Jens Asbjørn Bøgen
Never say never with the Russian President, but there’s several reasons why it’s a highly unlikely scenario.
Never say never with the Russian President, but there’s several reasons why it’s a highly unlikely scenario.
What is happening?
It’s now been a week since Israel launched a surprise attack on Iranian nuclear facilities and high ranking commanders.
Since then the two countries have exchanged fire, including last night.
American intervention on halt
Reports are that the American President, Donald Trump, has the plans to attack Iran to take out the remaining parts of the country’s nuclear programme.
Thursday, however, Trump said that he would “give diplomazy a chance” for the next two weeks before making a decision on whether to join Israel in the conflict.
But what about Putin?
Russia has a close relationship with Iran, and Iran has even helped Russia in the war in Ukraine by supplying massive amounts of Shahed drones – so is there a chance, Putin could join the conflict on the side of Iran?
Short answer: No
Even though Putin is a longtime ally of Iran, and risks losing an important imfluential foothold in the Middle East were the regime to be toppled, it is extremely unlikely that Russia would actually get involved in the war.
He’s already got one
The main reason is that Putin is fully occupied with his invasion of Ukraine, which is raging on it’s fourth year.
Battlefield reports expose a Russian military with dwindling amounts of equipment, and Putin can’t afford to relocate anything from Ukraine to the Middle East.
On the good side of the US
Putin wants to restore US-Russian relations, and an intervention in the Iran/Israel-conflict on the Iranian side would make that dream very difficult to achieve.
Increasing relations with Israel
Even thoguh Russia is a close ally of Iran, Putin also has an interest in nurturing his relations with Israel.
Russia-Israel relations have improved since the early 2000’s, and even though they took a hit when Russia invaded Ukraine, Israel has maintained relations with Russia, refusing to impose sanctions.
What about the drones?
An argument for a Russian intervention in the conflict could be that Russia is using a vast amount of Shaded drones in it’s attacks on Ukraine.
Israel has bombed several Shahed production sites in Iran, so logially, Russia might want to protect the remaining facilities.
Selfsustaining producion
But in fact, the bombing of the drone-production facilities won’t change a thing in Russia’s war in Ukraine, because Russia has begun producing the Shahed drones themselves.
North Korean factory helpers coming?
Last night, Kyiv Independent reported that North Korean is allegedly considering sending 25,000 workers to Russia to help Putin boost the Shahed-production.
In return, Kim Jong-Un apparantly seeks training in drone operation.