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Translated by: Flutura Gashi-Mehmeti
- June 23, 2025 11:02
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Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei sent his foreign minister to Moscow on Monday to ask President Vladimir Putin for more help from Russia after the largest US military action against the Islamic Republic since the 1979 revolution over the weekend.
US President Donald Trump and Israel have publicly speculated about assassinating Supreme Leader Khamenei and regime change, a move that Russia fears could plunge the Middle East into chaos, Reuters reports.
While Putin has condemned the Israeli attacks, he has yet to comment on the US attacks on Iranian nuclear sites, although last week he called for calm and offered Moscow's services as a mediator on the nuclear program.
A senior source told Reuters that Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi would deliver a letter from Khamenei to Putin, seeking the latter's support.
Iran has not been impressed by Russia's support so far, Iranian sources told Reuters, and the country wants Putin to do more to support it against Israel and the United States. The sources did not provide details on what kind of help Tehran wanted.
The Kremlin has said Putin would receive Araqchi, but has not announced what would be discussed.
Araqchi was quoted by the state news agency TASS as saying that Iran and Russia are coordinating their positions on the current escalation in the Middle East.
Russia, a longtime ally of Tehran, plays a role in Iran's nuclear negotiations with the West as a veto-wielding member of the UN Security Council and a signatory to a previous nuclear deal that Trump abandoned during his first term in 2018.
But Putin, whose military is fighting a major war in Ukraine now in its fourth year, has so far shown little interest in engaging in a confrontation with the United States over Iran, while Trump seeks to mend ties with Moscow.
