After Russia declined to intervene when Iran was bombed by Israel and the United States back in June, many expected relations between Moscow and Tehran to cool again, having warmed up following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. In reality, the opposite occurred: the twelve-day war has pushed Tehran even closer to Moscow and led to new cooperation agreements, including in the nuclear sector.
If anything, the balance in the relationship is once again shifting in Russia’s favor. For the Kremlin, Iran is now just one avenue for developing its projects. For Iran, however, Russia is becoming an indispensable partner: a situation that allows Moscow to be more selective and assertive in building cooperation.
Tehran’s obvious disappointment with Moscow’s lack of assistance during its twelve-day war with the United States and Israel has not stopped it taking new steps to boost its cooperation with Russia—first and foremost, by buying Russian arms. Leaks of hacked Rostec documents indicate that Russia plans to supply Iran with forty-eight Su-35 fighter jets, and Russian military transport aircraft have begun flying regularly to Iran from Irkutsk, home of the Irkutsk Aviation Plant. That may indicate that other agreements are in place. There have also been suggestions of possible deliveries of Su-30MK fighters.
The Kremlin has made it clear that it intends to fulfill its contractual obligations to Iran, despite the UN and EU military sanctions recently reinstated against Tehran under the “snapback” mechanism stipulated in the 2015 nuclear deal. If anything is going to constrain Russia in this respect, it will be the ongoing war with Ukraine and the overloaded capacity of the Russian military-industrial complex.
The two countries also have ambitious nuclear plans. Tehran initially announced that Russia, which previously built Iran’s Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant, would build five new nuclear power plants in Iran, and then upped that figure to eight. Russia’s statements have so far been more reserved, so it is not entirely clear how concrete the agreements are. However, Moscow acknowledges that it has signed a $25 billion agreement with Tehran to build the Hormoz Nuclear Power Plant, while the two sides are simultaneously working on a design for smaller-scale nuclear plants.
Progress is also being made in other areas. Iran has promised to allocate land by March for the construction of the Rasht-Astara railway—a key missing link in the North-South transport corridor from Russia to Indian Ocean ports—and Iran is also due to start receiving Russian gas via Azerbaijan in the coming months. Finally, in private conversations, representatives of several major Russian companies have said they are preparing to enter the Iranian market, hinting that they have been granted “special conditions” by the country’s government.
Overall, therefore, Tehran’s reliance on cooperation with Moscow is only growing. The twelve-day war has not so much raised doubts about Moscow’s reliability as it has once again convinced Tehran that it has no better partners than Russia and China.
Indeed, the factors pushing Tehran into Moscow’s embrace—international isolation and fear of war—have only intensified in recent months. The UN and EU sanctions reinstated under the snapback mechanism are not as painful for Tehran as the return of U.S. sanctions in 2018, but will likely alienate its remaining European partners.
Trade with the EU has stood at about $4.5 billion in recent years: less than 4 percent of Iran’s total foreign trade. At the same time, Tehran was already severely limited in its choice of countries with which to cooperate, and the new restrictions will have a painful, if not dramatic, effect. Developing relations with Russia is intended to at least partially offset these losses.
In addition, Iran is sinking deeper into a structural economic crisis caused by a cocktail of sanctions, ineffective social policies, climate change, and the consequences of the recent war. The country is in dire need of investment, and Russia remains one of the few available sources.
The amount of Russian investment is not yet much to write home about: about $3–4 billion annually in recent years. But it is gradually growing, and the new projects outlined above could accelerate that process.
An even more pressing task for Tehran is to reduce the risk of potential new Israeli and U.S. strikes. The twelve-day war showed that Iran essentially has no means of defending itself against bombing by the two countries. Moreover, the June strikes only partially destroyed Iran’s nuclear program and missile capabilities, meaning the likelihood of further attacks remains high.
Russia’s role as a deterrent in this respect is more multifaceted than simply supplying weapons—whose real impact will only become apparent many years from now. During the twelve-day war, Israel avoided striking Russian targets, so they could serve as something of a shield in the event of another attack.
That doesn’t just apply to the nuclear power plants that Russia may build. It’s unlikely that Israel would intentionally target the Sirik thermal power plant being built with Moscow’s assistance, facilities used by Russian oil and gas companies, or Russian railway construction contractors. In other words, the more foreign enterprises there are on Iranian territory, the more supposed “safe zones” there will be for Israel to avoid.
Finally, amid the near collapse of the nuclear deal, Tehran has significantly reduced the presence of foreign observers at its nuclear facilities. It is now close to refusing inspections entirely or reducing them to a purely symbolic level. That would leave Russia as virtually the only world power able to attest to the nonmilitary nature of Iran’s nuclear program.
While Iran’s interest in cooperation with Russia is only growing, the Kremlin’s need for Tehran is increasingly in doubt. Iran has already lost the status of an important military partner for Russia that it enjoyed during the first few months following the invasion of Ukraine, since Russia is now producing Iranian drones itself in a modified version that surpasses the original. Most of the components for them are either Russian or Chinese.
Nor is Iran a leading economic partner for Russia, even compared with other Middle Eastern countries. Despite numerous joint initiatives, trade between the two countries remains at around $5 billion, compared with over $50 billion with Turkey in 2024, over $11 billion with the UAE, and over $9 billion with Egypt.
Of course, some trade with Iran goes through Turkey and the UAE and is factored into the figures for those countries. But that only adds value to Ankara and the Emirates, which remain a link for Russia with the outside world: something Tehran, itself swamped by sanctions, cannot provide.
Finally, the likelihood of new military escalation involving Iran reduces the country’s value as a partner. No matter how promising Russia’s projects there may seem, the risk of further Israeli strikes must now be factored into them.
Of course, none of this means that Russia has no interest in developing relations with Iran. Moscow is seeking any way to offset its isolation in the West, and Tehran remains an important element of those plans. But the balance of cooperation is increasingly shifting in Moscow’s favor. For Iran, Russia is becoming an indispensable and vital partner, while for Moscow, Tehran appears to be just one of many potentially significant avenues, and far from the highest priority.
