Podcast host Alex Gabuev is joined by his colleagues Nicole Grajewski, a non-resident fellow at Carnegie Endowment and the author of Russia and Iran: Partners in Defiance from Syria to Ukraine, and Sergey Vakulenko, a senior fellow at Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center in Berlin and a leading expert on the Russian energy sector, to discuss the U.S.–Israeli war against Iran and how it affects Russian political influence in the region and its position on the global energy market.
At the center of the new war in the Middle East is one of Russia’s most important partners in its struggle against the West: Iran. Despite strategic agreements with Tehran, Moscow is not bound by a treaty alliance with Iran—and is also consumed by its own costly war against Ukraine. Accordingly, the Kremlin has provided the Iranian regime with limited assistance, but hopes to reap greater benefits from the second-order effects of the chaos in the Middle East unleashed by Trump.
How does the war affect Russia both in the Middle East and globally? How do volatile oil prices benefit the Russian war machine, and how long will the effect of this new war last for Russia?