The wide-ranging treaty signed by Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Iranian counterpart Masoud Pezeshkian on January 17 was presented as a breakthrough in relations between the two countries. However, the pact does not constitute a military alliance and requires no direct obligations from either party. Instead, it simply formalizes the close ties between Iran and Russia that have developed since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
The idea of a strategic partnership agreement to replace the last major treaty between Iran and Russia in 2001 first arose in 2020. Back then, outgoing Iranian President Hassan Rouhani was looking for foreign policy wins after the failure to improve relations with the West, and decided to seek a series of major cooperation agreements with the country’s international partners.
The first of these was signed with China in March 2021. That twenty-five-year agreement was accompanied by much fanfare, generating myths about $400 billion of Chinese investment and China renting islands in the Persian Gulf. In reality, the agreement did not achieve much, and trade between the two countries actually declined in subsequent years.
After Iran went on to sign similar agreements with Venezuela and Syria, Russia was the logical next choice. Prior to the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia’s relationship with Iran was limited. However, when the Russian army found itself in desperate need of Iranian military support—particularly drones—in the first year of the fighting, the relationship rapidly deepened to such an extent that it was no longer adequately reflected in formal documents.
Consequently, the treaty signed by Putin and Pezeshkian turned out to be little more than a bureaucratic summary of the current state of affairs, with dozens of abstract phrases such as “confirm commitment to,” “aspire to,” and “facilitate.” If it had been signed in 2021, it might have served as a blueprint for growing Russian-Iranian ties. In the event, the treaty was more about putting the existing arrangement into words without imposing further obligations.
There was nothing new in the details. Almost all the areas of cooperation—energy, transport, regional organizations, etc.—highlighted in the treaty have already been the subject of new agreements between Iran and Russia in the last three years.
The subject of most speculation was what sort of security provisions the treaty would contain. A pact signed last year between North Korea and Russia, which included a mutual assistance clause in the event of either country coming under attack, had raised expectations that the Russia-Iran treaty could be similar. But that didn’t materialize. Instead, the two countries only agreed not to help any country that attacked the other.
This is clear confirmation that Moscow and Tehran do not intend to form a military alliance. It also shows that the Kremlin remains unwilling to come to Iran’s aid if it is attacked by either the United States or Israel.
While military cooperation remains an important part of the Russian-Iranian relationship and the new treaty requires the two sides to exchange information, hold joint military exercises, and “ensure regional security,” there was no indication any progress has been made toward a mutual defense arrangement. Indeed, the security provisions in the 2025 treaty were almost identical to those in the 2001 treaty. In other words, nothing has changed in almost a quarter of a century.
Russia does not have the same urgent need for Iranian military assistance that it did in the first year of the war in Ukraine. In 2022, Iranian drones made such an impact on the battlefield that they altered Russian tactics. But by 2025, Russia had made big strides forward in domestic drone production and localized the manufacture of Iranian drones. In addition, Russia appears now to have the upper hand in Ukraine—which means Tehran’s assistance is not nearly as crucial.
Iran—unlike North Korea—is not prepared to send soldiers to fight in Ukraine and plug the Kremlin’s manpower shortage. Even in its own wars, Iran is reluctant to risk its soldiers, preferring to rely on proxies. Tehran’s interest in Russian weapons, however, has grown as a result of its military reversals—from the defeats of Hezbollah in Lebanon to the fall of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria.
The question is whether Russia is willing to give Iran what it wants. Firstly, Moscow is restricted by the war in Ukraine and its own major rearmament plans; secondly, it’s cognizant of the concerns held by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates when it comes to strengthening Iran’s military.
The idea that Russia and Iran will enter a new period of cooperation as a result of the new treaty is simply bureaucratic PR. The reality is far more prosaic, and any further developments will inevitably be incremental. During the past three years, the two countries have signed agreements of far greater significance than the strategic partnership agreement.
This year, for example, will see a full-fledged free trade agreement between Iran and the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union come into force. It will stimulate bilateral trade in a very concrete way: by significantly reducing tariffs on about 90 percent of goods. At the same time, Russia and Iran are integrating their national payment systems.
It looks unlikely that Iran will ever occupy the sort of critical economic role for Russia played by countries like Türkiye and the UAE. The value of annual trade between the two countries is stuck somewhere between $4 billion and $5 billion, and the size of Iran’s economy, plus its lack of technological sophistication and isolation, means it won’t become a key partner. It has, however, become a key testing ground for Moscow for various models of economic and political integration.
The relationship between Iran and Russia has reached new heights not because of any breakthrough treaty, but because of Russia’s isolation from the West amid the war in Ukraine. Cooperation between the two countries is deepening, but not rapidly, and within defined limits. The goal of the 2025 new treaty was to formalize gains in recent years, and let the rest of the world—and the Russian and Iranian elites—know that Moscow and Tehran have teamed up for the long term. This is convincing not because of what’s written on documents, but because neither country has much of a choice when it comes to international partners.
