stated that the ship was carrying military equipment to Russia, while Iranian officials claimed it was a commercial ship and warned Kyiv of reprisal. In the days that followed, Tehran reportedly considered carrying out aretaliatory strike, until Iranian Foreign Minister Abas Araghchi spoke with his Ukrainian counterpart, Andrii Sybiha, easing tensions. The incident does not come as a complete surprise. Since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Moscow and Tehran haveutilizedthe Caspian Sea to smuggle weapons, drone-related technology, and sanctioned oil, away from international scrutiny. Meanwhile, Ukraine has sought to disrupt the flow of military supplies to Russia by targeting key logistics networks and transportation routes. While Araghchi has since said that Sybiha described the strike as “unintentional,” and both parties have stated that they do not seek further escalation, the incident brings attention to the ways in which the wars in Ukraine and Iran are intertwined. Illicit smuggling in the Caspian Sea is just one element of a broader Russia-Iran partnership spanning drone production and innovation, intelligence sharing, andsanctions evasion, creating increasingly direct links between the war in Ukraine and conflicts in the Middle East. Russia learned sanctions evasion methods from Iran. At the beginning of the full-scale invasion, Iranshippedhundreds of drones to Russia, primarily Shahed-type models, used as one-way attack drones. Moscow’s intention was apparently to overwhelm Ukraine’s air-defense systems with the low-cost drones. By June 2023, Iran was assisting Russia in the construction of a drone manufacturing facility in Yelabuga todomestically produceShaheds, which were later rebranded as Geran-2s, following a$1. 7 billion deal. Since February 2022, Russia has used an estimated57,000 Shahed-type dronesin its invasion, making them a key component of the Kremlin’s battlefield strategy. As the war progressed, Russia refined and modified the Shahed design, and it is nowreturning the favorby giving Iran more advanced drones. Following US-Israeli strikes in February this year, senior Iranian and Russian officials conducted secret talks throughout March for dronetransfers. The new modifications arereportedlywide-ranging and include jet engines, cameras for reconnaissance, radio links, artificial intelligence–computing platforms, Starlink-enabled internet devices, and advanced anti-jammers. While little is public about the shipments, Western officials reportedlybelievethat Iran has utilized improved Russian drone systems in the Middle East and suspect that some modified drones were deployed in Iran’s recent strike on US assets in Riyadh. Recent Russia-Iran military cooperation extends well beyond drones. It also has included, for example, theformationof commissions and working groups to share defense practices, as well as shipments of ammunition and artillery shells from Iran to Russia. In 2023, Iran reportedlyshippedmore than 300,000 artillery shells and a million rounds of ammunition over six months. In March of this year,The Washington Postreportedthat Russian officials were providing Iran with intelligence to target US forces in the Middle East, passing on the location of warships, aircraft, and other US military assets to their Iranian counterparts. Iran itself possesses few military-grade satellites, making Russia’s advanced capabilities increasingly beneficial to its military operations across the Gulf. More recently, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy pointed to evidence ofcorrelationsbetween Russian satellite activity and subsequent Iranian strikes on US assets. In the economic sphere, Russia’s war on Ukraine catalyzed new Tehran-Moscow collaboration on sanctions evasion. Previously, bilateral economic engagement was a point of tension between Iran and Russia, but the invasion and subsequent Western sanctions on Russia increasingly aligned the two countries’ strategic economic goals. Russia learned sanctions evasion methods from Iran, including the use ofshadow fleet tankersto export oil to China, while Iran provided Russia with critical industrial components for its war that it could no longer legally import. Thesanctions evasion network—in which China also plays a large role—allows Russia and Iran to sell their sanctioned oil and purchase dual-use or military technology. These evasion mechanisms are moreresistantto Western sanctions and export controls, allowing both countries to rebuild their arsenals and bring in much-needed revenue. To be sure, Russia’s support of Iran has fallen short of what many in the Iranian regime would have preferred following Operation Epic Fury, reaffirming the practical and opportunistic nature of their partnership. In June, Russian President Putin insisted to an audience in St. Petersburg that Iran “did not ask” Russia for any weapons, and “we did not supply any armaments to Iran. ” His comments exposed the limits of Moscow’s commitment to Tehran: Russia remains more concerned with its own war effort in Ukraine, its relationships with other regional partners, and avoiding direct confrontation with Western powers. Yet despite Putin’s claims about not sending Iran weapons, the war in Ukraine has evidently deepened Russia-Iran cooperation in sanctions evasion and military technology. Capabilities and expertise developed on the Ukrainian battlefield are now flowing back to the Middle East through improved drone systems, targeting assistance, intelligence sharing, and other forms of military collaboration. The two conflicts do not exist in a vacuum: They are increasingly connected by a burgeoning partnership that strengthens both countries’ ability to fight and fill the coffers. ByKatherine Spencer. Katherine Spencerisa program assistant at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center. Article first time published on theAtlantic Councilweb page. Prepared for publication by volunteers from theRes Publica- The Center for Civil Resistance.