Russia is appealing to Israel to show restraint in the crisis with Iran, and believes Tehran is exercising its right to self-defence, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov was quoted as saying on Monday.

Israel launched a wave of strikes last Friday against Iran's nuclear sites and military leadership, and Iran has responded by firing missiles at Israeli cities.

"The potential dangerous consequences of strikes on nuclear infrastructure facilities are obvious to everyone. This is a cause for concern for the entire international community, but, in addition to this, we are, of course, watching how world markets react to what is happening," state news agency TASS quoted Ryabkov as telling reporters.

It was up to Israel, first and foremost, to show "restraint and common sense", he said.

Russia seeks to play an influential role in the Middle East, though it lost a major ally there last year with the toppling of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, to whom it had provided military support for almost a decade in the country's civil war.

Russia signed a strategic partnership treaty with Iran in January. It also has longstanding ties with Israel, though these have been strained by the Ukraine and Gaza wars.

The Kremlin said President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan agreed in a phone conversation on Monday that the Israel-Iran confrontation was fraught with risks for the entire region, and called for an immediate cessation of hostilities.

The Kremlin said Russia was still ready to mediate between Iran and Israel, and its offer remained on the table to remove highly enriched uranium from Iran and convert it into civilian reactor fuel as a possible way to defuse the crisis over Tehran's nuclear programme.

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Russia’s strong ties with both Israel and Iran could help it emerge as a power broker

 Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, center left, and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Russia has maintained a delicate balancing act in the Middle East for decades, trying to navigate its warm relations with Israel even as it has developed strong economic and military ties with Iran.

Israel's military strikes this weekend on Iranian nuclear and military facilities, killing top generals and scientists, and Tehran's response with drones and missiles, put Moscow in an awkward position, requiring fine diplomatic skills to preserve ties with both parties. But it also could open opportunities for Russia to possibly become a power broker to help end the confrontation.

Some observers in Moscow also argue that the focus on the confrontation between Israel and Iran could distract global attention from the war in Ukraine and play into Russia's hands by potentially weakening Western support for Kyiv.

A Russian condemnation but little else

Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke to both Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, offering to help de-escalate the conflict.

In his call with Pezeshkian, Putin condemned the Israeli strikes and offered his condolences. He noted that Russia has put forward specific initiatives aimed at resolving the situation around the Iranian nuclear program.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry issued a strongly worded statement condemning the Israeli strikes as “categorically unacceptable” and warning that "all the consequences of this provocation will fall on the Israeli leadership.” It urged both parties “to exercise restraint in order to prevent further escalation of tensions and keep the region from sliding into a full-scale war.”

But despite the harshly worded condemnation of Israel’s actions, Moscow hasn’t issued any signal that it could offer anything beyond political support to Tehran despite a partnership treaty between the countries.

In his call with Netanyahu, Putin “emphasized the importance of returning to the negotiation process and resolving all issues related to the Iranian nuclear program exclusively through political and diplomatic means," and he offered his mediation “in order to prevent further escalation of tensions,” the Kremlin said in a readout.

“It was agreed that the Russian side will continue close contacts with the leadership of both Iran and Israel, aimed at resolving the current situation, which is fraught with the most disastrous consequences for the entire region,” it added.

Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump discussed the escalating situation in the Middle East by phone Saturday. Putin’s foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov said the Kremlin leader emphasized Russia’s readiness to carry out mediation efforts, and noted it had proposed steps “aimed at finding mutually acceptable agreements” during U.S.-Iran negotiations on the Iranian nuclear program.

Moscow-Tehran ties: From tense to strategic partners

Relations between Moscow and Tehran often were tense in the Cold War, when Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was a U.S. ally. After the 1979 Islamic Revolution, leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini branded the U.S. as the “Great Satan,” but also assailed the Soviet Union as the “Lesser Satan.”

Russia-Iran ties warmed quickly after the USSR’s demise in 1991, when Moscow became an important trade partner and a top supplier of weapons and technology to Iran as it faced international sanctions. Russia built Iran’s first nuclear power plant in the port of Bushehr that became operational in 2013.

Russia was part of the 2015 deal between Iran and six nuclear powers, offering sanctions relief for Tehran in exchange for curbing its atomic program and opening it to broader international scrutiny. It offered political support when the U.S. unilaterally withdrew from the agreement during Trump’s first term.

After a civil war in Syria erupted in 2011, Russia and Iran pooled efforts to shore up Bashar Assad’s government. They helped Assad reclaim most of the country but failed to prevent a swift collapse of his rule in December 2024 after a lightning opposition offensive.

When Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the West alleged that Tehran signed a deal with the Kremlin to deliver Shahed drones and later launch their production in Russia.

In January, Putin and Pezeshkian signed the “comprehensive strategic partnership” treaty that envisions close political, economic and military ties.

Russia-Israel ties stay strong despite tensions

During the Cold War, Moscow armed and trained Israel's Arab foes. Diplomatic relations with Israel ruptured in 1967 but were restored in 1991. Russian-Israeli ties quickly warmed after the collapse of the Soviet Union and have remained strong.

Despite Moscow’s close ties with Tehran, Putin has repeatedly demonstrated his readiness to take Israeli interests into account.

He has maintained warm, personal ties with Netanyahu, who frequently traveled to Russia before the war in Ukraine.

Russia and Israel have built a close political, economic and cultural relationship that helped them tackle delicate and divisive issues, including developments in Syria. It survived a tough test in 2018, when a Russian military reconnaissance aircraft was shot down by Syrian forces responding to an Israeli airstrike, killing all 15 people aboard.

And even though Russia supplied Iran with sophisticated S-300 air defense missile systems, which Israel said were taken out during its strikes last year on Iran, Moscow has dragged its feet on deliveries of other weapons in an apparent response to Israeli worries. In particular, Russia has delayed providing advanced Su-35 fighter jets that Iran wants so it can upgrade its aging fleet.

Israel, in its turn, appeared to take Moscow’s interests into account by showing little enthusiasm for providing Ukraine with weapons in the 3-year-old war.

The Kremlin’s friendly ties with Israel has fueled discontent in Tehran, where some members of the political and military leadership reportedly were suspicious of Moscow’s intentions.

Possible Russian gains from Middle East tensions

Maintaining good ties with both Israel and Iran could pay off now, placing Moscow in a position of a power broker trusted by both parties and a potential participant in any future deal on Tehran's nuclear program.

Long before Friday's strikes, Putin discussed the mounting Middle East tensions in his calls with Trump, conversations that offered the Russian leader a chance to pivot away from the war in Ukraine and engage more broadly with Washington on global issues.

Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov suggested in recent days that Russia could take highly enriched uranium from Iran and convert it into civilian reactor fuel as part of a potential agreement between the United States and Iran.

Prospects for negotiating a deal under which Iran would accept tighter restrictions on its nuclear program appear dim after the Israeli strikes. But if talks resume, Russia’s offer could emerge as a pivotal component of an agreement.

Many observers believe the Israeli attacks will likely fuel global oil prices and help enrich Moscow at a time when its economy is struggling.

“It will destroy the hopes of Ukraine and its allies in Western Europe for a drop in Russian oil revenues that are essential for filling the military budget,” Moscow-based military analyst Ruslan Pukhov wrote in a commentary.

Some commentators in Moscow also argue the confrontation in the Middle East will likely distract Western attention and resources from the war in Ukraine and make it easier for Russia to pursue its battlefield goals.

“The world’s attention to Ukraine will weaken,” said pro-Kremlin analyst Sergei Markov. “A war between Israel and Iran will help the Russian army’s success in Ukraine.”

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European leaders at G7 trying to bring Iran back to negotiating table

European leaders at the G7 summit in Canada are trying to engineer an Iranian return to the negotiating table using Gulf leaders as intermediaries.

But Iran is demanding a joint ceasefire with Israel, while Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, is resisting the move, and Donald Trump has yet to show his hand.

The US is seen by Iran as critical to putting pressure on Israel, but Trump wants indications that Iran will back down on wanting to maintain the right to enrich uranium. He is willing to continue to use the Israeli assault as a bargaining chip if necessary.

Asked if he had received any messages from Iran suggesting that they wanted to de-escalate the conflict, Trump hinted that he had. “They want to talk,” he said.

The US president said that Iran was not winning its conflict with Israel and should re-enter negotiations “before it’s too late”.

“They have to make a deal, and it’s painful for both parties, but I’d say Iran is not winning this war, and they should talk, and they should talk immediately, before it’s too late,” the US president told reporters at the summit.

He added: “If Iran wants to negotiate, now is the time.”

Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s foreign minister, appealed to Trump to break with Netanyahu, telling the US president he was being played by an Israeli leader who was determined to scuttle a deal Iran and the US were on the verge of sealing.

He said: “By all indications, the purpose of Netanyahu’s criminal attack on Iran – killing hundreds of innocent civilians, including women and children – is to scuttle a deal between Iran and the US, which we were on the right path to achieve. He is playing yet another American president, and ever more American taxpayers, for absolute fools.

“If President Trump is genuine about diplomacy and interested in stopping this war, next steps are consequential. Israel must halt its aggression, and absent a total cessation of military aggression against us, our responses will continue. It takes one phone call from Washington to muzzle someone like Netanyahu. That may pave the way for a return to diplomacy.”

The United Arab Emirates, the country that sent Trump’s first negotiating offer to Iran, has been one of the intermediaries along with Oman, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

Oman’s foreign minister, Badr Albusaidi, the previous broker in the US-Iran talks, has been urging Tehran to return to the negotiating table, pointing to the heavily laden military odds against it.

Iranian news agencies reported the president of Iran, Masoud Pezeshkian, had warned the Sultan of Oman that, “if the United States does not restrain Israel, Iran will be forced to continue its response in a more severe and painful manner”.

Keir Starmer, the UK prime minister; and the French president, Emmanuel Macron, have both been in touch with the UAE leadership, and Starmer claimed there was a consensus for de-escalation.

“It is really important that we focus on de-escalation, because the risks of the conflict escalating are obvious across the region and beyond the region, the impact that this could and probably will have on Gaza, which is a tinderbox, and, of course, the impact on the economy. That is why the G7 has such a focus on de-escalation. That will be an intense discussion for our talks today…this will be a central issue.”

European leaders at the G7 are warning Iran both directly and via Gulf leaders that Iranian concessions will have to be made at the negotiating table, or Israel is likely to press home its military advantage to the point of securing an end to the Iranian government formed after the revolution in 1979.

With the vast majority of its military and intelligence leadership wiped out by Israel in assassinations, Iran’s decision-making structure is in flux. Even parts of the Iranian foreign ministry in Tehran have been bombed.

European leaders are deeply concerned by doubts over the nature of any successor regime, the prospect of Iran’s break-up and a prolonged conflict that could hit world trade and send oil prices up if Iran blocked the strait of Hormuz in a desperate attempt to cling to power.

Iran has claimed it is not interested in building a nuclear bomb, but is not saying it is willing to abandon its right to enrich uranium, the red line that the Iranian foreign minister insisted on throughout the talks with the US.

The coincidence of the G7 meeting happening during the escalation in the Iran crisis has provided European leaders with an opportunity to try to reimpose themselves in the Iran negotiations from which they have been largely excluded by the US since Trump returned to the White House

Between 2013 and 2025 the three European powers of the UK, France and Germany had been ever-present in the negotiations with Iran.

The G7 leaders are also preparing a joint statement on the Iran-Israel crisis

At issue has been whether any joint statement calling for a return to diplomacy and ruling out Iran ever possessing nuclear weapons goes further by calling for a ceasefire. Some states wanted to hint at criticism of Israel for upending the US and Iranian negotiations that were due to have continued on Sunday.

But G7 member states are divided, with Japan’s prime minister, Shigeru Ishiba, on Friday sharply criticising Israel’s recent military assaults on Iran, labelling the attacks “totally intolerable” and “extremely regrettable” amid rising tensions in the region.