Since 2022, conflicts stretching from Eastern Europe to Gaza and the Strait of Hormuz have begun to form an increasingly interconnected arc of instability.
What once appeared as separate crises, from the Russia-Ukraine war to escalating hostilities involving Israel, the United States, and Iran, is now showing signs of convergence into a wider geopolitical confrontation.
Experts warn that the outbreak of war involving Iran could push these tensions into a more dangerous phase, particularly as Moscow and Tehran deepen their military, political, and economic cooperation, raising concerns that developments in Ukraine and the Middle East may increasingly influence one another.
“The Russo-Ukrainian war should be considered in the context of a wider conflict opposing Russia, China and their proxies versus the Western world. The same applies to the US and Israel’s war against Iran,” Densy Kolesnyk, a Paris-based political analyst, tells TRT World.
“The Iranians were helping the Russians in their war against Ukraine, the Russians are providing support to the Iranians, while the Ukrainians proposed to help the Gulf states with anti-drone technology and expertise. Therefore, the two conflicts can be considered as intertwined,” Kolesnyk says.
Moscow needs to support Iran because both are seen as part of the same anti-Western alignment opposing US dominance, the analyst says, who also serves as president of the MENA Research Centre.
However, he adds that Russia remains heavily preoccupied with the war in Ukraine and has little interest in significantly expanding Iran’s military capabilities, describing the Kremlin’s support to Tehran as “very limited.”
Other experts also view the West-versus-others dynamic as a key element in both conflicts.
They note that the rhetoric of some Iran war supporters, from US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth to Republican Senator Lindsey Graham and House Speaker Mike Johnson, has included religious references to justify their stance on Iran.
“The Iran war has opened a new front also for the Russia-Ukraine war. It seems like the war of the West against the anti-Western world,” Mohammed Eslami, a political scientist at European University Institute, tells TRT World.
Eslami also describes the current conflict as “the War of Ramadan” due to the timing of Israel-US strikes on Iran, which coincided with the start of the Muslim holy month, signalling that it has an ideological dimension as much as its connection with Eurasian geopolitics.
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But he also points out that Russia’s political and security ties with Israel prevent Moscow from full engagement in the Iran war.
“Not to mention that in case of Russia’s supply of advanced weapons to Iran, Israel also can supply to Ukraine and make Russia suffer more from the war,” Eslami says.
Russia, which has strong economic ties with Gulf countries, might also jeopardise its relationships with them if it becomes heavily affiliated with Iran, which has targeted oil-rich Arab states with US bases, according to experts.
However, Nikolay Mitrokhin, a researcher at the University of Bremen, says that Moscow’s support for Iran might not be limited to specific areas, offering specialists to Tehran for its nuclear programme as well as “conventional” weapons.
“There will undoubtedly be technological cooperation in the fields of missiles (especially ballistic missiles) and drones, and it is quite likely that there will be supplies of materials and even finished products,” Mitrokhin tells TRT World.
“This includes the same drones that have been modernized in Russia, the production of which has now reached mass scale.”
‘Two-way cooperation’
During the Ukraine conflict, while the US and its Western allies have supplied arms to Kiev, Iran reportedly supported Russia by delivering its Iranian Shahed 136 drones, which Moscow has used to target Ukrainian sites.
On the other hand, since the start of the Iran war, Moscow has reportedly helped Tehran target US bases and military assets by providing satellite imagery and intelligence along with other means, according to analysts and officials.
”We see that Russia is helping Iran with intelligence to target Americans, to kill Americans, and Russia is also supporting Iran now with the drones so that they can attack neighbouring countries and also US military bases,” EU High Representative Kaja Kallas said last week.
“These wars are very much interlinked,” she added, urging the US not to lose its focus on the Ukraine war as it engages in the Iran conflict.