Moscow will see a boost in energy revenues, but its inability to protect Iran will hurt its standing in the Middle East.

Автор - Peter Rutland

Most observers seem to agree with The Wall Street Journal that “Russia is one of the biggest winners” from the Iran war. Nicole Grajewski called it a “tactical windfall” for Russia.

Above all, Russia stands to profit from the economic disruption caused by the war. The global oil price (Brent crude) rose from $60 in January to over $103 by March 13 due to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, through which flows 20 percent of the world’s oil supply. The strait also carries 20 percent of the world’s liquefied natural gas, and Qatar’s Ras Laffan LNG facility has been temporarily shut down after being hit by Iranian drones. This has caused a 50 percent increase in natural gas prices in Europe. 

The price of Russian Urals blend crude oil has risen from under $40 per barrel in December to $89 by March 12. The discount given to India and China has shrunk from $25 to $4–5 per barrel. On March 5, the United States announced a 30-day suspension of the ban on Indian refineries buying Russian crude. Russia is a major exporter of aluminum and fertilizer, and prices for both are rising because manufacturing facilities in the Persian Gulf are no longer shipping to world markets.

The increased revenue from oil could not have come at a more opportune time for Russia. A stagnant GDP and low oil prices meant that revenue from oil and gas fell to $5 billion in January, and the federal government ran a budget deficit of $21 billion that month. The price spike will mean an additional $3–4 billion monthly revenue for Russia. Moscow had been planning serious budget cuts, but these have now been postponed to later in the year. 

A second way the war benefits Russia is that the United States is diverting its supply of missiles and interceptors to the Persian Gulf, leaving less available for Ukraine. The United States has a stock of over 22,000 missiles and reportedly fired off some 2,000 in the first three days of the current war. 

Ukraine has developed its own countermeasures to deal with Russian drones, but only US-manufactured interceptors can destroy ballistic missiles. On the other hand, Ukraine has scored some military successes in recent weeks: recapturing some territory in the Donbas and sinking a Russian tanker carrying $50 million of LNG near Malta with a drone on March 3.

In 2024, Russia brought Iran into the BRICS group of countries, hosted Iranian proxies Hamas and Houthis in Moscow, and signed a strategic partnership with Tehran in 2025. The Financial Times reported that Russia had started cooperating with Iranian scientists who were working on nuclear weapons development. Russia has bought many drones from Iran, but since 2023, it has been mass-producing Shahed-type drones at a plant in Alabuga, Tatarstan, and is no longer dependent on Iranian supplies. Despite its deepening cooperation, Russia did not lift a finger to protect Iran from the US-Israeli strikes on Iran’s nuclear program in June 2025. 

There is no sign that the Iran War will cause any major shift in President Donald Trump’s approach to the Ukraine War. Trump told Politico on March 5 that “I think Putin is ready to make a deal.” He spoke to Russian President Vladimir Putin for one hour on March 8, their first conversation since December 29. Trump seems to have accepted Putin’s assurance that Russia was not providing targeting intelligence for the Israelis, and Izvestiya suggested that Russia could play a mediation role in the Iran War. This is all bad news for Ukraine. On the other hand, the crippling attack on Iran is a serious blow to Russia’s prestige and self-confidence, and it has left Russia increasingly diplomatically isolated. 

There are some signs that the Iran War is causing panic in Moscow. In the wake of the attack on Iran, commentators on Russian television chat shows, a cockpit of nationalist excess, were in awe of Trump’s bravado and the ruthless efficiency of the American military. Andrei Sidorov wailed that while Russia is “bogged down in Ukraine,” “Trump cannot be stopped.” He continued, “We have been escorted out of the Western hemisphere,” and “Cuba is next.” Host Vladimir Solovev lamented, “The American military feels like victors.” The pro-Kremlin Moskovsky Komsomolets wrote that “Trump is devouring our allies one by one.” First Syria, then Venezuela, and now Iran.

Likewise, some Russian military bloggers have contrasted the US strategy in Iran with Russia’s approach to Ukraine. The Orthodox oligarch Konstantin Malofeev warned that Russia is strategically isolated: “While our soldiers have been dying in the trenches for the fifth year, the Americans have switched to methods that solve global problems in one day.” Sergei Karnaukhov voiced fears that, after Iran, Russia would be next.

Moscow’s official bulletins condemning the US-Israeli attack on Iran have been relatively restrained. Putin issued a statement saying the killing of Khamenei was “a cynical violation of all norms of human morality and international law.” The Foreign Ministry complained that “attacks are again being carried out under the guise of the resumed negotiation process,” implying that the United States cannot be trusted to broker a peace in Ukraine.

But the Russian government has avoided criticizing Donald Trump by name. Alexander Baumov argues that Putin has gambled on Trump helping him force Ukraine to accept his terms, so he is reluctant to criticize Trump’s actions in Iran directly. The official government line is that the operation is not going well for the United States. RIA Novosti predicts the United States will run out of ammunition if Iran can hold out for more than four weeks.

While the short-run impact of the Iran war may work in Russia’s favor, the political consequences of the war are harder to predict. On March 6, The Washington Postreported that Russia had provided intelligence to Iran, which improved its targeting of US forces in the Gulf. If confirmed, that could be a game-changer, alienating the Gulf states from Russia and disabusing Trump of his trust in Putin as a reliable partner.

The key factor is how long the war will last, and how long the Strait of Hormuz will be shut. Back in 2022, the invasion of Ukraine pushed oil prices up to $128 a barrel and led to a 400 percent increase in natural gas prices in Europe. We are unlikely to see that drastic scenario repeated in 2026, since global oil supply and demand are roughly in balance. 

Nonetheless, a prolonged war would trigger a global recession, putting downward pressure on oil prices. President Trump will want the oil price to come down in time for the November 2026 midterm congressional elections. At the moment, that does not look likely. Even if oil prices remain elevated for only six months, that could mean $30–40 billion in additional revenue for Moscow: a sum equal to one quarter of its annual defense budget. 

Peter Rutland is a professor of Government at Wesleyan University. An expert on contemporary Russian nationalism, politics, and the Russian economy, Professor Rutland has studied Russia and the former Soviet Union for over three decades. He is the author of two books, The Politics of Economic Stagnation in the Soviet Union and The Myth of the Plan: Lessons of Soviet Planning Experience, and editor of four others. Rutland is an associate of the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University (where he was a Mellon research fellow at the Russian Research Center).         

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