Russia fears another loss in Middle East from Iran’s conflict with Israel

When Israel launched Operation Rising Lion, Russia officials described current climbing in the Middle East as “alarming” and “dangerous”.

However, the Russian media quickly underlined the potential positive points of Moscow.

Among them:

• An increase in world oil prices which should stimulate Russia’s chests
• The distraction of global attention of the Russia war against Ukraine. “Kyiv was forgotten” was a title in Moskovsky Komsomolets
• And if the media kremlin offer

However, the more the military operations of Israel continue, the greater the realization that Russia has a lot to lose current events.

“Conflict climbing has serious risks and potential costs for Moscow,” Russian political scientist Andrei Kortunov wrote in Kommersant affairs on Monday.

“The fact remains that Russia could not prevent a mass strike by Israel on a country with which five months ago [Russia] signed a complete strategic partnership.

“It is clear that Moscow is not ready to go beyond the political statements condemning Israel, he is not ready to provide Iran with military assistance.”

The Russian-Iranian strategic partnership agreement that Vladimir Putin and President Masoud Pezeshkian have signed earlier this year is not a military alliance.

It does not oblige Moscow to come to the defense of Tehran.

At the time, however, Moscow spoke.

In an interview with the news agency of Ria Novosti, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sergei Lavrov, noted that the agreement paid “particular attention to the strengthening of coordination in the interest of peace and security at the regional and global levels, and the desire of Moscow and Tehran for closer cooperation on security and defense”.

Over the past six months, Moscow has already lost a key ally in the Middle East, Bashar al-Assad.

After the Syrian chief was dismissed last December, he was offered asylum in Russia. The prospect of a regime change in Iran, the idea of ​​losing another strategic partner in the region will be very worrying for Moscow.

Commenting on Tuesday developments in the Middle East, Moskovsky Komsomolets concluded: “In global policy at the moment, massive changes take place in real time, which will affect life in our country, directly or indirectly.”

Vladimir Putin will spend a large part of this week in Saint Petersburg where the city organizes its annual international economic forum.

The event was nicknamed “Russia’s Davos”, but the label does not really apply now.

In recent years, the general directors of large Western companies have remained away – in particular since the large -scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia.

However, the organizers claim that this year, representatives of more than 140 countries and territories will assist.

Russian authorities will almost certainly use the event to try to demonstrate that attempts to isolate Russia during the war in Ukraine have failed.

A economic forum may be, but geopolitics is never far away.

We will carefully monitor all the comments that the Kremlin leader made on the Middle East and on Ukraine.