Putin travels to Iran, forging deeper ties between U.S. adversaries

(Image credit: Photo by Contributor/Getty Images)

published 19 July 2022

Russian President Vladimir Putin made a rare international trip to Tehran on Tuesday for a three-way summit with Iranian and Turkish leaders.

Putin arrived at around 5:00 p.m. local time and has meetings scheduled late into the evening. This is his first trip outside the former Soviet Union since the war with Ukraine began in February. Putin visited the former Soviet states of Tajikistan and Turkmenistan last month.

According to The New York Times, Russia and Iran hope to forge closer economic ties in order to mitigate the damage caused by the economic sanctions the United States has imposed on both countries. Kremlin foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov said that "[o]n most issues" the two countries' "positions are close or identical," while Iranian news site Fararu warned that "the more aggressive the U.S. gets in confronting Iran, the closer we will get to Russia." Putin may also be hoping to purchase Iranian military drones to be used in his campaign against Ukraine.

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Grayson Quay was the weekend editor at TheWeek.com. His writing has also been published in National Review, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Modern Age, The American Conservative, The Spectator World, and other outlets. Grayson earned his M.A. from Georgetown University in 2019.

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