... disruptions. Iran now has a new political leadership, yet Tehran continues to resist. The results of the first round of the conflict suggest the following preliminary balance of gains and losses for the key participants.
Ivan Timofeev:
The Iranian Crisis and Russia: Seven Lessons
Israel
The country is at the forefront of the military operation against Iran. For Israel, the attack on Iran is a logical continuation of the long and irreconcilable struggle between the two countries. Israel has already achieved ...
... impoverishment of its population. Should Iran manage to endure this round of aggression, it is unlikely to be the last—unless the cost of the current invasion proves prohibitive for all parties involved. The situation offers several important lessons for Russia.
Ivan Timofeev:
Military Operation Against Iran: A Realistic Scenario?
Lesson 1: Sanctions are followed by the use of military force
The United States has imposed sanctions on Iran since the Islamic Revolution in 1979. While Iran has withstood ...
... culture of caution, which limits transparency and predictability, both of which are essential for deeper forms of economic integration. At the same time, security cooperation remains the only domain in which all major powers within the SCO such as China, Russia, and India can engage without compromising their strategic autonomy or national interests. For Russia in particular, this architecture is especially valuable. In a period of shifting regional alignments, the SCO provides Moscow with a reliable ...
... innocent lives but also sought to undermine Pakistan’s hard-earned gains against extremism. In the immediate aftermath, messages of solidarity poured in from across the world. Among the most significant was the strong and unequivocal condemnation by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who reaffirmed Moscow’s readiness to step up cooperation with Pakistan in countering terrorism.
This gesture was not simply symbolic. It reflected a steadily deepening partnership between Pakistan and Russia—two countries ...
Russia and India will likely have to exercise strategic patience again—a quality they both possess in abundance
Self-sufficiency in Russian-Indian relations has become commonplace over the nearly eighty years of their history. Both countries are major ...
No clear-cut global order is in sight in the near term, but India-Russia ties are suited for any kind of world order that eventually develops
As the India–Russia Strategic Partnership marks its 25
th
year, Russian President Vladimir Putin visited India for the 23
rd
Annual Summit—his 10
th
visit to New Delhi....
Valdai Discussion Club Report
The idea of new security architecture in Eurasia is becoming a key concept in Russia’s foreign policy. It was first outlined in the Presidential Address to the Federal Assembly in February 2024. [
1
] Later that year, it was included in the agenda of the Russian President’s summits with the leaders of China and India, discussed ...
... begun to play a significant role in international relations
Autumn is usually a busy season in the nuclear sphere, and 2025 was no exception. In October, NATO held its Steadfast Noon nuclear exercises, followed by the U.S. Global Thunder drills and Russia’s strategic nuclear forces exercises. Developments did not end there: against the backdrop of these exercises, Russia
announced
tests of the
Burevestnik
nuclear-powered cruise missile and the
Poseidon
nuclear-powered torpedo, as well as the ...
... Architecture: Five Questions and Five Answers
Regardless of what future visions for international security may hold, their starting point must be ending the ongoing wars. Multiple security hotspots exist worldwide today, but the most pressing threats to overall international security is the Russia-Ukraine conflict and the situation in the Middle East. Both crises, in terms of scale and impact, affect not only regional security but also global stability. They have caused divisions and confrontations among nations in international politics,...
Now restraint is giving way to deterrence
In early August, an official statement from the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs put an end to yet another potentially useful arms control instrument: the unilateral moratorium on the deployment of ground-based intermediate- and shorter-range missiles has been lifted. Why did this happen, and what ...