The answer to the question “Will Russia Support Iran?” will be, yes, but this support will be very limited and mostly political. It will be also an instrument for improving Kremlin’s position in Russian-Ukrainan conflict.
Russia
A significant part of the Russian-speaking population, numerically dominant in the Kaliningrad region, has also formed its own local-patriotic narrative. This narrative is based on an attempt to appropriate the pre-Russian history of the region.
There is a feeling that the negotiation process — or preparations for it — is already underway, but so far it is rather limited to general ideas and cautious contacts, and both sides have so far denied this fact. Even the location where such real negotiations could take place — if, of course, it comes to them — has not yet been agreed upon
The conflict around Wildberries shows that in the event of a collapse or significant weakening of the current political regime in Russia, inter-elite clashes, including those with an ethno-political dimension, over ownership of assets could become much more acute. It is quite obvious that Kadyrov’s forces and other North Caucasian bureaucratic and security groups will become important players in such a scenario.
Today, only a small part of Circassians (Adyghes) live in their historical homeland. Despite the fact that they consider themselves a single people, official Russian statistics refers them to four different peoples: Kabardians, Circassians, Adyghes and Shapsugs, whose total number in the Russian Federation, according to the census of 2021, is 751,487 people.
Despite the Russian authorities’ undeniable responsibility for the current difficulties in the region, Islamism and the virulent anti-Semitism it engenders are themselves a serious problem in Dagestan. Neither the leadership nor the population of Dagestan should enjoy the condescending attitude of the West.
Russia has long been developing plans to strengthen its influence in Georgia, and today they are close to materialization. The main goal is to strengthen its influence in the country, and how Russia gets Ivanishvili to do it is not really important. The protests in Georgia are aimed at opposing this turn.
The June 23 terrorist attacks on Christian and Jewish places of worship in Derbent and Makhachkala have once again drawn attention to Dagestan as one of the centers of radical Islamism in the Russian Federation. The exact number of practicing Muslims in Russia is unknown, but the peoples who traditionally practice Islam (so-called “ethnic Muslims”) make up more than 10% of its population.
A number of observers compare the current situation in Georgia with the events in Ukraine in late 2013, when President Viktor Yanukovych abandoned the European course and chose a pro-Russian one, which led to the Revolution of Dignity and the overthrow of the pro-Russian regime. The ruling party Georgian Dream, controlled by billionaire and former Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili, has been compared to the dissolved Ukrainian Party of Regions. However, the main difference is that the Russian occupation of Georgian territories began even before Ivanishvili and his party appeared on the political scene.
Russian authorities continue dialogue with Israel and leave themselves the possibility to change their approach at any time if this corresponds to their interests in the constantly changing situation. This is typical of Putin's style of Realpolitik in foreign policy.