Prime Minister Modi has conveyed New Delhi’s concerns about the safety of Indian citizens in the Gulf region
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has asked for an “early cessation of hostilities” in a call with Benjamin Netanyahu, as the violence in the Middle East continues to escalate.
The US and Israel attacked Iran over the weekend, resulting in the death of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Tehran has retaliated by striking US military bases across the Gulf.
Iran has also targeted several major regional aviation hubs, including the Dubai International Airport.
Modi said in a post on X on Sunday that he discussed the situation in the Middle East with Netanyahu.
“Conveyed India’s concerns over recent developments and emphasized the safety of civilians as a priority,” he said. “India reiterates the need for an early cessation of hostilities.”
❗️PM Modi Holds Call With Israeli Counterpart Netanyahu
The Indian PM had revealed earlier on X that he had spoken to the President of the UAE, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, and had ‘strongly condemned the attacks on the UAE.’ pic.twitter.com/MGAqu37weJ
Modi was in Israel on a two-day official visit last week.
There are more than 9 million Indian expatriates in the Middle East and nearly 18,000 in Israel, according to official figures.
Modi also spoke with the president of the United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed, regarding the situation.
“I strongly condemned the attacks on the UAE and offered my heartfelt condolences for the human losses resulting from them. India stands in solidarity with the UAE during these difficult times,” he said in another post on X.
The UAE hosts the largest number of Indian expats in the Gulf, numbering more than 3 million. Official estimates put the number of Indians in Iran at 9,000-10,000.
“I thanked him for his care for the Indian community residing in the UAE. We support de-escalation, regional peace, security, and stability,” Modi said in the post.
The Indian prime minister also chaired the Cabinet Committee on Security on Sunday to review the evolving situation in the Middle East and reviewed the difficulties faced by Indian travelers transiting the region.
Hundreds of thousands of travelers have been stranded across the Middle East following airspace closures.
Russia, China, and several nations have condemned the US and Israeli attacks.
The FBI is investigating the Austin, Texas incident as a potential act of terrorism
The gunman who killed two people and injured over a dozen in Texas may have been motivated by US strikes on Iran that killed the country’s supreme leader and caused widespread civilian casualties, according to law enforcement sources cited by US media.
The attack occurred in a busy nightlife district in Austin near the University of Texas shortly before 2am on Sunday.
The suspect, identified as 53-year-old Ndiaga Diagne, opened fire outside Buford’s Backyard Beer Garden, killing two people and injuring at least 14 others. The naturalized US citizen, originally from Senegal, drove past the venue several times before stopping and firing a pistol from his SUV at people gathered outside, according to Austin Police Chief Lisa Davis.
🚨 BREAKING: Shocking footage captures the moment the shooter opened fire inside an Austin bar
The attacker then exited the vehicle armed with a rifle and continued shooting at pedestrians before responding officers shot and killed him.
3 killed, 14 injured in Texas as authorities say is a suspected terror attack.
Shooter was reportedly from Senegal, had a Quran in his car, and had clothing described as Islamic! pic.twitter.com/8mYeIPZQj6
— Tommy Robinson 🇬🇧 (@TRobinsonNewEra) March 1, 2026
Photos released by the authorities show the suspect carrying a rifle and wearing a sweatshirt emblazoned with the words “Property of Allah.” According to AP and Fox News sources, he also wore clothing displaying an Iranian flag.
The man who opened fire at an Austin, Texas bar overnight. 2 dead, 14 injured.
Ndiaga Diagne, a U.S. citizen born in Senegal, wore a hoodie that said "Property of Allah." His undershirt referenced Iran.
A law enforcement source familiar with the investigation told the New York Post that the violence was “potentially an act of vengeance over the US attack on Iran.”
Alex Doran, the acting agent in charge of the FBI’s San Antonio office, said the shooting was being investigated as a potential act of terrorism. “It’s still too early to make a determination on that,” Doran added.
The incident occurred a day after US and Israeli forces launched a large-scale strike on Iran, killing Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, senior officials, and hundreds of civilians, including more than 100 children, according to Iranian authorities. Tehran has since retaliated with missile and drone strikes targeting US and Israeli military bases across the Middle East.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll published on Sunday found that only one in four Americans backed the strikes, with roughly half of respondents saying US President Donald Trump is too eager to use military force.
“Combat operations continue at this time in full force, and they will continue until all of our objectives are achieved,” Trump declared in a Sunday evening address.
The killing of a head of state and the end of old restraints
Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is dead and the international system is entering a far more dangerous phase than many appear willing to acknowledge.
One may hold any opinion about the Islamic Republic of Iran, about its ideology or ruling elite. There are ample grounds for criticism, some severe. Yet one basic fact remains: Ali Khamenei was the legitimate head of a UN member state, recognized by virtually the entire international community, and a lawful participant in international relations. This included ongoing political negotiations with those who ultimately organized the attack, negotiations that continued until the moment the hostilities began.
The targeted destruction of a state’s leadership by another state as a matter of deliberate policy marks a fundamentally new stage in world politics. This is not merely another episode of regime change. Even when compared with the brutal ends of Muammar Gaddafi or Saddam Hussein, the difference is stark. Gaddafi was killed by Libyan opponents amid internal collapse; Hussein was executed following a trial conducted by an Iraqi court, however flawed one may judge it.
Iran’s case is different. It resembles the method Israel has used against the leadership of Hezbollah and Hamas: Direct elimination by external force, without intermediaries, without legal framing, and without the pretense of internal process.
What is being dismantled here are the remaining restraining mechanisms of international relations inherited from earlier eras. Because this erosion has been gradual, many political elites treat these events as sharp but understandable manifestations of geopolitical rivalry. They are mistaken.
Opponents of the US are entitled to draw two clear conclusions. First, negotiating with Washington is pointless. The only viable options are capitulation or preparation for a force-based resolution.
Second, there is no longer any safe retreat and nothing meaningful left to lose. In these circumstances, any remaining instruments, be they literal or figurative, become legitimate.
These conclusions will hold regardless of how events in Iran unfold in the coming days. Even if some version of the Venezuelan model emerges, a backstage power transfer designed to satisfy all external stakeholders, the damage will not be undone. The method has been demonstrated. The mechanism for forcibly changing governments and bringing them under control has been openly displayed.
Resistance to this model will now harden, not soften. It will become more determined, more desperate, and potentially more destructive.
In this context, there is little point in invoking international law, even as irony.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and members of his family were killed by US-Israeli airstrikes
The US-Israeli political assassinations against Iran have no place in a civilized world, the Russian Foreign Ministry has said, commenting on the death of the Islamic Republic’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in US-Israeli airstrikes.
Tehran confirmed early Sunday that the 86-year-old leader was killed in one of the attacks. His daughter, son-in-law, and granddaughter also reportedly lost their lives in the strike. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Khamenei’s compound was struck in a “powerful surprise attack,” vowing that “thousands of targets” in the Iranian leadership will be killed in the coming days.
Moscow met the news of Khamenei’s death with “outrage and deep sorrow,” the ministry said in a statement on Sunday.
“The Russian Federation resolutely and consistently condemns the practice of political assassinations and the ‘hunting’ of leaders of sovereign states, which contradicts the fundamental principles of civilized interstate relations and blatantly violates international law,” it said.
Moscow also warned that continued hostilities are leading to growing civilian casualties and inflicting serious damage on civilian infrastructure.
The conflict also threatens maritime traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, the statement said, adding that disruptions in the key waterway could lead to major imbalances in global energy markets.
“We call for urgent de-escalation, a cessation of hostilities, and a return to the political and diplomatic process in order to resolve existing issues on the basis of the UN Charter and the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons,” the ministry added.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian’s office said Khamenei’s killing will not go unanswered, vowing to retaliate against “the perpetrators and commanders of this great crime” with “full strength.”
The bombing campaign launched earlier this week was described by Washington and West Jerusalem as a preemptive operation. US President Donald Trump has said regime change is one of the goals.
Moscow has said Iran was attacked because it “refused to yield to the dictates of force and hegemonic pressure.”
‘Shock and awe’ was the term used to describe the US operation against Iraq in spring 2003. In hindsight, it marked a turning point. The rapid defeat of the Ba’athist regime and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein created the impression that the US had acquired the ability to reshape entire regions at will.
Reality turned out differently. The war did bring change, but not the kind its architects envisaged. The old order in the Middle East collapsed, replaced not by stability but by a chain of crises that demanded enormous resources to contain, with limited success. The blow to America’s global reputation proved lasting.
At the end of winter 2026, the US and Israel launched Operation Epic Fury against Iran. In a sense, Iran’s emergence as the principal adversary of both countries is a direct consequence of the Iraq campaign two decades earlier. Whether today’s attackers can achieve quick and decisive results remains unclear. Iran is the most serious opponent the US has confronted directly in many decades. Even if military success is swift, the balance of forces is not in Iran’s favour, and even if the post-war chaos of Iraq is avoided by steering clear of internal occupation, the broader consequences are likely to disappoint.
The immediate driver of the current escalation is Israel’s determination to exploit a unique constellation of circumstances. From West Jerusalem’s perspective, this is a moment to secure a dominant regional position with Washington’s backing. The vision is of a regional order centered on Israel to which others must adapt, willingly or otherwise.
US President Donald Trump and the ideologues shaping his Middle East policy, many of whom are also relatives and business partners, have their own calculations. Israeli military superiority, combined with deepening commercial ties between Israel and the Gulf monarchies, would allow the US to channel economic benefits primarily to itself. Major geo-economic and logistical projects of interest to China, Russia, and India would become dependent on American oversight. Washington would expand its control over key markets, particularly raw materials and military-technical cooperation. At the same time, the supposed ineffectiveness of groupings created without US participation, above all BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, would be put on display.
The motive is transparent. The question is feasibility.
The Iraq War also began with slogans of regional restructuring in the name of security, laced with unmistakable mercantile interests – one need only recall Dick Cheney and Halliburton. Yet the central justification was ideological: The export of democracy. Trump and his circle have relegated ideology to the background, emphasizing material returns instead. The earlier approach failed not merely because democratic transformation proved illusory, but because prolonged instability made it impossible to extract the desired dividends.
The new, openly transactional model may appear more pragmatic, but it carries its own risks. External coercion framed purely in commercial terms can provoke powerful ideological backlash, awakening forces united precisely by their rejection of imposed order.
Trump has launched a major military operation without congressional approval, against public sentiment, and with the prospect of real losses. He needs a triumph to reverse unfavorable domestic trends. If successful, the White House may conclude that it has history, and even God, on its side, encouraging greater assertiveness at home and abroad. If not, escalation may still follow, as aggression becomes a substitute for results.
Either way, the Middle East is entering another phase of turbulence, with consequences that will radiate far beyond the region. And that, for all involved, promises nothing good.
This article was first published in Kommersant, and was translated and edited by the RT team.
Eliminating Supreme Leader doesn’t end the conflict. It transforms it into a matter of principle and raises the odds of a wider Middle East war
Overnight, Tehran confirmed the death of the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, following US and Israeli strikes on his residence early on February 28. In strategic terms, this marks a watershed moment in the architecture of the Middle East conflict. This was not a tactical raid or a calibrated show of force, but a decapitation strike at the very apex of Iran’s state system.
The confrontation between Iran on one side and the United States and Israel on the other has now entered a qualitatively new phase. The elimination of a state’s highest political and religious authority during an ongoing military operation is, from Tehran’s perspective, a textbook casus belli. This is no longer a limited exchange of blows. It is a shift toward a far broader and potentially systemic confrontation.
From 'decapitation strike' to regional firestorm
Throughout February 28, reports poured in of strikes and heightened military activity across the Persian Gulf – from the UAE to Qatar, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia. Even isolated incidents in neighboring airspace underscored a hard truth: the conflict is no longer geographically contained. The regional security order is under acute strain. An already volatile Middle East is now teetering on the brink of a full-scale war.
Politically, the move looks like an all-in bet by the administration of President Donald Trump – a calculated attempt to deliver a strategic knockout by targeting Iran’s decision-making core. But such a step dramatically raises the stakes and all but eliminates the room for diplomatic maneuver. Removing the leader does not freeze the conflict; it accelerates escalation. It sets in motion a retaliatory spiral.
For Iran, this means navigating an extraordinarily delicate leadership transition under conditions of direct military threat. The security services will consolidate power. The influence of the military and clerical establishment will expand. The probability of a forceful response increases. For the region, the risks multiply: expansion of the battlespace, threats to maritime routes and energy infrastructure, and renewed shocks to global stability.
Tehran’s calculus is straightforward. With Khamenei’s killing, the stakes have been raised so dramatically – and the conflict pushed into such an unprecedentedly 'hot' phase – that prior constraints no longer apply. Iran’s response will almost inevitably focus on American military infrastructure in the region, because that is the one domain where Tehran can inflict tangible costs on the United States.
This logic lies at the heart of both Iran’s position and the dilemma facing the Gulf Arab states. Yes, Gulf countries and other Arab partners may view Iranian retaliation as a direct threat to their own security and as being dragged into someone else’s war. But they also understand the operational reality: Iranian missiles cannot reach the continental United States. They can, however, reach US bases, logistics hubs, command centers, and air defense installations across the region. If Iran strikes back at Washington, it will do so through the regional theater – even if that imposes severe political costs on its relations with its neighbors.
No collapse is coming: Why Iran’s system is built to endure
At the same time, Washington and West Jerusalem’s apparent assumption that killing Khamenei would paralyze Iran’s state machinery is fundamentally flawed. In Iran’s political system, the Supreme Leader is a figure of extraordinary authority, but the system itself was designed to be resilient to personal loss. Decision-making authority is distributed across the security apparatus, religious institutions, and formal state structures. Within the Iranian establishment, it has long been understood that the Supreme Leader operates under permanent high-risk conditions; succession is not a theoretical contingency but a practical one.
The critical question, therefore, is not whether Iran remains governable, but what form that governability now takes. Here lies the region’s most acute risk: a shift toward a more rigid, mobilizational model of rule. If Khamenei – for all his hardline credentials – was seen as someone capable of balancing factions and calibrating escalation, his death increases the odds that figures will rise to the top for whom war and security are not temporary crises but defining life missions. In that framework, 'compromise' is easily branded as weakness and 'restraint' as defeat.
There is also the mechanism of interim governance to consider. Formally, Iran has procedures to absorb such a shock. Leadership functions can be redistributed among key institutions pending the selection of a new Supreme Leader. An immediate collapse scenario is therefore unlikely. The baseline risk is different: acceleration of the force spiral, in which Iranian strikes on US assets trigger further rounds of retaliation, widening the conflict’s geographic scope.
The central takeaway regarding President Donald Trump is this: if Washington assumes that removing Khamenei "solves the problem" or breaks Iran’s political will, that is a profound strategic miscalculation – one that could carry enormous costs. In Tehran’s logic, eliminating the Supreme Leader transforms the conflict into a matter of principle. The political price of not responding becomes unacceptable within the system. The result is not de-escalation but a heightened probability of a major war – strikes on bases, infrastructure, and shipping lanes, with cascading effects across the Middle East’s security architecture.
Trump’s claim that targeting “decision-making centers” and eliminating the Supreme Leader would automatically “liberate the Iranian people” borders on the absurd. The history of the Middle East shows that external coercive pressure rarely liberalizes mobilizational systems. Far more often, it produces the opposite effect: social consolidation around a symbolic figure and empowerment of the most radical factions.
Events inside Iran today reflect precisely that pattern. Despite ongoing Israeli and American airstrikes, mass rallies have taken place in Tehran and other cities, with participants demanding a harsh response to Khamenei’s killing. For a substantial segment of Iranian society, he was not merely a political leader but a symbol of statehood, religious legitimacy, and resistance to external pressure. Under such conditions, an external attack does not dismantle the ideological framework; it hardens and cements it.
Moreover, one cannot ignore the presence in Iran – and across the broader Muslim world – of hundreds of thousands of committed hard-liners for whom Khamenei’s ideas are not abstract rhetoric but an element of identity. These constituencies have institutional backing within the security services, religious seminaries, and political organizations. Many are fervently devoted to his legacy and openly prepared to shed blood in his name. Calls for jihad have already surfaced. The most unsettling prospect is not necessarily immediate retaliation, but delayed retribution – one, two, even three years down the line. Insurgency and guerrilla violence can emerge like a bolt from the blue.
Iran’s transition points toward escalation, not restraint
By March 1, only hours after confirmation of Khamenei’s death, Ayatollah Alireza Arafi was named acting Supreme Leader. He does not possess Khamenei’s political stature or authority, but he is regarded as a close associate and an ideologically aligned figure. His core asset is trust – Khamenei’s trust – and deep institutional roots in the clerical system. Born in 1959 into a clerical family in the city of Meybod, in Iran’s central Yazd province, Arafi’s father, Ayatollah (Sheikh Haji) Mohammad Ebrahim Arafi, was close to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic. Alireza Arafi currently heads the Al-Mustafa International University in Qom, an institution formally established in 2009 and closely associated with Khamenei. Fluent in Arabic and English, he has authored 24 books and articles. Since 2019, he has served as a member of the powerful 12-member Guardian Council, which wields veto authority over government policy and electoral candidates.
The biography of even an interim Supreme Leader suggests that the transition at the top of Iran’s power structure will be managed and orderly rather than chaotic. At the same time, the absence of Khamenei’s personal political weight may incentivize a tougher line, as a way to signal resolve and maintain systemic control.
Additional concern stems from the rhetoric of religious and security elites. Ayatollah Shirazi has reportedly declared jihad against the United States and Israel, giving the conflict not only a geopolitical but an explicitly religious-ideological dimension. Earlier, Iran’s National Security Council secretary warned of strikes delivered with “unprecedented force.” Such language signals a shift into a phase where demonstrative scale and severity of response become integral to deterrence strategy.
In short, instead of resolving the crisis, the region faces accelerated escalation, religious mobilization, and the real prospect of direct attacks on US military infrastructure across the Middle East. A conflict launched under the banner of liberation risks evolving into a long-term confrontation with far higher stakes – and the political cost for Washington may ultimately prove far greater than anticipated. The death of Ali Khamenei is not a tactical episode. It is a point of no return for the entire Middle Eastern security order.
Pakistani Defense Minister Khawaja Asif earlier declared his country was in “open war” with its western neighbor
Afghan forces have suffered nearly 1,000 casualties in the latest cross-border escalation with Pakistan, officials in Islamabad have claimed.
Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said at least 415 Taliban fighters and allied militants had been killed and more than 580 wounded in airstrikes and clashes since Thursday. He shared the figures in a post on X on Saturday.
The minister also claimed 182 Afghan checkpoints had been destroyed, along with 185 tanks, armored vehicles and artillery pieces, with airstrikes targeting 46 locations across the country.
Kabul has not commented on the figures cited by Tarar. Afghan government spokesman Hamdullah Fitrat claimed on Saturday that three days of border clashes had left 78 dead, including 12 Pakistani soldiers and one civilian, and 13 Afghan soldiers plus 52 Afghan civilians, mostly women and children. Casualties were reported in Paktika, Khost, Kunar, Nangarhar, and Kandahar provinces, he said in separate statements on X.
Neither side’s figures could be independently verified.
Pakistan launched heavy fire and airstrikes at its western neighbor early on Friday, in response to Afghan Taliban forces firing at Pakistani border positions the day before and killing two soldiers.
Kabul described the cross-border fire as “retaliatory operations” following Pakistani airstrikes last Sunday. Pakistani Defense Minister Khawaja Asif later termed the escalation an “open war,” accusing the Afghan Taliban government of “exporting terrorism.”
Relations between the neighbors have steadily deteriorated since the Taliban’s return to power in 2021 after the US withdrawal. Since March 2024, border clashes have become increasingly frequent, peaking in October 2025 when the Pakistani army seized 19 Afghan border posts during skirmishes with Taliban forces.
Ties have further worsened in recent months as Pakistan accuses militants of operating from Afghan territory with the Taliban government’s backing – a claim Kabul denies. Pakistan has also accused Afghanistan of expanding military and political ties with India at Islamabad’s expense, while Kabul maintains that it has the right to develop relations with any country.
US-Israeli strikes on Iran and Tehran’s retaliation have triggered closures of key transit hubs, grounding flights across the region
Hundreds of thousands travelers have been stranded across the Middle East following airspace closures triggered by unprovoked US-Israeli strikes on Iran, according to flight analytics firms.
Massive strikes against Tehran began Saturday, killing Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, top officials, and hundreds of civilians. Tehran responded with hundreds of missile and drone attacks targeting US and Israeli bases across the Middle East.
Iran has also reportedly targeted several major regional aviation hubs, including the Dubai International Airport in the UAE – the world’s busiest – where damage and casualties were reported, as well as sites near international airports in Bahrain, Kuwait, and Iraq.
Following the escalation, Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, and the UAE announced partial or total airspace closures, forcing flight suspensions, cancellations, and diversions.
Kuwait's Public Authority for Civil Aviation says a drone targeted Kuwait International Airport, causing injuries and damage to one of the terminals.
Spokesperson Abdullah Al-Rajhi tells Kuna that the authorities immediately implemented emergency procedures, dealing with the… pic.twitter.com/a7vVkp7iMX
More than 3,400 flights have been canceled across seven major Middle Eastern airports on Sunday, according to flight tracker Flightradar24, affecting hundreds of thousands of passengers.
Emirates, Etihad and Qatar Airways – three major Gulf carriers that typically handle about 90,000 passengers daily – canceled roughly a third of their flights, according to aviation analytics firm Cirium.
Dubai Airport has turned into a massive waiting room
The difference between any other airport and Dubai is, atleast 40-50% of the people at the airport are for Transit (meaning Dubai is not final destination)
Numerous international airlines also canceled Gulf routes through the weekend as civil aviation authorities designated much of the Middle East as a high-security risk zone.
Air France, Lufthansa, KLM, Air India, and others suspended regional operations from at least March 3–7. FlightAware reported more than 19,000 global flight delays due to the Middle East crisis as of 2:30 am GMT on Sunday.
Russian carriers, including Aeroflot, also canceled or rerouted flights, and suspended services to Tehran, Dubai, and Abu Dhabi. According to the Association of Tour Operators of Russia (ATOR), about 8,000 Russian tourists have been stranded abroad while returning from vacations after missing Middle East connections. Rosaviatsia has been coordinating alternative routes to avoid Israel and Iran.
Analysts warn that the disruption is inflicting heavy financial losses on airlines and hotels, as well as travelers. Several airlines issued waivers and pledged to cover accommodation, meals, and rebooking for stranded passengers. However, multiple travelers have posted footage of overcrowded airports across the region on social media.
The crisis also disrupted shipping and cruise operations. MSC Cruises, TUI, and Celestyal canceled or suspended departures amid missile and drone activity. Container traffic through the Strait of Hormuz was halted or rerouted after Iran’s Revolutionary Guard issued warnings that no vessels are permitted to pass, although no formal blockade has been officially declared by Tehran. According to shipping analytics firm Linerlytica, about 170 containerships are currently inside the strait and facing restrictions on exiting.
The ‘decapitating’ strike against Tehran has triggered a succession process, but perhaps not the succession crisis it aimed for
The past 24 hours have given Iran’s leadership transition a tangible shape, while also revealing how dangerously the very idea of “normal” is shifting in international politics. The death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in a joint US-Israeli operation against Iran is a demonstrative precedent, read across the Middle East as the legalization of a blunt principle – when power is sufficient, sovereignty can be suspended at will.
As a researcher of Middle Eastern politics, I cannot treat such actions as a “surgical strike.” They amount to the demolition of constraints that once, however imperfectly, made the international arena at least somewhat predictable. If the world’s leading military power and its closest regional ally signal that the physical elimination of a state’s top leader is an acceptable policy tool, then law becomes stage scenery rather than an organizing principle. The message is simple: rules apply when they serve the strong, and they can be set aside when they do not.
Against that backdrop, reports of a strike on a girls’ primary school in Minab, in southern Iran, have been absorbed with particular bitterness. For many across the Middle East, and for much of the Global South, the decisive issue is not the elegance of Western statements. It is whether there will be any clear moral judgment at all, or whether the tragedy will dissolve into cautious phrasing and familiar rituals of justification whenever responsibility falls on US allies. In a region saturated with grief and memory, silence is rarely interpreted as neutrality. It is read as hierarchy – as an unspoken ranking of whose suffering counts.
Ayatollah Khamenei was a man of a distinct era, defined by a long confrontation that Tehran consistently framed as resistance to Western expansion – efforts to shape the region from the outside and to impose an external architecture of security, politics, and values. For his supporters, he embodied the idea of an independent civilizational course, along with the conviction that Iran, and the Middle East more broadly, must retain the right to speak in its own voice even when that voice irritates Western capitals and clashes with their preferred definitions of what is “acceptable.” In this worldview, autonomy is not a slogan. It is a shield against absorption, a refusal to become merely a theater in someone else’s global story.
In moments like this, emotion risks becoming policy. The loss of a figure of this scale will not be experienced only as a political development. For many Shiite communities beyond Iran’s borders, it will register as a symbolic wound – one that can sharpen anti-Israeli sentiment and widen the line of confrontation with the West. This is not merely a function of propaganda. It is also a function of the region’s collective codes, its deep archive of humiliation and resistance, and the reflex of reciprocal action that often activates faster than diplomatic calculation. When political violence is framed as public theatre, it does not remain contained. It travels – through sermons, through street talk, through family histories, through the subtle arithmetic of vengeance that turns outrage into recruitment.
Yet the central question is not only the symbol. It is the mechanism.
The pattern of strikes and the framing of the campaign are widely interpreted as an attempt to deprive Iran of “mind and head” by systematically removing the upper tiers of decision-making. The strategic wager is clear – disrupt succession, provoke elite fragmentation, and paralyze governance at the very moment the state is most vulnerable. This is the classic logic of decapitation, betting that the state will buckle under pressure during transition. But those who imagine Iran as a structure held up by one man underestimate the degree to which the Islamic Republic has been built for siege conditions. Over decades of sanctions, covert action, and external threats, it developed institutional redundancies and continuity mechanisms precisely to survive shocks. In systems that have lived under permanent threat, succession planning is a survival mechanism.
This is why one development must be placed squarely within the larger picture. Reuters reports that Ayatollah Alireza Arafi has been appointed as the jurist member of the leadership council tasked with temporarily carrying out the supreme leader’s duties. This is not a trivial personnel note. It is a signal that the system intends to leave no vacuum even under bombardment, and to lock in a transition framework that Iran’s constitutional logic provides – a temporary leadership arrangement that functions until the Assembly of Experts makes a final decision.
Politically, Arafi’s selection reads as an assertion of manageability. He is the type of figure rooted in Qom’s clerical milieu while simultaneously embedded in the state’s institutional circuitry. When external actors wager on disorganization, the appearance of a specific name in the jurist seat of the interim council acts like a rivet – fastening the frame in place, limiting improvisation, and narrowing the space for panic.
The interim council, of course, is not the permanent supreme leader. Still, it shapes how the crisis phase will be lived – who controls the agenda, who guarantees legal and religious continuity, and who, by virtue of position and relationships, can mediate between the security apparatus and the clerical establishment. In that sense, it influences which succession pathways become more plausible, which coalitions can form, and which rivalries are forced into containment rather than open rupture.
This makes discussion of potential successors more than idle speculation. It is part of understanding why the strikes appear designed to thin out the senior echelon. The logic of pressure is to eliminate not only a symbol, but the environment capable of producing and stabilizing a successor. Regime change by decapitation is rarely only about one head. It is about preventing the body from finding another.
Despite the opacity of Iran’s internal process, several clusters of names recur in international reporting and analysis. The most frequently mentioned possibility remains Mojtaba Khamenei, the late leader’s son, long discussed as a potential heir. The advantage of such a scenario would lie in line continuity and already-existing networks of influence – in the ability to reassure key constituencies that the strategic course will not abruptly fracture. The risk is equally obvious. Any whiff of hereditary succession is ideologically awkward for a republic born in opposition to monarchy, and politically volatile at a moment when elites need the option least likely to trigger internal fractures or invite a legitimacy crisis. Even sympathetic supporters of the system can be sensitive to the appearance of dynastic drift, particularly in a revolutionary state whose founding myth is anti-dynastic.
Another name that surfaces is Hassan Khomeini, the grandson of the Islamic Republic’s founder. The symbolic capital of the Khomeini name remains immense. Selecting him could be read as an effort to stitch a traumatized political fabric back to the revolution’s original source of legitimacy – a move that anchors continuity not in bloodline to the departed leader, but in lineage to the founding moment itself. Yet symbolism alone does not substitute for governing capacity, especially when the overriding test is to hold the state together under direct military pressure. In wartime, institutions often gravitate toward figures perceived as administrators of survival rather than narrators of memory.
Among clerical candidates associated with institutional legitimacy and oversight, international coverage has mentioned Sadeq Amoli Larijani, Ahmad Khatami, and Mohsen Araki – figures tied to the machinery that confers religious-legal validation on political choices. The appeal of such candidates lies in preserving doctrinal continuity and the established architecture in which juristic authority anchors the state’s ideological spine. They represent, in different ways, the stabilizing function of “the institution” – continuity of method, continuity of vocabulary, continuity of the rules by which the system legitimizes itself. In that light, the appointment of Ayatollah Arafi as the jurist member of the interim council is consequential. It shows that the system is already relying on his institutional weight during transition, turning him from a “name on a list” into part of the operating core at the very moment when operational cores matter most.
There is also a category of figures who may not necessarily become supreme leader, but can decisively shape the power configuration around whoever is chosen. One prominent example is Ali Larijani, described by Reuters as a re-emerging heavyweight and a potential power broker in the post-Khamenei moment. In crises, such operators become nodes through which elite bargains are stitched together, internal discipline is maintained, and external channels are managed. They do not always seek the throne. Often they seek the lever – the ability to structure the field in which the throne is occupied. The more an adversary tries to knock out the system’s “brain,” the more valuable these brokers become as organizers of continuity.
Finally, hovering over every succession scenario is the security establishment – above all the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. External assessments cited by Reuters suggest that the aftermath may produce not dilution but consolidation, an intensification of a hardline posture and a greater role for structures oriented toward security and resistance. This matters because in wartime, elites typically prioritize governability and mobilizational efficiency over abstract reform. That is why a campaign of targeted eliminations is perceived not simply as punishment, but as an effort to sever the state’s nervous system and force it to operate blind.
And yet there is a paradox. Strategies of decapitation frequently yield an inverse effect. The heavier the pressure, the higher the probability of accelerated consolidation, tightened ranks, and a harsher “survival mode” politics. The rapid institutionalization of an interim leadership arrangement, along with the appointment of Ayatollah Arafi as its jurist member, functions as an illustration of that impulse toward continuity rather than confusion – a signal that the state intends to remain legible to itself even if it is being rendered illegible to outsiders.
Khamenei’s death will be experienced as a profound loss of a leader of a particular time and stature. For Shiites across the region, it may become a powerful trigger for deepened confrontation with the West and heightened anti-Israeli sentiment. Yet for Iran’s internal political history, another point is equally decisive. The symbol is immense, but the system has always been larger than one person. That is why it will adapt, rebuild its center, and select a successor through its own mechanisms – precisely because the alternative is disintegration, and disintegration is not an abstract concept. It is the unravelling of ordinary life.
The gravest danger in the current US and Israeli course is that the attempt to “finish Iran” by eroding governability and disabling institutions may open the door to a future drenched in blood and ruin. The modern history of the region has repeatedly shown that dismantling a state from the outside rarely yields a clean outcome. More often it unleashes cycles of violence, fragmentation, and revenge – paid for not by decision-makers, but by ordinary families, neighborhoods, and children. Even those who imagine that collapse will deliver liberation tend to discover that the vacuum does not remain empty. It fills with militias, with vendettas, with economies of predation, with leaders who rise not because they can govern, but because they can hurt.
Politics contains no immaculate actors, and the world is not divided into the perfectly virtuous and the irredeemably evil. But there is a difference between complexity and arbitrariness. There is a difference between rivalry among states and a practice in which the strong arrogate to themselves the right to decide who may live, who may govern, and which institutions may be broken in pursuit of someone else’s strategic design. The more often power demonstrates that law is “not for them,” the more quickly it corrodes the very foundations of the order it claims to uphold – and, in time, it corrodes the credibility of the power itself.
Old leaders leave the stage and become part of history. That is the law of time. Yet alongside individuals, eras also pass – eras that once felt permanent. Just as personalities become textbook chapters, so too will hegemony, the habit of exemption, and the belief in a right to rewrite the fates of nations. The more insistently the US and its allies display impunity, the sooner they bring closer a moment when their dominance is no longer perceived as a natural state of affairs, but as a dangerous anachronism – one that, like all anachronisms, will eventually recede into the past.
The shipment was ordered by President Vladimir Putin to address shortages caused by cyclones
Russia has delivered critical humanitarian aid to Madagascar, including around 60 tons of food, to support relief efforts after two consecutive cyclones, the Russian Embassy in the island nation has reported.
Last month, Madagascar was struck by two powerful tropical systems, Gezani and Fytia, in quick succession. Fytia hit on January 31, causing severe flooding in the northwest and central highlands, killing at least 14 and displacing over 31,000.
Gezani struck the eastern coast near Toamasina, the country’s main port, on February 10, devastating nearly 90% of infrastructure, killing at least 59, and leaving hundreds of thousands without shelter or clean water. The government declared a national state of emergency on February 14.
On February 19, Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed support for Madagascar during talks in Moscow with the country’s interim president, Michael Randrianirina, and directed the Defense and Emergency Situations Ministries to provide aid.
The handover ceremony was held at Antananarivo International Airport on February 27. Russia’s Ministry of Emergency Situations provided 60 tons of food – 30 tons of rice, 16 tons of red beans, and 13 tons of vegetable oil.
The Defense Ministry supplied six trucks, sugar, pasta, and sunflower oil. Two Mi-8 helicopters were also deployed to reach remote areas.
Footage released by Ruptly shows Randrianirina inspecting the equipment on the runway and attending the cargo handover ceremony alongside senior civilian and military officials.
At the event, Russia’s deputy head of mission in Madagascar, Aleksey Buryak, expressed solidarity with the Malagasy people.
“Providing assistance is a manifestation of the traditional relations of friendship and mutual support between our countries, as well as confirmation of Russia’s readiness to respond promptly to emergencies and assist partners in overcoming the consequences of natural disasters,” the diplomatic mission quoted Buryak as saying.
The latest shipment is at least the second since the storms hit, following last week’s delivery of an Mi-8 helicopter, trucks, and other supplies.
During last month’s talks in Moscow, Putin highlighted the broad scope of cooperation between Russia and Madagascar. Randrianirina expressed readiness to expand cooperation and “move to the next stage” in bilateral ties.
The US is doing Israel’s bidding with strikes on Iran that are unlikely to trigger regime change, Michael Maloof has told RT
The US-Israeli strikes on Iran are unlikely to trigger regime change and risk escalating into a wider geopolitical confrontation, former Pentagon security policy analyst Michael Maloof has told RT.
Washington and West Jerusalem launched what they described as a “preemptive” attack on the Islamic Republic after nuclear talks failed to produce a breakthrough, prompting retaliation from Iran. Tehran responded with missile and drone strikes targeting Israel and US military bases across the region.
In an interview with RT on Saturday, Maloof said the timing of the attack had likely been finalized during Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to Mar-a-Lago on February 12, despite President Donald Trump publicly insisting that negotiations with Tehran were ongoing.
“The United States has always done Israel’s bidding. Netanyahu basically controls Trump,” Maloof claimed, adding that the US president has effectively pursued the Israeli PM’s vision of “a greater Israel to encompass all the Arab countries.”
Trump openly declared his goal to force regime change in Tehran, but efforts to topple Iran’s government would face major obstacles, according to Maloof.
“Regime change is something that is going to be difficult, especially in Iran, where they’re very, very set. They have a government in place,” he said. Even with the killing of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps would likely keep the country functioning as a “cohesive nation-state.”
At the same time, he described the strikes as part of a broader strategic confrontation extending beyond Iran’s nuclear or missile programs, noting how the US president has been openly critical of BRICS and China’s Belt and Road Initiative.
“And Iran just happened to be a very critical component to that, with Russia and with China,” Maloof said. “I think Trump bit off more than he could chew on this one.”
“These attacks are gonna affect the whole economic world order, literally overnight. So we’re in for a long, hard slug here,” Maloof said, adding that “it’s easy to start a war, but [it’s harder to know] how to stop one.”
The country has an estimated 31 billion tons of recoverable reserves, according to Aleksandr Novak
Russia holds an estimated 31 billion tons of recoverable oil reserves – including proven deposits and volumes not yet ready for production – enough to last over 60 years at the current output rate, Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandr Novak has announced.
Novak made the estimate on Friday, during a working visit to the Sirius Federal Territory where he spoke to students on the oil industry, global trends, and Russia’s role in the sector.
“Today, our country ranks fourth in terms of recoverable oil reserves after Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Iraq. In terms of recoverable, profitable oil reserves, we have enough for 62 years at the current production rate,” he stated. He stressed, however, that this does not mean Russia will run out of oil in six decades, noting that additional volumes are added annually through exploration and drilling.
According to Russian estimates, only Iraq (19.6 billion tons), Iran (21.7 billion), and Saudi Arabia (40.9 billion) have larger reserves. Globally, commercial oil reserves total approximately 176.7 billion tons.
“The main goal is to ensure that our country has sufficient oil reserves for 30 to 50 years. Maintaining this balance is crucial. Therefore [we] are constantly drilling and searching for more oil,” Novak concluded.
Novak noted that oil accounts for 30% of the global energy balance and predicted that demand will remain strong in the near future, driven largely by transportation and petrochemicals. He earlier stated that Russia’s oil sector remains stable despite Western sanctions on the industry and accounts for about 10% of global crude output.
Russia currently operates around 3,500 fields, including on Sakhalin, the Arctic shelf, and in Eastern Siberia. Last month, Russian energy major Gazprom Neft announced the discovery of a new oil field on the Yamal Peninsula – the Kontorovich deposit – with estimated geological reserves at 55 million tons, the largest found in the region in three decades.
In Russia, fields with recoverable reserves of 30-300 million tons are classified as “large.” For most European states, however, a field the size of Kontorovich would be enormous. Many have far smaller total reserves than this single deposit. Poland’s recently discovered Wolin East field – considered the largest in Polish history and Europe’s biggest discovery of the past decade – holds only 22 million tons of recoverable reserves – less than half of Kontorovich.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has been “martyred,” state news agencies have announced
Iranian state media have confirmed the death of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in the ongoing joint US-Israeli strikes on the Islamic Republic.
Multiple news agencies, including Tasnim, Mehr, and Press TV, announced early on Sunday that the 86-year-old leader had been “martyred” in the attack.
“The Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed in a joint attack by the criminal America and the Zionist regime,” the official statement said.
“At the moment of the martyrdom, he was carrying out his assigned duties and was present at his workplace, when this cowardly attack occurred,” it added, rejecting claims by the “Zionist regime” that Khamenei had been hiding in a secure location.
“This great crime will never go unanswered and will mark a new chapter in the history of the Islamic and Shiite world,” President Masoud Pezeshkian’s office said in a statement, announcing 40 days of public mourning. “With full force and strength… we will make the perpetrators and commanders of this great crime regret their actions.”
Moscow has also condemned the assassination by stating that a “hunt” for the leaders of sovereign states goes against the very basic principles of civilized international relations. Russia resolutely condemns the practice of political assassinations, its Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
The confirmation came hours after conflicting reports about Khamenei’s fate. Earlier on Saturday, US President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social that “Khamenei, one of the most evil people in History, is dead,” following a statement by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that “there are many signs” the supreme leader “is no more.”
Netanyahu claimed that Khamenei’s compound was struck in a “powerful surprise attack,” vowing that “thousands of targets” in the Iranian leadership would be killed in the coming days and calling on Iranians to take to the streets and overthrow the government.
The strikes, which Washington and West Jerusalem described as a “preemptive” operation, targeted the Iranian leadership, as well as military and nuclear-related facilities. Trump said the attack was aimed at destroying Iran’s missile industry and navy, as well as forcing regime change in Tehran. Iran has since retaliated with missile and drone strikes against Israeli territory and US military bases across the Middle East.
Moscow condemned the operation, with the Russian Foreign Ministry describing it as a “premeditated and unprovoked act of aggression” aimed at toppling a government “they deem undesirable because it has refused to yield to the dictates of force and hegemonic pressure.”
While Russia and China criticized strikes on Tehran, many Western states responded cautiously and condemned the Islamic nation’s retaliation
Israel and the US conducted joint strikes on Iran on Saturday that killed Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and triggered retaliation from Tehran, plunging the Middle East into renewed conflict.
US President Donald Trump has called the operation necessary so as to protect the American people and prevent a threat from Tehran, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed that the attack was a “preemptive measure to defend national security.” The Iranian Foreign Ministry accused Washington and West Jerusalem of violating the UN Charter and vowed a strong response, drawing mixed global reactions.
United Nations
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned the strikes, saying that the escalation “undermines international peace and security” and risks pushing the Middle East towards a broader war. Guterres warned that failing to halt the violence could lead to “a wider regional conflict with grave consequences for civilians and regional stability.”
Russia
Russia’s Foreign Ministry condemned the US–Israeli strikes on Iran as a violation of international law and the UN Charter, warning that the attacks risk further destabilizing the entire region and calling for an immediate return to diplomacy. The ministry stressed that the attack is “a dangerous venture that is rapidly bringing the region closer to a humanitarian, economic, and, possibly, radiological catastrophe.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday expressed condolences over the assassination of Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in the strikes on the country.
Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of the Security Council, accused Washington of using nuclear negotiations with Tehran as a cover for subsequent military operations.
China
China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs urged for “an immediate halt to military actions” and appealed for “the resumption of dialogue and negotiations” to maintain regional peace and stability. It stressed that “Iran’s national sovereignty, security and territorial integrity should be respected.”
India
Indian Foreign Ministry urged “all sides to exercise restraint, avoid escalation, and prioritize the safety of civilians.” It added that “dialogue and diplomacy should be pursued as sovereignty and territorial integrity of all states must be respected.”
Brazil
The Brazilian authorities have condemned the US-Israeli attack against Iran stressing that they took place amid an ongoing negotiation process that is the only viable path to peace. Brasilia has urged for maximum restraint to prevent an escalation of hostilities and to ensure the protection of civilians and civilian infrastructure.
Africa
African Union head Mahamoud Ali Youssouf has called for restraint, urgent de-escalation and sustained dialogue.
“Further escalation risks worsening global instability, with serious implications for energy markets, food security, and economic resilience – particularly in Africa, where conflict and economic pressures remain acute,” he noted.
Yemen
Yemen's Houthi group said that attacks on Iran are part of a broader effort to undermine regional deterrence, warning that the United States and Israel would bear responsibility for the escalation and its impact on regional security.
Israel’s neighbors
Israel’s neighboring countries, including Lebanon and Jordan, criticized the escalation of violence in the region.
Lebanon’s Hezbollah has vowed to “confront aggression” exercised by US and Israel against Iran, while Lebanon’s Prime Minister Nawaf Salam has rejected the prospect of being dragged into war following the strikes on the Islamic Republic.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has condemned the Iranian ballistic missile attack on Jordanian territory, as well as attacks targeting UAE, Bahrain, Qatar and Kuwait, expressing the country’s “absolute solidarity” with the affected Gulf states.
Malaysia
The Malaysian Foreign Ministry has also strongly condemned the attacks, saying they violate the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity, as well as the prohibition against the use of force under the Charter of the United Nations and international law.
Pakistan
Pakistani Foreign Minister Mohammad Ishaq Dar condemned the “unwarranted attacks” and called for immediate de-escalation. “Islamabad strongly condemned the unwarranted attacks against Iran and called for an immediate halt to escalation through urgent resumption of diplomacy,” he said.
The European Union
The EU authorities have given an expectedly restrained comment on the issue, opting not to condemn the initial strikes by the US and Israel while sharply blasting Tehran for the subsequent retaliation.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Antonio Costa have called on all parties to exercise maximum restraint, to protect civilians, and to fully respect international law. Meanwhile, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas described the situation as “perilous” and emphasized the need for diplomatic engagement and de‑escalation.
Britain
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said that while Britain was “not involved in the initial strikes on Iran,” it has eventually agreed to a US request to use British bases for “defensive” raids to destroy Iranian missiles “at source.”
Starmer framed London’s military support of the joint US-Israeli attack as strictly “defensive,” insisting that it does not want the crisis to escalate into a wider conflict while emphasizing that the UK “stands ready” to protect its interests in the region.
Germany
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz emphasized that Berlin remains closely aligned with its European partners. In a joint statement with France and the UK, he condemned Iranian military actions in the region and called on Tehran to cease destabilizing attacks. Merz highlighted the urgent need for diplomacy.
France
French President Emmanuel Macron described the situation as highly dangerous for international peace and security, warning that the recent escalation risks broader conflict. He called for an urgent meeting of the UN Security Council to address the crisis and emphasized the need to protect civilians.
Italy
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni underscored her commitment to regional stability and the safety of Italian citizens in the Middle East. Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani stressed the protection of Italian nationals, offering consular support and potential evacuations where necessary, while the government expressed solidarity with affected Gulf states and condemned Iranian attacks on them as unjustifiable, advocating for continued diplomatic engagement to reduce tensions.
Spain and Norway
Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and Norway’s Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide took a more critical stance, warning that the US–Israeli strikes on Iran further escalate tensions and undermine international law. Eide noted that “a pre-emptive strike” would require an imminent threat, while both leaders called for restraint and renewed diplomatic efforts to resolve the conflict.
Global protests
Across multiple regions there have been significant public demonstrations in response to the strikes on Iran. In the Islamic Republic, tens of thousands of people took to the streets to mourn the killing of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and to condemn the attacks, with many protesters calling for revenge and denouncing the US and Israel’s actions.
Internationally, pro‑Iranian and anti‑war rallies took place. Iranian diaspora communities held demonstrations in cities including Berlin and Dublin to support the US and Israeli attacks, while elsewhere people turned out to demand peace and an end to foreign intervention in Iran. Additionally, anti‑American protests erupted in Pakistan and Iraq, where crowds demonstrated outside US diplomatic missions, sometimes leading to violent confrontations with security forces.
Republicans broadly support President Donald Trump while Democrats criticize his “major combat operation” as an undeclared war
US President Donald Trump’s unilateral decision to launch strikes against Iran has met a mixed response in Congress, as lawmakers are split over the issue, mostly along party lines. Democrats are now seeking to stop the campaign under the 1973 War Powers Act.
The US and Israel launched the attack on Saturday, with Trump openly stating that the operation was aimed at bringing about regime change in Iran to eliminate “imminent threats” to the American people. The attacks have killed over 200 people, according to the Iranian Red Crescent Society. Tehran responded by launching retaliatory strikes against targets in Israel as well as US bases across the Middle East.
Iran called the attack a blatant violation of its sovereignty. Russia and China condemned it as an “unprovoked act of aggression.” The UK, France, and Germany criticized Iran’s retaliatory strikes on neighboring countries, stopping just short of endorsing the US and Israeli actions.
‘Decisive action’
High-ranking Republicans in Congress have lined up behind Trump, commending his decision as a necessary step. Senate Majority Leader John Thune accused Iran of refusing to engage in diplomacy and stated that the president was thwarting “threats” allegedly coming from Tehran.
Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee Roger Wicker hailed what he called a “decisive action” and one of the “hardest decisions” taken by Trump, referring to the strikes as “a pivotal and necessary operation to protect Americans and American interests.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson said the Trump administration had briefed the ‘Gang of Eight’ – a group of eight congressional leaders who are legally required to be informed about classified intelligence issues – on the strikes earlier this week, while talks with Tehran were still ongoing. He nevertheless claimed that Washington “made every effort” to pursue a peaceful solution, stating that Tehran was facing “severe consequences for its evil actions.”
‘Another endless and costly war’
Democratic leaders in the House and the Senate criticized Trump for not being transparent enough about the operation’s goals and strategy, arguing that it could turn into a new endless war. They also called for invoking the 1973 legislation limiting the use of the armed forces without congressional approval.
“The American people do not want another endless and costly war in the Middle East,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement, arguing that the Trump administration “has not provided Congress and the American people with critical details about the scope and immediacy of the threat.”
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries maintained that, even though Iran “must be aggressively confronted,” the White House “must seek authorization” from Congress for the operation, which “constitutes an act of war.”
Senator Jack Reed, a ranking member of the Armed Services Committee, accused Trump of thrusting the US “into a major war with Iran,” with “no endgame” and “against the clear wishes of the American people.” He also vowed “rigorous oversight” of the operation.
This is not ‘America First’
Democrats are now seeking a vote on a resolution aimed at removing US military forces “from unauthorized hostilities in the Islamic Republic of Iran.” It was originally introduced by Representative Thomas Massie – one of the few dissenters in the Republican camp – last summer, when Washington joined West Jerusalem in another bombing campaign against the Islamic Republic.
The resolution is based on the 1973 War Powers Act, which limits any military action lacking congressional authorization to 60 days. It also introduced a mechanism for Congress to force presidents to immediately terminate any unauthorized deployments. The lawmakers would still need two-thirds majorities in the House and the Senate to override a presidential veto.
Democratic Representative Ro Khanna urged the House to convene on Monday to vote on the resolution. Jeffries said in his statement that House Democrats were “committed to compelling a vote” on the issue. Massie took to X on Saturday to express his opposition to the strikes and vowed to work with Khanna to “force” a vote on the resolution. “This is not ‘America First’,” he wrote.
Article 1 of the US Constitution gives Congress, not the president, the power to declare war. Trump defended his decision by claiming that the goal of the operation was to protect the American people by eliminating “imminent threats from the Iranian regime.”
Tehran has consistently denied seeking nuclear weapons, insisting its program is for peaceful purposes, even as it boosted its uranium enrichment to 60% purity after Trump unilaterally abandoned the 2015 nuclear deal. The UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, as well as US intelligence chief Tulsi Gabbard, also stated last year that there was no evidence Tehran was working on a nuclear weapon.
The Tasnim and Mehr news agencies claimed the Iranian supreme leader is “steadfast and firm in commanding the field”
US President Donald Trump has said he believes that Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is dead. In a post on Truth Social, Trump wrote “Khamenei, one of the most evil people in History, is dead.”
Trump’s claims follow a statement by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that signs are increasingly indicating that the Iranian supreme leader had been killed. Khamenei’s compound was struck in a “powerful surprise attack,” and “there are many signs” that he “is no more,” Netanyahu said.
Iran’s Tasnim and Mehr news agencies previously reported that the supreme leader is “steadfast and firm in commanding the field.”
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he is “not in the position to confirm” the claim.
Israel and the US attacked the Islamic Republic on Saturday, with Trump calling the strikes a way to “raze their missile industry” and navy, as well as to force regime change in Tehran. Iran retaliated with missile and drone strikes against Israeli targets and on US military bases in the Middle East.
Netanyahu added that “thousands of targets” in the Iranian leadership will be killed in the coming days and called on Iranians to take to the streets and overthrow the government.
Earlier on Saturday, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told NBC that Khamenei was alive.
“Almost all officials are safe and sound and alive. We may have lost one or two commanders,” he said.
West Jerusalem is reportedly working to wipe out the top figures in Iran’s government and security services, according to Axios.
Concurrently, Washington’s strikes are mostly focused on the country’s missile program, the outlet wrote, citing a senior US official.
Moscow has condemned the operation and warned that it could further destabilize the entire region.
Washington and West Jerusalem’s attack is a “premeditated and unprovoked act of aggression,” aimed at toppling a government “they deem undesirable because it has refused to yield to the dictates of force and hegemonic pressure,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Saturday.
From regime change ambitions to oil markets and missile arsenals, the experts explain what lays in store for Washington and Tehran
As the United States and Israel launch a military operation against Iran on February 28, 2026, global attention turns to the Middle East, where the stakes could not be higher. Analysts and experts from Russia are weighing in, offering a wide range of perspectives on the strategic calculations, potential consequences, and risks of escalation. From regime change ambitions to Iran’s military capabilities, from oil markets to the broader geopolitical fallout, these voices provide a nuanced look at a rapidly unfolding crisis.
Fyodor Lukyanov, Editor-in-Chief of Russia in Global Affairs:
Trump has delivered a full-blown ultimatum to the Iranian leadership – in effect, a declaration of war until the objective is achieved, with maximalist aims that extend all the way to regime change. Apparently, he has concluded that the risks – including potential losses – are acceptable (something he had hesitated over before), and that success would yield decisive strategic gains: a final reshaping of the Middle East in the interests of Israel and the United States.
A military campaign of this scale, launched without the consent of Congress, runs counter to the US Constitution. In the case of Iraq, Congress granted authorization for the use of force in advance. Nothing of the sort has happened here. If it’s all in, then it’s all in – a bet on a swift and spectacular outcome.
Andrei Ilnitsky, military analyst and member of the Presidium of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy:
It is crucial to understand that the operation unfolding around Iran rests, from the outset, on a false strategic premise. Let us fix the baseline at the moment the United States entered the active phase of its campaign: Iran neither posed nor poses a direct military threat to the United States. The picture with Israel is more complicated, but as far as Washington is concerned, the threat emanating from Tehran is close to zero. That is not rhetoric; it is a sober assessment of the balance of capabilities and intentions.
Moreover, Iran has repeatedly signaled its willingness to engage in substantive negotiations, including on the nuclear issue – the most sensitive file of all for Tehran.
Now consider a hypothetical scenario of maximum success for the architects of the strike: the clerical regime is dismantled and Iran’s military potential is largely destroyed. What strategic dividend does the side that launched the war actually collect? The level of security – regionally and globally – remains the same or, more likely, deteriorates. Why?
Iran, an authoritarian but legitimate state of roughly 90 million people with a certain degree of behavioral predictability, disappears. In its place emerges a vast gray zone of post-conflict chaos: loss of territorial control, fragmentation of armed formations, economic collapse, political radicalization, institutional decay, social fracture, and the risk of sectarian and ethnic violence.
The United States and its allies are neither prepared nor capable of sustaining a long-term occupation and administering a territory of that scale. The most probable trajectory, therefore, resembles Libya or Afghanistan in the second decade of the 21st century: erosion of state institutions, the rise of competing armed groups, the export of instability, and the long-term radicalization of the broader macro-region.
A counterargument is possible: that precisely such managed chaos is the objective for a segment of the American elite. In the tactical and medium-term horizon, that approach could indeed yield tangible gains – higher energy prices strengthening the US oil and gas sector and energy flows under American control from other producers such as Venezuela; disruption of global supply chains and a slowdown of the Chinese economy; energy and economic stress in Europe; and domestic political capital for the sitting administration ahead of midterm elections.
Yet any such payoff would be overwhelmingly tactical – a Pyrrhic victory. Strategically, triggering such a scenario would become another accelerant in the disintegration of the Western-led order in its current configuration.
No faction within today’s American establishment possesses the institutional bandwidth, managerial competence, or internal cohesion required to ride and channel the chaos that would follow in a direction aligned with US interests.
It bears emphasizing that all of the above assumes an unambiguous success of the US military operation against Iran – a success that is far from guaranteed.
The bottom line is straightforward: we are witnessing a classic case of prioritizing short-term tactical and domestic political gains at the expense of long-term strategic stability. That path leads, inevitably, to strategic defeat for the initiator – a defeat for which not only Donald Trump and his administration would bear responsibility, but one that could inflict lasting damage on Western civilization as a whole.
For Russia and other actors aligned with us, the prudent response is clear: do not abandon Iran in its hour of need, but do not allow ourselves to be pulled into the vortex of the conflict. Stay the course and pursue our own strategic line.
Tural Kerimov, international affairs journalist and specialist in Middle Eastern and African studies:
The Israeli and US strike on Iran did not come as a surprise to Tehran. Surprise is a decisive variable in any war, but this time neither the Israelis nor the Americans managed to catch the Iranians off guard.
Iran had been actively preparing for an attack and for the aggression it anticipated. There were no illusions in Tehran that the negotiations with Washington would yield anything favorable. On the contrary, the United States was advancing conditions that were clearly non-starters: a full renunciation of enriched uranium, severe restrictions on enrichment activities inside Iran, the dismantling of existing stockpiles, the effective gutting of the country’s missile program, and a wholesale revision of its current foreign policy. Iran predictably rejected those demands.
Donald Trump has framed the primary objective as preventing Iran from entering the “nuclear club.” At the same time, the US president has repeatedly suggested that the optimal outcome would be a change of power in the Islamic Republic. In Tehran, there is no ambiguity about this: the core purpose of the operation is not the nuclear file or the missile program, but the dismantling of the constitutional order.
Under those conditions, Iran – confronted with what it sees as an existential war for its survival – will deploy every instrument and capability at its disposal. There is a high probability that within the next 24 hours the Middle East could slide into a regional war on a scale not previously witnessed – with unpredictable consequences and the potential for a massive ecological, humanitarian, and economic crisis. The fallout would reverberate across the Persian Gulf states and the broader Middle East alike.
Dmitry Novikov, associate professor at the Higher School of Economics:
Trump’s official address on the military operation against Iran contains nothing fundamentally unexpected. That said, two points stand out.
First, the issue of objectives. In essence, two goals were laid out. The first is regime change. The opening portion of the speech is devoted to cataloging the alleged crimes and malevolence of Iran’s ruling elite, portrayed as an inherent threat to US national security – “terrible people who do evil.” Trump stopped short of explicitly declaring “de-ayatollahization” as the formal objective of the campaign, limiting himself to the broader assertion that the regime is an enemy and therefore a target. Understandably so: the end state here is highly ambiguous, while the KPI is easy to verify. One only has to look at who holds power in Tehran. If it is the same leadership, then by definition the objective has not been achieved. Still, regime change is clearly articulated as a political objective – maximalist, albeit framed implicitly.
The second officially proclaimed objective is military: the destruction of Iran’s military capabilities – “missiles, missile industry, naval forces” – in order to deprive the regime of the capacity to inflict damage on the United States and its allies (read: Israel). This goal is stated openly and formally because it is more concrete, to some extent more attainable, more intelligible to the general public, and – crucially – harder to falsify. At virtually any point, it can be asserted that sufficient damage has been inflicted on Iran’s military power and that, therefore, the military objective has been met. Victory declared. In other words, this framing builds in a potential exit strategy. It reflects the administration’s desire to control the scope of the conflict and prevent it from escalating into something Washington can no longer manage.
Achieving the military objective can, of course, serve the political one. The idea – as before – is to demonstrate Tehran’s weakness and helplessness in the face of overwhelming American and Israeli power, thereby exposing the bankruptcy of the current leadership’s entire political course. What was the point of all those nuclear programs and missile projects – along with the sanctions damage, military expenditures, and economic stagnation that accompanied them? This time, however, the price of staging such a demonstration may prove higher than it was last summer.
That brings us to the second notable point. Trump is openly acknowledging the acceptability of potential losses, effectively preparing voters for American casualties – potentially significant ones. There appears to be recognition that this operation will not be sterile or bloodless, at least not from the American side, as some previous actions were portrayed. At the same time, what level of cost Trump considers acceptable is likely unclear even to him in the present moment. He will act situationally, relying heavily on instinct.
Dmitry Novikov
Tigran Meloyan, analyst at the Center for Strategic Studies at HSE:
The early-morning US-Israeli strike on Iran signals a decapitation strategy. The initial strikes targeted Iran’s military-political leadership, not solely its military infrastructure. The operational concept appears to be phased: initial missile strikes aimed at command structures and air defense systems, including southern Iranian sites like Chabahar, clearing the way for subsequent air operations against missile installations and other strategic targets.
Iran’s response, in turn, was extraordinarily swift. Reports indicate missile launches occurred within hours, striking Tel Aviv and Haifa. Another key distinction: Iran expanded the confrontation beyond Israel. There are reports of strikes on targets in Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE, Kuwait, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia. Tehran is following through on its promise to hit all US bases in the region. It appears that in this new, large-scale Middle Eastern flare-up, control over escalation may already be slipping.
Overall, the world has once again seen firsthand that using “negotiations” as cover for “sudden attacks” has become standard American practice – making it genuinely unclear why anyone should fall for it in the future.
Ivan Bocharov, Middle East specialist and program manager at the Russian International Affairs Council:
The current US-Israeli operation against Iran is likely to be more extensive than last year’s twelve-day conflict in June 2025. Whereas those strikes were targeted and focused primarily on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, this time energy facilities, transport hubs, and ports could come under attack. Such a campaign has the potential to sharply worsen the country’s socio-economic situation, which already faces issues including electricity shortages.
The goal for Washington and West Jerusalem appears to be provoking internal collapse within Iran.
Iranian authorities, however, prepared for this scenario in advance. According to some reports, Tehran arranged for deliveries of long-range air defense systems, missiles, and fighter jets from China and Russia. The leadership has also set up a system to rapidly replace top military commanders in case they are eliminated.
At the same time, Iran’s response will be limited by its capabilities. While Tehran may strike Israel and US bases, its retaliation will be asymmetric – substantial enough to cause damage, but not on the scale of a conventional counteroffensive.
It seems unlikely that the conflict will spiral into a full-scale regional war. This is a dispute between specific states, and other actors are unlikely to be drawn in. Even the activity of Iran-aligned groups in Lebanon, Yemen, and Iraq is expected to remain limited.
Nonetheless, the escalation is already creating risks for global oil markets and could impose significant economic costs across the region. The situation in the Middle East is undoubtedly becoming even more unstable.
Trump’s true objective – and that of those pushing him toward war with Iran – is not a “nuclear deal 2.0.” He criticized Obama’s first deal even before winning the 2016 election, and upon taking office, he immediately tore it up. The real aim – and Trump himself does not hide this – is regime change in the Islamic Republic. Theocratic rule is supposed to give way to a secular, Western-oriented government – for example, a figure like Reza Pahlavi. This is an infinitely more complex undertaking than simply dismantling Iran’s nuclear program. It cannot be accomplished with precision “Tomahawk” strikes or bombings of sites like Fordow and Natanz.
The IRGC – the regime’s main military pillar, reporting directly to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei – commands at least 200,000 well-trained fighters. Iran also maintains a fleet of hundreds of fast-attack boats specialized in mass strikes in the Persian Gulf, along with 3,000 to 6,000 naval mines capable of temporarily closing the Strait of Hormuz. Shutting the Strait – a critical artery of global trade, through which roughly 31% of seaborne crude oil and about 20% of global LNG shipments pass daily – would send shockwaves through the entire hydrocarbon market.
During recent exercises on Tuesday, February 17, Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz for several hours. The global oil market reacted instantly: on February 18, prices jumped 4.5%, and continued climbing on Thursday, reaching a six-month high. In the event of a full-scale conflict and a complete closure of the strait, oil prices could spiral entirely out of control. That would derail Trump’s plan to deliver gasoline at $2 per gallon to American voters by July 4 – a key move to boost Republican prospects in the November elections.
Conflict with Iran is undeniably a politically risky move for the president, especially ahead of the midterms. Trump has vowed not to drag the United States into new foreign wars – a promise embedded in his America First agenda. On the other hand, a significant portion of his electorate supports aggressive use of US military power abroad, particularly against “theocratic Iran” – recent polls suggest this is nearly half of his base. Success could allow Trump to hit a political jackpot and deliver strong results for Republicans in November. Failure, however, would strike not only him and his administration but the entire party. That is precisely the nature of this all-in gamble: risking everything on a single hand.
Ivan Timofeev, program director of the Valdai Club:
A month ago, we assessed a strike on Iran as a high-probability scenario — the kind you’d hope turns out to be wrong, but isn’t.
Beyond many other factors, the attack on Iran is significant in terms of combining sanctions with military force. A few observations:
Sanctions plus military strikes – a standard foreign policy toolkit: Iraq, Yugoslavia, Syria, Venezuela.
Iran has withstood sanctions remarkably well for nearly fifty years (since 1979). Precision military operations haven’t broken it either.
The current calculation seems to be that, against the backdrop of internal problems, military strikes might finally collapse the political system. Even if that doesn’t happen, Israel and the US will still achieve material damage to Iran’s industry and a setback to its nuclear capabilities. They don’t want to repeat the North Korea scenario, where nuclear weapons were acquired.
Iran will respond – including with missile strikes. Apparently, Washington and West Jerusalem consider the cost tolerable and are confident the damage will be manageable.
The same goes for risks to oil transit in the Persian Gulf. Iran could, in principle, mine the Strait of Hormuz and temporarily disrupt tanker traffic. That risk, too, appears to be deemed acceptable.
The bet is on a lightning-fast operation: “strike and see.”
Oil prices are very likely to rise. That’s obvious.
For Russia, the “sanctions-plus-military-strike” logic is, for obvious reasons, highly relevant – which brings us back to the purpose of Poseidons, Burevestniks, and other weapons systems.
The unprovoked aggression by Israel and the United States against Iran – carried out against the backdrop of ongoing peace talks – sends a damaging message: concessions have little value if the decision to attack has already been made regardless of the negotiations’ outcome. The concessions Iran made on the final day before the strikes were, in fact, quite substantial. Under such conditions, negotiations cease to be a mechanism for peaceful resolution and instead become a prelude to aggression. Peace itself stops being treated as an absolute value.
Much has already been said about the crisis of the UN system and international law. Yes, we have no alternative framework through which states recognize each other’s interests in preserving peace. And no, another system is unlikely to emerge under current conditions – unless some catastrophic global crisis, akin to a third world war, forces a reset. The present aggression against Iran may well mark the final point: the old UN-centered system is now definitively a thing of the past, shattered along with the Charter-based legal order that underpinned it. Should we contribute to that destruction by withdrawing from the UN? I see no sense in it. Perhaps one day a third world war will restore the alliance’s functionality. For now, Trump has effectively buried it.
Israel has played a familiar role. It has long been described as an unsinkable US aircraft carrier anchored in the Middle East. This time, clearly relying on a robust intelligence footprint inside Iran, Israel stepped forward as an initiator because it believes victory is within reach – unlike last summer’s twelve-day war, when Israeli victory was, to put it mildly, far from obvious. The time since the summer of 2025 has been used by the US and Israel to attempt to undermine Iran’s leadership and to identify potential defectors inside the country – figures they may now be counting on. Tehran, for its part, faced the difficult task of rooting out this “fifth column,” which had already shown signs of activity during the unrest in December and January.
The conflict is already spreading. Strikes on targets in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Bahrain carry significant risks for Iran’s leadership. It is worth recalling that in recent months Saudi Arabia and the UAE had pushed back against Washington’s military plans toward Tehran. These attacks on Arab neighbors will undoubtedly be used to dispel any lingering skepticism in Riyadh, Abu Dhabi, Manama, and even Doha – although Qatar had traditionally shown the greatest degree of “understanding” toward Iran, sometimes at the expense of its relations with Saudi Arabia.
The aggression by Israel and the United States against Iran – a threshold nuclear state with missile delivery systems, a domestic space program, and hypersonic weapons – raises a painful question for us: is this operation also a test case, a trial run for waging war against a nuclear-capable state, especially if that state is first weakened economically, militarily depleted, and destabilized internally?
Under conditions of aggression against our strategic partner, we are fully within our rights to transfer air and missile defense systems to Iran – and to point to the precedent of American transfers of such systems to Ukraine. There is no reason to be shy about this; it should be viewed as part of our obligations. These are defensive weapons. They pose no threat to our other regional partners.
Finally, aggression against our strategic partner – and the considerations outlined above – inevitably raises the question of how negotiations over Ukraine, and any US-mediated peace process, can proceed under these circumstances.
Iran’s retaliatory strikes – now targeting not only sites in Israel but a broad array of US military bases in Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia – could, in a less-than-obvious way, work to Russia’s advantage in the conflict in Ukraine.
During the Twelve-Day War in June 2025, nearly all Iranian ballistic missile strikes were directed at Israel, which relies primarily on the Arrow 3 and THAAD missile defense systems, and to a lesser extent on the Patriot air defense system.
Even then, the Pentagon was forced to temporarily suspend shipments of certain batches of surface-to-air missiles to Ukraine due to significant depletion of its own stockpiles. Intercepting hundreds of Iranian missiles requires an even greater number of interceptors for missile and air defense.
Now, however, Iranian missile strikes are being countered by countries hosting US bases, protected primarily by MIM-104 Patriot systems using PAC-3 interceptor missiles capable of engaging ballistic targets. This has already led to far more intensive use of those systems.
As is well known, Patriot systems equipped with PAC-3 interceptors are in service with Ukraine and represent, in practical terms, Kiev’s only real shield against Russian ballistic missile strikes. In recent months, Ukrainian officials have repeatedly complained about “critically low” stockpiles of these interceptors and irregular deliveries, with President Zelensky acknowledging that shipments often arrive in small batches and are thrown into combat almost immediately.
Another Middle Eastern conflict now exacerbates the problem. If exchanges with Iran drag on for days or even weeks, the United States will be compelled to prioritize supplying interceptors to defend its own bases and regional allies rather than Ukraine. After all, up to 75% of Patriot missiles supplied to Kiev are procured through the PURL mechanism, under which European countries purchase US-made weapons for Ukraine. The issue will no longer be funding, but the objective inability of American manufacturers to meet simultaneous demand across multiple theaters.
The longer this continues, the greater the risk that Kiev could be left on a near-starvation diet – forced to plead not just for additional batches of missiles, but for every single interceptor. And the fewer PAC-3 interceptors and additional Patriot launchers Ukraine receives, the more Russian ballistic missiles will reach their targets, degrading Kiev’s defensive capacity and economic resilience.
London and Paris are plotting to secretly help Kiev build a nuclear device, according to Russia’s foreign intelligence service
The UK and France are planning to arm Ukraine with a nuclear weapon to ensure its conflict with Russia is not settled in US-backed peace talks, senior Russian diplomat Gennady Gatilov told RT in an interview on Friday.
Earlier this week, Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) accused London and Paris of plotting to transfer the necessary components, technology, and equipment needed to develop a nuclear weapon or so-called ‘dirty bomb’.
The plans were specifically timed to undermine the trilateral Russian-US-Ukrainian peace talks, according to Gatilov, Russia’s permanent representative to the UN Office in Geneva. He argued that Kiev’s Western European backers have been increasingly “angered” by Russia’s advances on the battlefield.
“This period was certainly not chosen by chance… there were truly important trilateral negotiations taking place,” he said.
The UK, France and Ukraine’s other European sponsors were “essentially sidelined… which is causing them discontent, extreme discontent,” he said.
I think this was an attempt to increase their role in this process, and thus continue to encourage the Ukrainians, the Ukrainian regime, to continue military action.
The diplomat cited the example of the failed 2014-2015 Minsk Agreements, which were ostensibly intended to reconcile the post-coup government in Kiev with anti-Maidan forces in Ukraine’s east. Germany and France were guarantors of the accords. Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel and former French President Francois Hollande later admitted that the accords had been exploited to stall for time and allow Kiev to rearm.
According to Gatilov, from the early stages of the Ukraine conflict, France and the UK have played an “important role” in turning the country into what he called an “anti-Russia project.”
When asked if the alleged nuclear handover plot by London and Paris would strengthen Kiev’s negotiation position in the peace talks, the diplomat said no.
“Any attempt to strengthen Ukraine’s position by supplying it with a dirty bomb or any other components will not lead to any results,” he said. “On the contrary… this will worsen the political situation and complicate the search for a political solution to the problem.”
The attacks could lead to a humanitarian, economic, and potentially nuclear catastrophe, the Russian Foreign Ministry has said
The US and Israeli strikes against Iran are a “premediated and unprovoked act of aggression,” the Russian Foreign Ministry has said in a statement, warning that it could have dire consequences for the Middle East and the entire world.
Washington and West Jerusalem launched the attack on Saturday, with US President Donald Trump stating that the operation is aimed at destroying Iran’s nuclear program and bringing about regime change in Iran. Tehran responded with retaliatory strikes against targets in Israel as well as US bases in the region.
Moscow is calling on the UN and its nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, to give an impartial assessment of the “reckless actions aimed at disrupting peace, stability and security in the Middle East,” the ministry’s statement said. The actions of Washington and West Jerusalem are pushing the region towards “a humanitarian, economic and potentially nuclear catastrophe,” it warned.
According to Russia, the US is seeking to eliminate the leadership of a nation that has resisted forceful pressure and hegemonism. The strikes came after indirect nuclear talks in Geneva between Tehran and Washington ended inconclusively on Friday and amid a massive US military buildup in the region.
The attack could also have dire consequences for the global non-proliferation regime, the Russian ministry stated, adding that it could lead to “uncontrolled escalation” in the Middle East and elsewhere, as nations around the world will rush to acquire more destructive arms in a bid to protect themselves.
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov discussed the strikes in a phone call with his Iranian counterpart, Abbas Araghchi, on Saturday. He urged an immediate halt to the strikes and said Moscow is ready to provide diplomatic assistance. Araghchi thanked Moscow for the support.
President Vladimir Putin called a National Security Council meeting over the developments, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists on Saturday.
The attack has drawn criticism around the world, including from the US and Western allies. France and Spain called it a risk to global security. China demanded an immediate halt to the strikes.
Login
