Russia keeps their proxy war cards close to the chest so it will probably be a long time before how much or little they helped Iran in the 2026 War. And that’s not new, just look at Korea. Soviet participation in their defense against the US was not officially admitted until the end of the Cold War, by either side.
The much bigger question I have seen virtually no discussion of is how this will impact Russian-American relations. Putin’s policy of extreme caution and non-escalation has gotten increasingly unpopular over time, and the evidence that such caution is even necessary has been feeble at best. Now that the US seems to be backing down from a war with Iran, which isn’t even a nuclear power, there really seems to be no basis for caution at all. The particularly damning point here is that the US not only did not attempt major ground operations, its carriers never once sailed within a thousand kilometers of the Iranian coastline.
If the US lacks the strategic resolve to push through a war to secure its position in the Middle East, which is the most important center of gravity in the American-led empire because the continental US itself, then it stands to reason they will back down in eastern Europe too. I see no reason why Russia could not deliver an ultimatum to withdraw all troops from its western flank and end Ukrainian military support or face the consequences.
There is the so-called “spirit of Anchorage” that has apparently appeased Russia for a whole year. In light of the supposed Iran peace resolution, Russian diplomatic spokesmen are still emphasizing good relations with the US. I can’t imagine why. I see no reason MAGA won’t get destroyed in the midterms, and even more destroyed in the 2028 general election, then they’ll be replaced by Democrats who are probably even more anti-Russian than they were two years ago. It might be logical to let Trump dither around in Ukraine to try to get them to agree to a settlement, but I wouldn’t bet on it working now.
Ian Kummer
I now have a new YouTube channel that I will use to upload videos from my travels around Russia. Expect new content there soon. Please give me a follow here.
Also feel free to connect with me on Quora (I sometimes share unique articles there).
This is completely off topic, and I apologize. But like Ian, and I on Quora. I can curate my feed of Quora answers and the content there is now pretty decent, but I also get sent the "Quora Digest" by email which is pretty much a sh–show of propaganda, with the occasional interesting answer.Anyway, this appeared in the Quora digest, and this is something:https://qr.ae/pFKqVrThe answers literally uses the ethnic cleansing of Germans from East Prussia to justify the ethnic cleansing of Arabs from Gaza.