Israel’s strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities have alarmed none more than Russia, the country that first brought nuclear power to Iran in defiance of Western objections.
We’re “millimeters from catastrophe,” said Kremlin spokeswoman Maria Zakharova on June 18 in response to a bombing campaign that Israel launched against Iran on June 13.
Decades of conflict with the West have united Iran and Russia, despite a cultural gulf between the two nations that dwarfs the Caspian Sea that physically divides them.
Russia has spent the past decade backing Iran-aligned regimes and militia groups throughout the Middle East. Most famous is Bashar al-Assad, a longtime dictator in Syria, on whose behalf Russia began actively fighting against rebels back in 2015. Assad fell in December.
“We’re dealing with the domino effects of those changes,” Anna Borshchevskaya, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute focusing on Russia’s policy toward the Middle East, told the Kyiv Independent.
“In my view, the Russians were not just mere opportunists. They weren’t just hedging their bets. They weren’t just watching on the sidelines. They were actively fueling chaos across the Middle East.”
“Of course, they’ve (Iran and Russia) had such extensive nuclear cooperation because it was Russia that built the Bushehr nuclear reactor in the first place.”
In addition to a broad sense of being at war with the West, nuclear energy is a rare concrete tie joining Russia and Iran, alongside the arms trade and a shared interest in dodging sanctions on fossil fuels. Strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities are, for Russia, personal.
“Of course, they’ve had such extensive nuclear cooperation because it was Russia that built the Bushehr nuclear reactor in the first place,” said Borshchevskaya.
Opened in 2007 and providing power by 2010, Bushehr is to date the only functioning nuclear power plant in Iran. Originally a project by German company Siemens, construction was on hold for decades following the toppling of the Shah in 1979. Built and maintained by Russia, it was the first nuclear reactor in the Middle East.
