Iran Seeks To Strengthen Ties with Russia as Vladimir Putin Makes Rare International Trip

On Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Turkish and Iranian leaders in Tehran, his sole overseas travel since launching the invasion of Ukraine in February.

Unblocking Ukrainian grain shipments across the Black Sea was high on the agenda, with Putin claiming success. The Syrian civil conflict was also covered, with Turkey and Russia traditionally supporting opposite sides.

Putin Visits Iran

The conference provided Putin with an opportunity to demonstrate that he still had foreign friends. Following his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei urged Tehran and Moscow should deepen ties and implied that the West was to blame for the Ukraine conflict.

"If you had not taken the initiative, the other side would have started the conflict on its own," Khamenei said to Putin. The US claimed the Russian leader's travel to Iran demonstrated Russia's isolation in the aftermath of its invasion of Ukraine.

Invading your neighbor, a sovereign independent country, usually means losing friends. And Russia has suffered a great deal as a result of its invasion of Ukraine. Moscow has become a pariah state in the West.

However, the Kremlin is eager to demonstrate that international sanctions have failed to isolate Russia, the world's largest country and that some of its allies remain. As in Turkey and Iran, Russia will use the three-way Syria conference to demonstrate that it still has important friends and geopolitical influence, according to BBC.

Meeting Comes as Europe Faces Shortages

The discussion took place amid fears that if Putin decides to stop the Nord Stream One project, Europe might suffer severe gas shortages this winter. After a 10-day repair period, the pipeline was reopened for pressure testing on Tuesday. Meanwhile, a Ukrainian missile blasted a vital bridge connecting the Russian-occupied city of Kherson to the heavily militarized Crimean peninsula on Tuesday, amid concerns that Kyiv is preparing to retake conquered territory in the south.

The blasted bridge might stymie Russian reinforcements, as senior Ukrainian officials announced last week that they were planning to raise a million-man army to free the occupied south. A crater from a shell was seen in the center of the Antonovsky bridge, which spans the Dnipro River, as per The Telegraph via MSN.

Warmongering Russian President Vladimir Putin has launched two supersonic Tu-160 nuclear missile bombers over the Barents Sea, north of Norway, Finland, and Sweden, in yet another display of might. Putin and other Russian officials urged Finland and Sweden, who had long remained militarily neutral until they decide to aspire for NATO membership, on multiple occasions not to join forces with the Western security bloc in the event of armed action.

The deployment of two planes capable of carrying and unleashing nuclear weapons, however, serves as a vivid reminder of Moscow's hostility to NATO expansion near Russia's northern border. MiG-31 fighter fighters accompanied the Tu-160 aircraft, dubbed as "White Swans," during a seven-hour trip. The flyover comes as Russian President Vladimir Putin arrives in Tehran, Iran, for only his second visit outside Russia since the outbreak of the Ukrainian conflict, Daily Mail reported.