Russia is trying to help Iran kill Americans. Ukraine is trying to help the United States and its allies defend against Iranian drones. The difference between the two could not be starker.
According to a report in the Washington Post, Russia is providing intelligence information to Iran to target U.S. forces in the Middle East. As the Institute for the Study of War noted, “Iran may not have regular access to high-quality satellite imagery, even from commercially available sources, and may be relying on Russia to get such imagery. Russian intelligence sharing, thus, may be supporting Iranian strikes on U.S. military assets.”
In contrast, the Pentagon is now seeking to secure Ukrainian capabilities against Iranian drones, assistance Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has made clear his country is ready to provide. Ukraine has developed relatively inexpensive defensive systems against Russian-Iranian drone attacks, with a reported as high as 90% interception rate, in combination with other tactics.
What’s happening between Russia and Iran should remove any doubt that Russia under Vladimir Putin is one of the gravest threats to the United States and its allies in the world today. It shouldn’t have taken Russian aid to Iran to have realized this. Supporting Ukraine and defeating Russia and Iran are in U.S. national security interests and would deliver a blow to the dangerous China-Russia-Iran-North Korea axis, known as CRINK.
Zelenskyy understands better than anyone the danger posed by Russian-Iranian collaboration, and that is why he has voiced support for U.S. action against Iran, even though Ukraine needs every weapon at its disposal to use against Russia. His willingness to help also comes despite the fact that the United States for the past year has virtually zeroed out its assistance to Ukraine.
Putin’s full-scale of invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 created the worst security crisis on the European continent since World War II. Putin and his forces grossly violated Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. They have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity. And Putin has repeatedly rejected efforts by the Trump Administration to end the war that he started.
On top of that, Russia has launched cyberattacks against the United States and its allies, severed undersea cables important to Western communications, violated NATO allies’ airspace with military jets and drones, and assassinated Putin critics in places like Germany and the United Kingdom.
Soon after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Iran provided significant assistance to Moscow, especially the provision of Shahed drones that inflicted real damage on Ukraine’s military and civilian areas. Without that Iranian support, Russian forces would have suffered even greater setbacks than they did in their poorly executed invasion. Those Shahed drones are now being used against American targets in the Middle East.
Even as Zelenskyy has signaled a willingness to help the United States, Russian officials have widely criticized U.S. actions in the past week. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has bashed the United States for violating Iran’s sovereignty and territorial integrity – the very violations Russian forces are guilty of against Ukraine. That Russia is reportedly providing intelligence aid to Iran so that Iranian drones and missiles can kill Americans should wipe out any goodwill Americans may have had toward Putin and Russia.
To date, U.S. officials have not condemned Russia for its support for Iran. Over the weekend, Trump downplayed Russian aid to Iran, saying “They’d say we do it against them, wouldn’t they? Wouldn’t they say that, we do it against them?” In an interview with Politico last week, Trump criticized Zelenskyy, not Putin, for being the “obstacle” to getting a deal done with Russia in the war that Moscow started.
It takes two to strike a deal, and despite Trump’s claim that “Putin is ready to make a deal,” there is zero evidence to back such a statement. On the contrary, Putin over the past year ramped up his missile and drone attacks against Ukraine at the same time as the Trump Administration was seeking to end the war. Last year, Trump’s first year back in office, proved to be the deadliest for Ukrainian civilians since the start of the full-scale invasion, with civilian casualties up 31% from 2024. That’s Putin’s doing, not Zelenskyy’s.
As the Bush Institute has noted before, Russia is, was, and will remain the problem and threat. And now it’s siding with Iran against the United States while Ukraine is siding with us.
Helping Ukraine will be more complicated, however, as American weapons purchased by European allies for Ukraine are instead being used in the U.S. campaign against Iran. This situation bolsters the need to ramp up America’s military production to sustain multi-front conflicts, including in other theaters like the Indo-Pacific.
Disturbingly, some in the United States argue we should side with Russia, not Ukraine, in the war Moscow started. They might want to rethink their arguments as Russia now helps Iran target Americans while Ukraine unambiguously stands with the United States. It’s vital that America distinguish friend from foe.
