Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov summarised his country’s cryptic pragmatism as the US-Israel war on Iran widens to the oil-rich Arab world and engulfs the global economy. “We should probably secure benefits for ourselves where possible,” he said this week, “no matter how cynical that may sound.”
As West Asia descends into chaos following American and Israeli strikes on Iran — and the latter retaliates with missiles, drones, and oil-crunch tactics — the geopolitical paradox is hard to miss.
Russia is reportedly providing Iran with satellite imagery and drone-targeting tactics to facilitate its retaliation against US forces and their bases and facilities in the UAE, Oman, Qatar and other American-Israeli allies. It is simultaneously reaping a massive financial windfall from US President Donald Trump’s war policy. This gives Moscow critical revenues apparently needed to sustain its ongoing invasion of Ukraine.
The Russia-Iran give-and-take is also a reciprocal relationship, established during the Ukraine conflict when Russia relied heavily on Iranian-made Shahed attack drones.
“No one will be surprised to believe that Putin’s hidden hand is behind some of the Iranian tactics and potentially some of their capabilities as well,” UK defence secretary John Healey has said. He also noted that the “patterns of Iranian attack have the hallmarks of the way Russia is attacking Ukraine”.
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Expert observers believe Russia is also sharing sensitive know-how on countering US-made weaponry, such as Patriot and ATACMS missiles, which it has encountered on the Ukrainian battlefield.
“The lessons learned have been happening throughout the course of the war in Ukraine, but the implications now are here. We’re seeing it now happen in real time, in a real case,” Andrea Kendall-Taylor, a former senior US intelligence official, said.
Trump’s ‘1980s playlist’ and Putin’s oil windfall
The conflict has all but paralysed shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, creating what the International Energy Agency (IEA) describes as the “biggest oil supply disruption in history”.
President Trump has had to respond to the resulting energy crisis by temporarily lifting sanctions on Russian oil.
The US treasury department has issued a 30-day waiver, valid until April 11, allowing for the sale and delivery of Russian crude and petroleum products currently “stranded” at sea.
Treasury secretary Scott Bessent defended the measure: “The temporary increase in oil prices is a short-term and temporary disruption that will result in a massive benefit to our nation and economy in the long-term”.
Russian officials say the waiver would affect approximately 100 million barrels of Russian crude, equivalent to nearly a day’s global output.
Trump has kept comms channels open with Putin, which has irked America’s European partners that see the oil-sales waiver as a funding funnel for Putin’s Ukraine war. Trump spoke to Putin on March 9. US special envoy Steve Witkoff said in an interview about that: “The Russians said that they have not been sharing — that’s what they said, so we can take them at their word.”
A leading analyst noted that Trump’s foreign policy agenda resembles a “Spotify 1980s playlist, belting out the same tunes four decades late” — pulling the world into chaos with it. “Among the highlights of his golden oldies: Befriending Moscow, bombing Iran, belittling NATO and making trade tariffs great again,” wrote Marc Champion for Bloomberg Opinion on Friday.
Is China also aiding Iran, is another question being asked in US and global policy circles.
Senator Richard Blumenthal, from the US opposition Democratic Party, said earlier this week that Russia seems to be aiding Tehran “actively and intensively, with intelligence and perhaps with other means” and added that “China may also be assisting Iran”.
But Liu Pengyu, a spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Washington, said in a statement that he “opposes groundless accusations” about Beijing’s involvement. He said China was playing “a constructive role for de-escalation and restoration of peace”.
Is there a ‘smertonomika’ factor?
For Russia, the surge in oil prices, with Brent crude hitting $100 per barrel, is a lifeline for an economy increasingly geared toward total war. Economist Vladislav Inozemtsev has dubbed this phenomenon “smertonomika”, or the “economy of death”.
The Russian state is currently channeling approximately 40% of its budget into the war against Ukraine. To maintain the pace of recruitment, the Kremlin has moved from mobilisation to offering exorbitant payments to volunteers. A recruit signing a first contract can receive a recruitment bonus plus a monthly salary nearly three times the national average, noted reports.
“Despite the lack of significant progress on the front lines, Putin wants to keep fighting. There is money for war, there always will be,” economist Inozemtsev was quoted as saying by Spanish daily EL PAIS.
Trump may take him for his word, but Putin has also explicitly expressed “unwavering support for Tehran”, and congratulated Mojtaba Khamenei on his selection as Iran’s new supreme leader after his father was killed in the opening hours of the US-Israeli bombardment on Fenruary 28.
Russia has regularly used Iranian-made one-way attack drones to strike Ukrainian cities and energy infrastructure. Iran later supplied technology for Russia to start its own mass-production of the deadly drones.
Iran’s widespread use of the relatively cheap drones in the conflict has put a strain on the US military and Gulf allies, forcing them to use protection systems designed primarily to combat more advanced weapons.
India’s Russia paradox, a balancing act
The conflict has placed India, the world’s third-largest oil importer, in a precarious position. With shipments through the Strait of Hormuz largely halted, New Delhi has been forced to diversify its energy sources rapidly. Ship-tracking data reveals that India’s imports of Russian crude surged to 1.5 million barrels per day (bpd) in March, a 50% increase from February.
Before the recent sanctions and disruptions, India had imported as much as 2.1 million bpd of Russian oil in mid-2025, but that figure had plummeted to 1.1 million by January this year due to US sanctions against Russian firms.
Plus, Trump had imposed on India 25% penal tariffs — taking total US duties on Indian products to 50% — last August, which he later removed with the condition that India won’t buy oil from Russia. Trump offered more oil from US and Venezuela, whose resources the Americans claim to control after seizing President Nicolas Maduro, as alternatives. After Trump expanded his war strategy to Iran, New Delhi has had to rapidly pivot away from its reliance on the Persian Gulf. That’s where Russia came back in.
When the US gave a 30-day “permission” to Delhi to buy from Moscow, PM Narendra Modi had to face more tough questions from Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi over “selling out India’s sovereignty” to Trump.
And the crisis extends beyond crude oil. India is facing a challenge regarding liquefied petroleum gas (LPG). Roughly 80-90% of India’s LPG imports normally pass through the Strait of Hormuz, making the country’s domestic cooking gas supply highly vulnerable. Reports indicate that a prolonged disruption could push inflation higher, particularly in states like Mizoram, Manipur, and Punjab, where LPG carries a high weight in the consumer price basket.
To assure the citizens and the markets, India’s oil minister Hardeep Singh Puri has since said the country’s “non-Hormuz sourcing” has risen to approximately 70% of total crude imports, up from 55% before the current conflict began. He asserted that the government has taken steps to ensure that domestic supplies remain “fully protected” despite a global moment the likes of which “the world has not faced… in history”.
While Russia cashes in, analysts warn that the situation remains a double-edged sword. If the conflict drags on, it could trigger a deep global recession, which would ultimately reduce the total demand for hydrocarbons and hit the Russian economy hard.
“We’re finding out in real time whether Trump, or the seven prior Oval Office occupants who made the cost-benefit analysis of going to war with Iran and decided against, were right,” wrote geopolitical analyst Marc Champion.