YouTube link here.

By Fred Weir, Christian Science Monitor, 1/24/24

With the war in Ukraine deepening Russia’s urgent need for weapons untouched by Western sanctions, Moscow is rapidly ramping up its relations with Iran, particularly through arms deals. And, in an unprecedented twist, the arms trade is two-way, with Iran supplying attack drones to Russia.

The two countries have nearly finalized their biggest arms deal in 30 years. Iran is selling drones to Russia that include new models that could greatly improve Russia’s offensive capability in Ukraine. Western reports say that Moscow is also negotiating to buy medium-range ballistic missiles of the new, highly accurate type that Iran has recently been firing at U.S.-linked targets in its own region.

Russia will reportedly supply Iran with its most modern Su-35 fighter planes, submarines, attack helicopters, and jet trainers, at an estimated price tag of $9 billion.

“The relationship between Russia and Iran has grown far more intense than anyone could have imagined a couple of years ago,” says Fyodor Lukyanov, editor of Russia in Global Affairs, a Moscow-based foreign policy journal. “Who would have ever believed that Iran could become a major arms supplier to Russia?”

Though Russia and Iran are often lumped together by Western commentators as natural allies, their relationship has developed cautiously and has often been vexed by significant differences. But Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and turmoil in the Middle East have created mutual needs that are driving a rapid improvement in their ties.

“There is no ideological component to Russo-Iranian relations,” says Andrei Fedorov, a former Russian deputy foreign minister. “It’s purely pragmatic, a bond of ‘brothers in arms’ created by the situation.”

Experts say that Iranian drones, and “swarm” tactics for using them, have helped transform Russia’s early inferiority to Ukraine in drone warfare into a dominant position. Though Russia has no need for ballistic missile expertise, it may be looking for more ammunition than its own factories can produce as it seeks to end the Ukraine war on its own terms.

The two countries have been de facto allies in Syria’s civil war over the past decade, although until recently Russia maintained good relations with Tel Aviv and looked the other way when Israel attacked Iranian assets inside Syria. Experts say that Russia still doesn’t want to abandon its relations with Israel, which have come under growing strain since the beginning of the war in Gaza.

“Neither Russia nor Iran are interested in a big war in the Middle East,” says Mr. Lukyanov. “Despite what they sometimes say, the Iranians are behaving quite cautiously, and the hope in Moscow is that things will not get out of hand.”

The economic ties go well beyond military hardware, with Iranian consumer goods, food products, and even automobiles making their appearance in Russian markets for the first time. In the longer term, the long-discussed North-South Transport Corridor, which would link Iran’s Indian Ocean ports with Russia’s sprawling railway system, is seeing real investment for the first time and could become a reality within five years, says Mr. Fedorov.

“Russia’s view of Iran is that it must be a key part of the post-crisis architecture of the Middle East,” he says. “Russian diplomacy works to that end.”

Tucker's first discussion since the Vladimir Putin interview. pic.twitter.com/t4O4NRYSV1

— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) February 12, 2024

Twitter video link here.

Carlson discusses his impressions of Putin and the city of Moscow, journalism, and what makes a reasonable or wise leader.

By Gilbert Doctorow, Website, 1/20/24

This evening’s Vesti broadcast on Rossiya 1 was all too typical of the narrowing horizons of prime time news programs. It opened with lengthy reporting on the devastation wrought in the city of Gorlovka, Donetsk oblast, by more than 20 incoming Ukrainian rocket artillery projectiles that struck residential apartments in the middle of last night, including from the U.S. made HIMARS system. One person was killed and a dozen more were hospitalized with various injuries.

The next news segment, substantially longer, was reporting from the front lines showing the incessant artillery and drone strikes that Russian forces are delivering near Gorlovka and elsewhere in the oblast at hardened Ukrainian defensive positions, at their infantry, artillery pieces and armored vehicles.

After that the news program moved on to reporting the disruptions to intercity traffic in central Russia due to heavy snowstorms and drifts that have shut down major highways. Truck drivers waiting out the storm were interviewed, as were the emergency workers who are supervising the snow removal and providing hot food to those in need.

From there the Vesti program shifted to commentary about today’s events at the Russian national exhibition (Forum) in Moscow’s VDNKh grounds. And of course there had to follow news about President Putin’s latest activities.

A cult of personality first appeared on Russian state television five years ago with the launch of the embarrassingly servile Sunday evening show entitled Moscow, Kremlin, Putin hosted by the youthful Pavel Zarubin, a protégé of Vladimir Solovyov and of state television news boss Dmitry Kiselyov. The cult has become ever more insistent now that the Russian electoral season is underway and every Vesti show has to give us a good dose of speeches and ribbon cutting ceremonies.

What is missing entirely from Vesti these days is international news. So it goes day after day in formulaic fashion. This, despite the fact that there is no shortage of hair-raising news from Gaza, from Iran and Pakistan, from the Houthi-U.S. confrontation in the Red Sea, among other global hot spots that Russians might just want to know about.

I do not mean to suggest that Vesti news has no merit. The military reporting from the field may be commended for giving the microphone to real Russian soldiers who are not propagandists but are speaking openly about their daily experience. Thus, we hear from the horse’s mouth that those manning the artillery who are firing with high accuracy at Ukrainian targets 37 km away, well behind the enemy lines, are obliged to move their artillery pieces within minutes of firing because there will be artillery counter strikes from the other side. This is a piece of information that puts in perspective the generalizations we in the West are told about how the Ukrainians are starved for ammunition and are firing 8 or 10 times fewer artillery projectiles daily than the Russians. It also tells us that Ukrainian reconnaissance via their own drones or otherwise is not that bad.

In criticizing Vesti I do not mean to suggest that Russian state television generally offers no information about the outside world. That you find in abundance on the talk shows Sixty Minutes and Evening with Vladimir Solovyov. Besides providing live reporting from Russia’s bureau chiefs in Berlin, New York and elsewhere, these shows draw heavily on Western news broadcasts about the major international developments of the day as well as about political events in the West: they feature video clips from CNN, Euronews and other international channels to provide material for analysis by their expert panelists. And those panelists often include area specialists on the Middle East, on China and Southeast Asia or in other topical regions who are given the microphone long enough to set out their broad concepts of what underlies the news at a serious intellectual level.

Both the aforementioned programs have deeply patriotic presenters, but they also strive for balance. True, Solovyov’s film clips and narratives from his almost weekly visits to the front extol the bravery and intelligence of the soldiers and officers with whom he meets. He sings the praises of the Russian military industrial complex, both state factories and the many private enterprises that have become suppliers of critical equipment. And yet he also gives air time to experts who explain at length why and how the Ukrainians may successfully continue the war for years in a defensive posture, so that it would be a grave mistake to be overconfident. This is precisely what I heard on Solovyov’s show this past Thursday. I rather doubt that Colonel Douglas Macgregor or Scott Ritter have lent an ear to these remarks. They should!

My intention is to demonstrate that Russia is a complex society which cannot be described in a useful manner by the simplistic words of infatuation or words of utter condemnation and vilification that predominate in U.S. and European reporting.

Reuters, 1/21/24

Russia’s state RIA news agency said on Sunday it had calculated that the West stood to lose assets and investments worth at least $288 billion if it confiscated frozen Russian assets to help rebuild Ukraine and Moscow then retaliated.

After President Vladimir Putin sent forces into Ukraine in February 2022, the U.S. and its allies prohibited transactions with Russia’s central bank and finance ministry, blocking around $300 billion of sovereign Russian assets in the West.

U.S. and British officials have worked in recent months to jumpstart efforts to confiscate Russian assets immobilized in Belgium and other European cities in order to help reconstruction in Ukraine, parts of which lie in ruins.

They hope Group of Seven leaders will agree to issue a stronger statement of intent when they meet in late February, around the second anniversary of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, three sources told Reuters on Dec. 28.

Russia has accused Washington of trying to strong-arm countries in Europe, where most of the Russian assets are, into signing up to similar measures, and the Kremlin has said that Moscow has a list of U.S., European and other assets that would be confiscated if Western countries press ahead.

RIA cited data which it said showed that direct investment by the European Union, the G7 nations, Australia and Switzerland in the Russian economy at the end of 2022 totalled $288 billion.

It said EU nations held $223.3 billion of the assets, of which $98.3 billion was formally held by Cyprus, $50.1 billion by the Netherlands and $17.3 billion by Germany.

It said the top five European investors in the Russian economy also included France with assets and investments worth $16.6 billion and Italy with $12.9 billion.

Among the G7 countries, it named Britain as one of the largest investors, citing data at the end of 2021 which showed British assets in Russia were worth about $18.9 billion.

It said the United States had $9.6 billion worth of Russian assets at the end of 2022, Japan $4.6 billion and Canada $2.9 billion.

Switzerland and Norway, which RIA said usually signed up to anti-Russian measures, had $28.5 billion and $139 million respectively at the end of 2022, it said, while data showed Australia had $683 million invested at the end of last year.

Reuters could not verify the data cited by RIA.