Russian President Vladimir Putin received strong support from Iran on Tuesday for his country’s war against Ukraine. Arch-conservative spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said AP that the West is against an “independent and strong” Russia.
If Russia had not sent troops to Ukraine, it would face a NATO attack later on, said Khamenei, who is increasingly strengthening ties with Moscow. Both Russia and Iran face drastic Western sanctions. NATO allies are bolstering their military presence in Eastern Europe and providing Ukraine with weapons to help fend off the Russian attack.
If NATO had been given free passage, this organization would not have recognized any border and demarcation, Khamenei told Putin. If Moscow had not acted first, it would have had major consequences, according to the Iranian leader. NATO would then have “started a war” to bring the Crimean peninsula back under Kyiv’s control, he said. Russia captured Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.
In Tehran, Putin also spoke with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan about the conflict in Syria. Also discussed was a UN-backed proposal to resume Ukrainian grain exports to alleviate the global food crisis. Putin’s visit to Iran is his second foreign trip since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February.
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