41 Moscow, Trump and the Israel-Iran War Moscow’s attitude to Israel’s Rising Lion military operation against Iran was characterized by ambivalence, especially at the final stage, when the US joined the attacks against Iranian nuclear facilities. This inconsistency was determined by the complex balance of Russia’s interests vis-à-vis all the participants in the 12-day war – primarily the US and Iran, but also Israel. On the one hand, Iran was among very few notable players in the international arena to have refrained from joining in any part of the foreign policy blockade of Moscow that began after Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine. In the first months after Russia’s “Special Military Operation” (the official definition of Russia’s attack on Ukraine), imports from Iran into the Russian Federation grew by 37% to $3.3 billion. This constituted the first channel of parallel imports breaking the economic blockade, which was extremely painful for domestic consumption. Moscow’sattitude to Israel’sRising Lionmilitaryoperationagainst Iran was characterized by ambivalence, especially at the final stage, when the US joined the attacks against Iranian nuclear facilities Israel immediately condemned the Russian invasion and has been providing Ukraine with large-scale humanitarian and material aid as well as diplomatic and political support. However, it did not officially join the coalition of countries providing Ukraine with direct military assistance, prompting discontent and criticism from official Kyiv. From Moscow’s perspective, Israel was about the only country of the “Golden Billion” not to introduce sanctions against Russia (though it did not take action to circumvent them). Despite serious pressure from the Biden administration and the EU, Ben-Gurion Airport, along with Istanbul and Doha, remained the only three real ‘windows’ for the elites of Russia to the outside world, since the airports of the former Soviet republics could not fully serve in this role. These two factors – Russia’s direct support by Iran and official Israel’s avoiding of direct support for Kyiv – underpinned the internal conflict in Moscow’s subsequent reaction to the 12-day war. Moscow sees both Iran and Israel as assets, regardless of how Tehran and Jerusalem view the situation. The situation took on a new dimension when the US became directly involved in the military phase of the operation against Iran. President Donald Trump’s policy of isolationism, which he not only declared but implemented, opened a real window of opportunity for Moscow to break the blockade from the formerly monolithic West. In terms of his own local political image, it was extremely important to Vladimir Putin that Trump – at least in the government’s domestic narrative – openly sympathized with him, referring to him as the Russian authorities themselves represented him as a leader. Another factor that might serve official Prof. Alexander Shpunt Israeli-Russian researcher specializing in the theory and practice of political information and analysis. Prof. Vladimir (Ze’ev) Khanin Head of the BESA Post-Soviet Conflicts Research Program (PSCRP) and faculty member in the Department of Political Studies at Bar-Ilan University.
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