Could Russia support US-Iran negotiations? An indirect opportunity worth exploring.

The following article is one of a two-part series of essays assessing the relative benefits and risks of inviting Russia into ongoing US-Iranian talks.

On April 12, the United States and Iran wrapped up their first round of renewed diplomatic talks in Muscat, with round two set for April 19, in Rome. In the interim, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi is in Moscow to coordinate with the Russians. But the real breakthrough will not come from nuclear talks alone — it will require confronting the region’s most explosive fault line: the Iranian-Israeli standoff. Russia claims it can help. And while there are inherent risks for Washington with re-engaging Moscow on high-stakes diplomatic issues, Russian support in easing Iranian-Israeli tensions outweigh such concerns for US negotiators looking to strike a deal with Tehran.

The red lines

At the heart of President Donald Trump’s Iran policy has always been a singular red line: Iran must never obtain a nuclear weapon, especially one that could threaten Israel’s existence. Nor does Trump want to see the US dragged into another costly war in the Middle East. Those two goals might seem at odds, but there is a narrow path where they converge. Moscow, despite being a purported strategic partner to Tehran, shares Trump’s concern about a nuclear-armed Iran — if not always for the same reasons.

As Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov put it in September 2023, on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly meeting, “nobody on the planet wants to see the emergence of new nuclear states”; he was responding specifically to a question on Saudi Arabia, but that sentiment includes Iran. He explicitly added, “The Islamic Republic of Iran has repeatedly confirmed that they have no such intention. Their spiritual leader has even issued a fatwa on this. We proceed from the assumption that they will not have a bomb. Then Iran's neighbors will not be tempted to follow this path.”

Russia’s position is hardly news in Tehran. Iranian authorities accept that Moscow would not consider a nuclear-armed Iran to be beneficial, even if, these days, the two states are politically aligned on some key international issues, chiefly wanting US global influence curtailed. But Russia wants the Islamic Republic as a strategic asset it can tap when needed, not a constant burden it has to manage. Indeed, while Moscow diplomatically supported the 2015 nuclear deal (officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA), which limited Iran’s ability to weaponize its program, the Iranians came to suspect that Russia did not work to restore the agreement after 2022 unless it could be a card to play as part of its overall give-and-take approach with the West in the wake of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. At the time, there were loud calls in Tehran for Iran to choose its own strategic interests over Russia’s by cutting a deal with the administration of President Joe Biden as Moscow played hard ball in terms of its minimum demands to go along with a revival of the JCPOA.

That said, claims in the West that Moscow might even welcome a nuclear-armed Iran — which could help Russia retain its position as a powerbroker in the Middle East or at a minimum provide a convenient distraction for Russia’s Western rivals — are at least not taken seriously by Iranian analysts. For sure, Russian authorities resent the US giving Israel a blank check to do in the region as it wishes. “You cannot ask Iran to reduce its influence in a region where even the smallest countries are trying to expand theirs,” Lavrov declared earlier this year. But such sentiment is not tantamount to Moscow preferring or even accepting a nuclear-armed Iran.

In Iranian discussions, the majority of experts contend that Moscow is still hopeful Iran will not weaponize since — irrespective of US and Israeli demands — preventing nuclear proliferation remains a pillar of Russian national security. Russia does not benefit from nuclear weapons escalation on its southern flank. Traditionally, the last thing the Kremlin has wanted to see is a chain reaction of nuclear proliferation that complicates its military and economic ambitions across the Middle East, or a hardened, nuclear-armed Iran posing a challenge to Russian interests in the South Caucasus or Central Asia, something Iran has not done since the mid-1990s.

While publicly opposing Iran’s nuclear weaponization, Moscow continues to defend the Islamic Republic’s right to a civilian program. The rhetoric coming from Tehran seeks to mirror this distinction. Thus, in an April 8 op-ed in The Washington Post, Iranian Foreign Minister Araghchi repeated that his country’s nuclear program is for power generation and other domestic uses only and has no military component. Tehran has called demands for the dismantling of all of its nuclear facilities pure fantasy.

Iran and Russia’s asymmetric relationship

Today, Russia holds real leverage over Iran on the nuclear issue but perhaps also on the question of Iran’s policy toward Israel. Moscow has helped diplomatically prop up the Islamic Republic through years of US-led sanctions, often supplied Tehran with weapons, and coordinated closely in Syria, although Bashar al-Assad’s sudden fall in December 2024 demonstrated that Russian-Iranian military collaboration was less robust than publicly claimed by the two countries. In fact, Iranian officials were furious that Russia largely stood by as Israel carried out a decade-long air campaign in Syria and other operations aimed at disrupting Tehran’s efforts to entrench itself on the eastern Mediterranean.

Still, if any major power can realistically pressure Iran to tone down its threats against Israel, it is Vladimir Putin’s Russia. In their March 18 phone call, Trump and Putin agreed that Iran “should never be in a position to destroy Israel.” Russia’s position on Israel’s security is not new — back in 2005, when hardline Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called for Israel to be “wiped off the map,” Lavrov responded that no member of the United Nations should be able to threaten the existence of another UN state.

And yet, in the interim 20 years, Moscow has not made any real effort to mediate between Iran and Israel, with the exception of the 2018 Russia-brokered agreement that kept pro-Iran fighters in Syria away from the Israeli border. One could argue Russia lacked the incentive to get involved — and neither Iran nor Israel was interested. However, today’s historic escalation between the two countries and their desire to avoid war, coupled with the Kremlin’s likely interest in engaging Trump, might finally provide the motive that has long been missing in this gridlock.

Russia on Iran’s Israel policy

On April 7, Moscow reiterated its willingness to mediate between Tehran and Washington, while warning of the “catastrophic” consequences a regional war could bring. In short, Russia is positioning itself as a peacemaker in the US-Iran-Israel triangle, and it may be worth testing whether it actually has effective leverage.

In October, Putin claimed that Russia was in contact with Israel and Iran and maintains trust-based relationships with both. He said he wanted to see the cycle of military strikes — the two rounds of attacks between Iran and Israel in April and October 2024 — to stop. Moreover, he offered Moscow’s services as a mediator, provided both parties were willing: “we would very much like this endless exchange of blows to be stopped at some point. And for such ways to resolve the situation to be found that would satisfy both sides.” The viability of Putin’s personal role here should not be underestimated. He has a working relationship with both Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dating back nearly a quarter of a century. Probably no one else of Putin’s political caliber can claim such a unique position of influence.

Putin has also shown he has tremendous influence with Trump, as implicitly evidenced by the US conspicuously not levying any new tariffs on Russia on April 2, to say nothing of the multiple examples of Trump repeating common Russian talking points. And since the Kremlin leader does not want either the US or Israel to attack Iran’s nuclear program, he might be able to use his significant clout with both Trump and Khamenei to help facilitate a US-Iran deal, albeit from behind the scenes, not in the spotlight. Putin’s involvement in this way, however, might prove quite favorable to Iran since, in the past, Trump has seemingly shown more willingness to follow Putin’s rhetorical or policy lead than Khamenei.

Given the potentially unbalanced outcome of Putin’s involvement in the middle of US-Iranian talks, Washington would be better served to redirect Kremlin offers of assistance toward mollifying Israeli-Iranian tensions. As noted above, that is the nexus where Russia could feasibly deliver relative diplomatic advantage. Trump and his team should test whether Russia’s proposal is sincere or simply an attempt by Putin to play statesman without the intent or leverage to deliver. The idea is worth exploring. If Trump were to task Moscow with brokering a regional de-escalation — particularly one where Iran scales back its proxy footprint, reduces missile threats toward Israel (stopping the flow of missiles and drones to the Houthis, for example), and tempers its rhetoric — the result could be worth the effort. Certainly, such a deconfliction attempt would amount to something much grander than what Moscow managed to do between Iran and Israel in 2018 in Syria.

But the point is that both Israel and Iran currently have incentives to let Russia mediate. A successful outcome would not result in anything like normalization between the two countries yet could provide enough breathing room to prevent a wider war and safeguard Israel without deploying US troops, something that would please Trump. At the same time, however, such a de facto Iranian retreat could also free up Israel to focus on what it perceives to be a rising threat on the Syrian front from Turkey, a US treaty ally.

The deal-maker Trump should have no problem marketing a Russian-led resolution of this issue as a big win for America. He could credibly claim that he avoided another endless war in the Middle East while defending a key American ally, Israel. In short, a Russia-brokered understanding, even if loosely defined and unofficial, that kept both Iran and Israel in check and gave each security assurances would reduce the risk of escalation and help stabilize a region already on edge.

Of course, there would be trade-offs. For their assistance on Iran, Russian diplomats could ask for US concessions in other key issue areas or theaters, such as on cybersecurity cooperation, American involvement in the South Caucasus, or its military presence in the Baltic States; the Trump administration will need to be careful not to undermine separate US national interests for the sake of getting a deal on the Iranian nuclear program. Additionally, a successful Russian mediation would momentarily elevate Moscow’s status as a Middle East power broker — something that might make US strategists uneasy. But let us be clear: Russia is not a long-term challenger to American influence in the region as long as the United States remains committed to its presence and partners. Russia’s economy is no match for the US, its military is overstretched, and its alliances in the Middle East are largely transactional and often not particularly deep. Witness how Russia could not even help Assad stay in power despite heavy investments in the Syrian dictator’s regime. If Moscow earns short-term prestige by delivering de-escalation between Iran and Israel, that is something Washington could tolerate — and eventually roll back.

In the long game, Russia does not have the entrenched partnerships, financial muscle, or global reach to displace the US in the Middle East. But if it can help contain Iran just enough to avoid a war — and do so on Trump’s terms — it might be worth letting Putin play the middleman. In the world of realpolitik, you take your wins where you can get them. And if Putin can get Iran to back off Israel, and Israel to lower the temperature in return, then maybe — just maybe — Trump should let him try.

 

Alex Vatanka is a Senior Fellow at the Middle East Institute.

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