Russian President Vladimir Putin told Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian in Turkmenistan that he would do everything in his power to help end the Middle East conflict. The two leaders met ahead of a Commonwealth of Independent States summit. Putin leads a state at war in Ukraine; Pezeshkian leads a state accused of supplying weapons for that war. Their meeting put governments, military ties and diplomacy at the centre of a conflict whose ordinary people don't get a seat at the table.
A pledge from the summit room
“We are ready to do everything that is in our power to contribute to the settlement of this situation,” Putin said. He said Iran had made “real efforts to end the war” since US-Israeli attacks began on February 28. The source gives no year for that date. Putin also described a “positive evolution” in relations between Iran and Russia.
The two leaders arrived in Turkmenistan for a summit that starts Friday in Avaza, a resort on the Caspian Sea. The CIS, originally made up of former Soviet nations, is also due to include the leaders of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Turkmenistan and other Central Asian states. Kremlin foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov said the Putin-Pezeshkian meeting was one of several bilateral encounters scheduled on the summit's sidelines.
Diplomacy here means states arranging matters with states. The account gives no role to grassroots groups, mutual aid organizers or people directly affected by the conflicts. Leaders make pledges and discuss relationships. Military cooperation remains part of the same political machinery.
Military ties and accusations
Russia and Iran have reinforced diplomatic and military links since Russia launched its offensive in Ukraine in February 2022; four years have elapsed. The two countries increasingly rely on each other. Ukraine and Western countries have accused Iran of supplying Russia with Shahed drones and short-range missiles for use in the Ukraine war. Russia, in turn, faces accusations of supplying targeting data or other data to Iran for attacks on US interests or targets in the Middle East. The article presents these as reported accusations, not established findings.
Putin and Pezeshkian last met on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Kyrgyzstan in September. Putin also told Pezeshkian in a call on Wednesday that he was ready to help mediate in the Middle East war, Iranian state news agency IRNA reported. Meanwhile, Pezeshkian said this week that negotiations with Washington were “meaningless.” Iran-US talks appeared at an impasse, the report says, while diplomatic efforts to resolve Russia's offensive in Ukraine also appeared deadlocked as both sides intensified attacks. Leaders keep talking. The wars keep going.
An orbit, not a settlement
The CIS was established in 1991 to maintain ties among former Soviet republics after the Soviet collapse; 35 years have elapsed. Georgia withdrew following a 2008 war with Russia, Ukraine halted its participation after Moscow's 2014 annexation of Crimea, and Moldova left in 2023 as it sought closer ties with the European Union.
Temur Umarov, a researcher at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center in Berlin, told AFP that the CIS demonstrates that Russia “actually has the orbit and that it has its own sphere of influence that is fortified and institutionalised.” His wording describes the summit's institutional function: maintaining a sphere of influence and displaying it to others.
Membership doesn't mean automatic agreement. Several CIS members are seeking to diversify their economic and diplomatic partnerships, including by strengthening ties with China and Western nations. “Even if Russia decides to use this platform to propagate anti-Western or anti-Ukrainian rhetoric, that does not mean the other members will automatically subscribe to its position,” Zhanibek Arynov, a Kazakhstan-based researcher specialising in Central Asian geopolitics, told AFP. The summit gathers governments with their own calculations. Putin's offer to help end a war remains a leader's pledge; the report describes no settlement, only more meetings and continuing deadlock.