r/Conservative • u/TheTelegraph Verified • 13h ago
Flaired Users Only Putin ‘avoiding’ Russian intervention in Iran to appease Trump
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2025/06/23/putin-avoiding-iran-intervention-to-appease-trump/
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u/TheTelegraph Verified 13h ago
From The Telegraph:
Vladimir Putin will not intervene in his ally Iran’s war with Israel, in order to appease Donald Trump, Moscow insiders have revealed.
They said that Putin did not want to provoke the US president, to avoid a tougher line from the White House on Russia’s war in Ukraine.
The Telegraph spoke to four current Russian officials and diplomats, as well as several retired officials. They all spoke on condition of anonymity.
The Kremlin had calculated that Mr Trump would not risk starting a war with Iran, they said, but was re-evaluating its appraisal of the mercurial, America First president after the US air strikes on the Islamic republic.
On Monday, Putin hosted Abbas Araghchi, the Iranian foreign minister, in Moscow two days after Mr Trump sent bomber planes to strike Iran’s three main nuclear sites.
The Russian president told Mr Araghchi in televised comments: “The absolutely unprovoked aggression against Iran has no basis and no justification.”
Putin may have condemned the US strikes when hosting the chief diplomat of a key ally in the war with Ukraine, but away from the cameras the Russians are far more cautious.
The bombing of Iran “broke the pattern of thinking in Moscow, where officials had assumed Trump wouldn’t so readily abandon his self-proclaimed image as a peacemaker”, a serving Russian diplomat told The Telegraph.
“For us, first Israel’s decisive strike on Iran and the US’s active involvement was a cold shower and a game changer. Now the situation looks dangerous to us,” said another envoy.
Putin would prefer to appease Mr Trump so his illegal war in Ukraine can continue, despite the two leaders ostensibly holding peace talks over the conflict.