Russia can be key partner for Iran without becoming full strategic ally
By Delaram Ahmadi
Staff writer
Russia’s willingness to support Iran under growing US economic pressure has again put the future of Tehran-Moscow relations in focus. Moscow has said it is prepared to help Iran meet some of its needs, raising questions about how far Russia can go while facing its own sanctions and the economic pressures created by the war in Ukraine.
The key to understanding Russia’s approach, however, may lie less in its immediate economic capacity than in the way Moscow defines its interests in a changing international order. In an interview with Iran Daily, Mohammad Hossein Baghi, an international affairs expert, said Russia’s relations with Iran should be viewed through the broader doctrines that have shaped its foreign policy, particularly the Primakov Doctrine and what is known as the Karaganov Doctrine.
For Baghi, the Primakov Doctrine represents one of the most important shifts in Russia’s foreign policy thinking since the end of the Soviet Union. The doctrine advocates a multipolar international system, strategic autonomy, regional integration, pragmatism and opposition to external interference in the affairs of sovereign states.
“The Primakov Doctrine was a serious turning point in Russian foreign policy,” he said. It moved Russia away from the more cooperative approach toward the United States that had emerged in the late Soviet and early post-Soviet years, and toward a policy in which Moscow seeks to preserve its freedom of action and pursue partnerships based on its own interests.
Russia was not initially in a position to fully implement such a policy. The economic and political crises that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union limited Moscow’s ability to act as an independent center of power. But, according to Baghi, several developments gradually changed that situation, including dissatisfaction with the Yeltsin era, Russia’s improved position under President Vladimir Putin and a series of international events that strengthened Moscow’s determination to resist what it saw as the expansion of Western influence.
Russia’s military interventions in Georgia in 2008, Ukraine in 2014, Syria in 2015 and the wider Ukraine conflict that began in February 2022 can, in Baghi’s analysis, be viewed within this broader framework. Moscow, he argues, has sought to prevent what it considers unacceptable strategic risks while advancing its own interests.
The Karaganov Doctrine adds another layer to this picture. Associated with Russian foreign policy thinker Sergei Karaganov, it emphasizes Moscow’s interests and influence in the former Soviet space and among Russian-speaking populations. While Iran is not a former Soviet republic, Baghi believes Tehran occupies an important place in Russia’s wider regional calculations.
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