Mr. Schmemann, an Opinion writer, is a former Moscow bureau chief of The Times.See more of our coverage in your search results.
The Iran war has been an economic windfall for Russia, pushing oil prices sky-high and loosening sanctions. But if the Russian economy is having a brief respite, the battering of Iran by the United States and Israel marks yet another in a series of recent blows to the great-power role President Vladimir Putin so cherishes.
Iran has been Russia’s closest partner in the Middle East, supplying Moscow with drones for use in Ukraine and a critical route to evade sanctions over its war there. The large-scale damage to Iran’s economy and military comes on the heels of the capture of the Kremlin’s South American ally Nicolás Maduro in an American raid on Venezuela in January. Before that, the Kremlin was unable to prevent the fall of another comrade-dictator when Bashar al-Assad was toppled in Syria (and subsequently fled to Moscow). That left the future of Russia’s military bases in Syria in question.
“And Cuba’s next, by the way, but pretend I didn’t say that,” Mr. Trump playfully said at a meeting of investors at the end of March, threatening another This War Has Not Gone Putin’s Way Russian ally. Cuba is already in dire economic straits with the cutoff of Venezuelan oil and intensified American embargoes, and it was only with U.S. permission that Russia was able to send a tanker of oil to the island late last month. Russia is dispatching a second tanker, but the Trump administration has not said whether it will be allowed to reach Cuba.
Russia, moreover, has been excluded from any say in the future of Iran or its other allies. Instead, Russian oil companies are being squeezed out of post-Maduro Venezuela. In January, U.S. forces showed no compunction about seizing a Russian tanker that purportedly violated sanctions on dealing with Venezuela.
That cavalier treatment must be painful for Mr. Putin, who longs to restore his country’s global clout to Soviet levels. President Trump’s mysterious affinity for the Russian strongman has been a major card in Mr. Putin’s hand, one he has hoped to parlay into Washington’s support for the victory he seeks in Ukraine: the capture of the whole of the Donbas region and the neutralization of Ukraine. Accordingly, Mr. Putin has avoided criticizing Mr. Trump personally for the fate of his friends. (continued on Page 2 or here)