Russia has condemned the U.S. strike that killed Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani while offering condolences to Iran in a move that’s sure to heighten animosity between Washington and Moscow.
French President Emmanuel Macron and Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke over the phone on Friday about the situation in Iraq after the strike in Baghdad that killed Soleimani, who headed the powerful Quds Force and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps—a designated foreign terrorist organization.
“We consider the killing of Soleimani as the result of an American missile strike in the vicinity of Baghdad to be a bold step that will lead to increased tension throughout the region. Soleimani was devoted to protecting Iran’s national interests,” RIA, a state-run news outlet, quoted the Foreign Ministry as saying.
The reaction highlights Iran’s and Russia’s close relationship after the two nations forged ever more ties in its four-year military alliance in Syria, where Moscow and Tehran have come to the aid of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad.
In May of last year, Kathryn Wheelbarger, the acting assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs, warned that Iran and Russia were both attempting to gain more influence over the Middle East that will adversely affect U.S. interests in the region.
As noted by VOA, Russia was also at odds with the Trump administration’s abandonment of the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement. In the meantime, Moscow was working with Germany and France to get around U.S. sanctions.
“The last hopes for resolving the problem of the Iran nuclear program have been bombed to shreds,” said Konstantin Kosachev, the head of the Foreign Affairs Committee in Russia’s upper chamber, in a statement. “Iran can now push forward its nuclear program, even if it wasn’t planning to,” added Kosachev.