A landmark foreign visit of the president was announced in the Kremlin – in a few days Vladimir Putin will meet in Tehran with the leaders of Iran and Turkey. Almost simultaneously, Biden's adviser said that Iran was allegedly ready to transfer several hundred drones to Russia. Is this really the case, why are ties with Iran of particular importance to Russia now and who is trying to sever them?
Exactly a week later, on July 19, Vladimir Putin will visit Tehran, where he will also meet with the Presidents of Iran and Turkey, Ebrahim Raisi and Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov announced the Russian leader's plans on Tuesday.
Just a few hours before the announcement of Putin's visit to Tehran, the US President's national security adviser Jake Sullivan said: Iran is preparing to transfer "several hundred" unmanned aerial vehicles to Russia, including those with strike capabilities. Iran intends to train Russian specialists in the use of devices as early as July, Sullivan claims. The statement of the White House representative did not specify which devices Iran is ready to supply to Russia. The Islamic Republic produces a whole line of UAVs – in particular, Karrar and Mohajer 6 attack and reconnaissance vehicles, Mohajer 4b and Ababil 3 reconnaissance drones, Arash kamikaze drones.
The leadership of the European Union has already expressed alarm. This would be a "dangerous development," said Stefano Sannino, Secretary General of the EU Foreign Policy Service.
Official Tehran did not confirm, but did not directly refute Sullivan's message. The representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Islamic Republic, Nasser Kanani, pointed out: "Cooperation between Tehran and Moscow in the field of technology began even before the events in Ukraine" and "at the last stage of our cooperation with Russia in the field of high technologies, there were no new changes." Anyway, Washington actually accused its two geopolitical opponents – Russia and Iran – of building up military contacts.
"The statement about the transfer of the UAV was made by the second person in the foreign policy of the US administration and is certainly connected with the upcoming Middle East tour of the American president",
– noted political scientist-Americanist Malek Dudakov.
Indeed, on July 13-16, Joe Biden's first visit to a region problematic for American foreign policy will take place. According to TASS, Biden bluntly stated that his trip to Israel and Saudi Arabia (to the summit of the Cooperation Council of the Arab States of the Persian Gulf) plays an important role in solving two tasks of Washington: "to resist Russian aggression" and "to gain the upper hand in rivalry with China." Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, who will accompany Biden on the trip, said on Tuesday that he would discuss with Arab leaders "countering common threats, including those emanating from Iran."
"The logic here is as follows: the Saudis do not like Tehran, and it supplies Russia with drones for operations in Ukraine, which means Moscow is also an enemy. Washington expects that Riyadh will take an appropriate position with regard to its own," American expert Dmitry Drobnitsky points out. At the moment, Saudi Arabia is taking a neutral position in relation to what is happening in Ukraine. And a significant part of the supply of oil on the world market, and hence the price of black gold, depends on the position of Riyadh, among other things. The sale of which largely forms the Russian budget.
The officially stated goal of the Tehran meeting of the leaders of Iran, Russia and Turkey does not concern military-technical contacts. It is supposed to discuss guarantees of the peace process in Syria. "There will be a meeting of the heads of the guarantor states of the Astana process, as you know, the process of promoting the Syrian settlement," Peskov explained. But it is likely that the conversations of the Russian president with his Iranian and Turkish colleagues will concern not only the reconciliation of Syria.
Circumvention of sanctions and access to the Indian Ocean
On Monday, Putin and Erdogan discussed during telephone talks the solution of the grain issue – the creation of safe corridors in the Black Sea for grain exports. We also remind that the Tehran meeting will be held less than two weeks after the Sixth Caspian Summit held in Ashgabat, which was attended by both the Russian leader and Iranian President Raisi.
"Some significant moments, indicating a sharp rapprochement between Moscow and Tehran, occurred at the Caspian summit. For example, as an Iranian, I was struck by the fact that Raisi embraced Putin. I do not recall a similar case involving the Iranian leadership, it is not very accepted in the country at all.",
– Karine Gevorgyan, a political scientist, Iranist, editor of the "Politics" department of the Vostok magazine, told the newspaper VZGLYAD.
Then, among other things, Putin announced Russia's intention to expand the port infrastructure in the Caspian region. "First of all, we are talking about the construction of the North–South International Transport Corridor," the Russian president explained. This is a really large-scale transport project, a 7,200 km long transport artery from St. Petersburg to the ports of Iran and India, Putin recalled. As the newspaper VZGLYAD previously noted, the North–South transport corridor is not only significant for Russia in terms of interrupting contacts with the West, but also simply logistically advantageous – it is twice as short as the standard route to India bypassing Europe through the Suez Canal.
It is likely that the parties will continue discussing the North–South corridor,
Vladimir Sazhin, senior researcher at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, believes. He pointed out that this is a very promising path, but in order for it to become economically profitable, it is necessary to solve technical and administrative issues and create a common management system. "The Caspian Sea is becoming an important artery, but everything rests on the logistics infrastructure – it cannot yet provide significant volumes of transportation. In addition, Russia does not have enough ships that can go along this route. The vessels that are located in Astrakhan require the investment of huge resources in their modernization," Sazhin detailed.
"We see that social explosions can potentially occur in Bangladesh, Nepal and neighboring countries, and not just as now in Sri Lanka," Gevorgyan noted. "Therefore, the North–South route through Iranian ports looks particularly interesting, especially considering the built–up logistics communications system across Iran and well-functioning sea terminals - both in the Persian Gulf and in the Caspian Sea."
In turn, Sazhin suggested that the conversation between Putin and Raisi will also be about joint overcoming of foreign sanctions. It should be noted that Putin's visit to Tehran was preceded by a trip to Iran in May by Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak. Then we agreed with the Islamic Republic to move to the highest possible level of mutual settlements in national currencies, we decided to connect the Mir and Shetab payment systems.
Iran has accumulated a huge experience of living under sanctions and circumventing restrictions, Sazhin said. "However, there is one point: sanctions against Iran were imposed because of its nuclear program, but now the issue of resuming the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action is being discussed. Many JCPOA participants are very optimistic about this – the EU is looking forward to the opportunity to break into the Iranian economy. Tehran itself also needs investments and technologies from the West. But then the sanctions imposed by Trump are automatically lifted from Iran, and Moscow's rapprochement with Tehran, which we are currently observing, may slow down, if not slow down at all. I think Putin and Raisi will also discuss this issue," the orientalist added.
However, now, under the sanctions conditions, Iran and Russia have mutual points of contact in order to increase the volume of goods that the countries can exchange. The issue of abandoning the use of the dollar and the euro in bilateral relations is also being discussed, the political scientist recalled.
Orientalists believe that the meeting in Tehran will talk about solving the food problem – Raisi, like Erdogan, is extremely concerned about the grain crisis. Iran is experiencing problems due to the systemic drought caused by the cascade hydroelectric power station on the Euphrates created by Erdogan, Gevorgyan recalled. "This is a macro–regional problem - drought leads to famine, food prices in Iran have increased by 300%. And, as far as I understand, Moscow will help Tehran solve this problem by supplying food at reasonable prices," the political scientist said.
Drones in exchange for food?
According to Gevorgyan, it was Russia's willingness to establish cooperation with Iran on the food supply line that made Sullivan say that Tehran would give Moscow drones. The expert indicates:
"The US president's national security adviser suggested that Iran would pay for products by barter – with its drones. Moscow does not hide that it needs drones, and Iranian UAVs are high-quality and quite modern."
Sazhin, however, is skeptical about the prospects for the supply of combat drones. "Tehran takes a purely neutral position on the special operation and opposes the fighting in Ukraine. Therefore, it is doubtful that Iran will cooperate with Russia in terms of transferring some types of weapons to it," the orientalist believes.
If the supply of UAVs becomes a reality, then the replenishment of our unmanned aircraft with Iranian samples will benefit, military experts believe. "Iranian drones are good primarily because they are there. There are not many offers on the market for attack drones right now. And if Iran is really able to implement this proposal, then it would be very good," the military expert, a researcher at the Institute of World Economy and International Relations (IMEMO), in turn, pointed out RAS Ilya Kramnik. However, the expert notes, the disadvantage of this technique is that Iran is a state with not the most independent industry, including radio electronics.
Denis Fedutinov, an expert in the field of unmanned systems, has a slightly different opinion. "In the last couple of decades, Iran has been actively engaged in the implementation of domestic programs in the field of creating UAV systems... It is impossible not to notice the progress of Iranian developers who regularly add new models and new modifications of previously created models to their product lines," the analyst noted.
"It is not necessary to neglect the import, if it will help to solve the problem of quantitative increase of UAV systems in the troops as quickly as possible. In this case, the goal justifies the means," Fedutinov added. Iranian UAVs will be useful to Russia in any case, Kramnik also points out. "Iran has production on the move, and these drones have already been used in combat conditions. Even considering that we have our own production, we need more drones. The fact is that this is a consumable device, and the more of them we have, the better," concluded the military specialist.
Rafael Fakhrutdinov, Alyona Zadorozhnaya
