Mirroring the increasing diplomacy between the US, European partners and Ukraine, Russia has been throttling forward in new discussions with America’s enemies, in particular.
The Washington-based think-tank, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), released a report on Thursday hammering home the point that Russian leader Vladimir Putin, concurrent with diplomatic talks with the US about ending the war in Ukraine, has been busy trying to build his “strategic cooperation” with Chinese President Xi Jinping, and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.
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Putin spoke with President Xi on Monday, the three-year anniversary of the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and Kremlin envoys met separately with Iranian and North Korean officials the next day.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi commiserated with the Russian delegation about the United States’ “maximum pressure” campaign and the Trump administration’s recent sanctions against Iran’s oil industry and stated that Iran is “moving on the nuclear issue in cooperation and coordination with Russia and China,” ISW analyst Karolina Hird reported.
“Araghchi’s comments are noteworthy in the context of a International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report previewed by the Associated Press (AP) on Feb. 26 that shows a dramatic increase in Iranian stocks of high-enriched uranium, as well as Iranian statements that Iran would engage in no negotiations as long as sanctions were in place,” Hird wrote.
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Meanwhile, a North Korean delegation arrived in Moscow on Tuesday at the invitation of the Kremlin, with a Pyongyang politburo member from the governing party (WPK), Ri Hi Yong, heading up the delegation. The meeting consisted of Yong,the North Korean Ambassador to Russia Sin Hong Chol, and United Russia Party General Council Commission on International Cooperation Deputy Chairman Andrei Klimov.
There, too, the Russian and Korean officials discussed “increasing cooperation in accord with the Russo-North Korean Comprehensive Strategic Partnership agreement.” The US has sanctioned North Korea’s continued violations of numerous international nuclear and missile proliferation agreements.
“Amplifying Kremlin narratives about the war”
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov thanked Iranian officials “for their balanced position, based on an understanding of the root causes of the Ukraine crisis” during his Feb. 25 meeting with Araghchi, ISW reported, echoing and amplifying the Kremlin’s narrative that these “root causes” stemmed from
NATO’s alleged violations of promises not to expand eastward and Ukraine’s alleged discrimination against Russian-speaking minorities in eastern Ukraine.
“The Kremlin’s invocation of these so-called ‘root causes’ of the war is an attempt to repackage the Kremlin’s standard demands for regime change and the demilitarization of Ukraine—essentially maximalist demands for Ukraine’s total capitulation—as well as the rollback of the NATO alliance from Eastern Europe,” Hird wrote, adding that Lavrov also brought up “root causes” of the war during a meeting with China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Feb. 20. Putin did the same during a Feb. 24 call with Xi, ISW reported.
The ISW analyst summarized that “Kremlin officials appear to be increasingly using their diplomatic engagements with Iran, North Korea, and [China], to propagate the ‘root causes’ rhetoric and create the impression that Russia’s closest allies are supportive of the Kremlin line on the war, thereby seeming to build a coalition of like-minded states that will support Russia’s efforts to compel Ukraine, Europe, and the United States to accept all of Russia’s demands.”
“The Trump administration should be clear-eyed about this larger Russian threat.”
The ISW noted that Iran has provided Russia with thousands of Shahed combat drones, freeing up significant parts of the Russian defense industry to produce other weapons, while North Korea has sent millions of artillery rounds to Russia (North Korean ammunition currently comprises over half of Russia’s total ammunition stocks, according to Ukrainian intelligence, the ISW wrote. And, of course, Pyongyang has deployed some 12,000 of its troops to combat Ukraine’s counteroffensive in Russia’s Kursk region.
Meanwhile, US intelligence has warned that Beijing is providing Moscow with military technologies, microelectronics, chips, machine tools, and even “geospatial intelligence” used to strengthen Moscow’s war machine in Ukraine, ISW wrote.
“These adversaries are counting on a Russian victory in Ukraine,” the think-tank’s report concluded. “It is in America’s national security interest to deny them this victory and weaken the entente that has coalesced around Russia’s invasion of Ukraine rather than strengthening it. Russia, in particular, appears to be relying on a charm offensive toward Washington to obscure its deep commitment to weakening the United States and its friends and allies around the world. The Trump administration should be clear-eyed about this larger Russian threat.”
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