Initial Reactions from Russian Government to Assassination of Iranian Military Commander

This compilation is courtesy of Russia Matters, a project of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Kennedy School at Harvard:

  • Russian President Vladimir Putin and French President Emmanuel Macron have expressed concern over the killing of Soleimani by U.S. forces during a phone call on Jan. 3. “Both sides have expressed concern over the death of Commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ Quds Force Q. Soleimani in a U.S. missile strike at the Baghdad airport,” according to the Kremlin press service. (TASS, 01.03.20)
  • “We regard the killing of Soleimani as a result of an American missile strike on the outskirts of Baghdad as a reckless step which could lead to a growth of tensions across the region,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said. (RFE/RL, 01.03.20)
  • “We have encountered a new reality—the murder of a representative of the government of a sovereign state, an official in the absence of any legal grounds for these actions,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said. (Interfax, 01.03.20)
  • The killing of Soleimani will lead to an escalation of military-political tensions in the Middle East, negatively affecting the global security system, the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement Jan. 3. The ministry has highlighted the contribution of Soleimani to combating the Islamic State in Syria. (TASS, 01.03.20)
  • By killing Soleimani, the U.S. ruined any hope for resolving the problem around the Iranian nuclear program, chairman of the Russian Federation Council’s Foreign Affairs Committee Konstantin Kosachev has said. “The last hopes for resolving the problem of the Iranian nuclear program have been bombed. Iran can now accelerate production if of nuclear weapons, even if it has not been planning to do so,” Kosavhev wrote on his Facebook page.  Kosachev has called the killing “the worst-case scenario.” (The Moscow Times, 01.03.20, Interfax, 01.03.20, Kosachev’s Facebook page, 01.03.20)
  • “The Americans have crossed the ‘red line,’ and this time the consequences can be most serious,” chairman of the Russian State Duma Foreign Affairs Committee Leonid Slutsky said. (TASS, 01.03.20)