In terms of Russia’s position in the region, the operation is simply the last shot. Putin’s main allies have long been Iran and Syria
The widening war in the Middle East is occupying media attention, overshadowing the Russian invasion of Ukraine. But does the joint USA-Israel attack called Operation Epic Fury affect the Kremlin and the Putin presidency?
In terms of Russia’s standing in the region, it is simply the latest blow. Putin’s main allies have long been Iran and Syria, with a legacy all the way back to the Soviet period. But in December 2024, Assad was overthrown, ending a dynasty that lasted over five decades. For Russia, it was a crucial loss, ending its intervention in the Syrian civil war that broke out in 2011.
Putin was unable to exert influence over the situation. From December 2024 to March 2025, the Russian Fleet pulled out of its Tartus base, despite the fact that it had signed a 49-year leasewith Syria as recently as 2017, without the need for payment.
Putin suffered an unrelated setback on 3 January 2026, when US forces captured Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro and whisked him to New York to face trial. Putin had developed a friendly relationship with Maduro’s predecessor Hugo Chavez,and the two countries carried out significant arms agreements.
Under Maduro, the relationship remained warm and friendly. On 6 May 2025, Maduro arrived in Moscow to attend the annual Victory Day celebrations, the most important anniversary in the Russian calendar. The two men signed a strategic partnership agreement.
Russia’s interest in Iran was far deeper. Russia was the architect of the Iranian nuclear program in Iran, after Western companies pulled out following the 1979 revolution that overthrew the Shah and installed Ayatollah Khomeini in power.
In the early 1990s, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the agreement was restored. The Bushehr nuclear power plant came online in 2013, by which time several others were almost completed. In September 2025, Iran signed a new deal with Russia to construct four reactors at Hormoz plant, close to the cities of Minab and Sirik.
There was also a well-known exit plan for Khameini to flee to Moscow if the mass protests in Tehran reached a critical level.
In turn, Iran has supported Russia’s invasion of Ukraine from the outset, as was evident from its negative response to the UN resolution condemning the attack. It has also provided so-called suicide drones to attack critical targets in Ukrainian cities. The UN accused Iran of selling Shahed-131 and Shahed-136 drones to Russia. There were also reports that Iran planned to send its ally ballistic missiles.
The loss of influence in the region that Russia suffered when Assad’s government fell was compensated to some extent by the links to Iran.
The June 2025 United States-Israel attack on Iran’s nuclear installations at Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan appeared to have ended the fear that the country was close to developing a nuclear weapon. Russia condemned the attack but remained passive, taking no supportive action.
Operation Epic Fury, launched on 28 February, once again targeted the Natanz site, indicating that it had not been destroyed eight months earlier, as Trump had claimed. But as many as 2,000 targets may have been struck.
The Russian media, reflecting the position of the Putin regime, featured the results of the Iranian responses, such as the burning of the US embassies in Dubai and Riyadh. It condemned the strikes but declined to help its ally. Russia was an observer, not a participant, during the attack on its ally.
Yet, not unusually in such situations, there is a ray of light. The expanding Middle East war has blocked routes for oil transport, causing oil prices to rise between 3-6% daily, with the likelihood that they are far from reaching their peak.
The rise in oil comes at exactly the right time for Russia, which is highly reliant on its oil and gas exports for its economy to thrive. China and India are by far the biggest purchasers of Russian oil, with China in first place. But China also imports from the UAE, Oman, and Kuwait, all countries in the war zone. Thus, it is likely to increase its imports from Russia unless the situation changes.
Still, Putin may have paused to reflect that hitherto in his relationship with Trump, he was the senior partner and the one taking the initiative. But the US president ignored Russia—and for that matter, his allies Canada, the UK, and the European Union—confiding and working only with Israel.
Putin’s global status has thus diminished, and he will realize that his influence over events is limited to his “backyard. There may also be an element of fear at the unpredictability and brashness of Trump and his Defense (War) Secretary Pete Hegseth, who act as if they are involved in a video game and act on impulse rather than with a plan.