View from Washington: Russia is the big winner in the Iran war

The longer the U.S. campaign against Iran continues, the more Russia’s position strengthens. The Ukraine peace process has been halted, and diplomatic efforts are essentially dead as Washington shifts its focus to the Middle East. Any future peace deal may have been postponed indefinitely, a strategic expert Andrew Michta writes.

Russia’s military window in Ukraine

As spring weather alters the battlefield landscape in Eastern Europe, Russia prepares for a major offensive against Ukrainian defenses. The Iran war has provided Russia with a windfall of revenue from higher oil prices, enabling it to expand and strengthen its military reserves.

Estimates indicate that Russia is gaining $150 million to $600 million per day from oil exports, and as the war continues, it will likely increase its take. Current estimates suggest Moscow has already received a windfall of between $1.3 billion and $1.9 billion from oil export taxes, following the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which drove up demand for Russian oil from India and China.

Russia’s influence operations surge

This year, Russian “indirect means” activism aimed at NATO has continued relentlessly. Putin’s goal is to exploit fissures in the transatlantic relationship, weaken NATO’s unity and the credibility of Article 5, and ultimately break the alliance apart.

Russia bets that if the Iran war continues, this spring could offer a rare opportunity for a breakthrough in Ukraine, as U.S. weapons stocks dwindle and fewer munitions — especially for air and missile defenses — are available to send to Ukraine.

If the Iran war escalates, the U.S. will use resources that would otherwise be allocated to other key regions, particularly Europe and Asia. Already, U.S. missile defense systems have been redeployed from Korea to the Middle East, and the current size of the U.S. military suggests it may not be able to fight two major conflicts simultaneously, even if they are regionally contained.

The fracturing of the Transatlantic alliance

The growing tensions in U.S.-European relations, driven by often ham-fisted rhetoric from the Trump administration, the failure to consult allies before the Iran war, and the frosty exchanges after Washington demanded Europe increase efforts to secure the Strait of Hormuz, have become a political advantage for Putin.

They have also fostered insecurity among European NATO allies, especially along the eastern flank, as even with the current serious commitment to rearmament, Europe will need about a decade to rebuild its militaries, and it will continue to depend on the United States to deter Russia.

Alliances are effective force multipliers when threat perceptions and national interests align, but also when there is enough trust that commitments will be honored — something that has been rapidly eroding in NATO in the past year.

Europe, increasingly less confident that the United States remains committed to its security and to the Washington Treaty obligations, presents Russia with an opportunity to blackmail its governments into political concessions regarding their future support for Ukraine.

The risk of a broader systemic collapse

System-transforming wars occur when key regional power balances can no longer be maintained. If the war in Iran continues to escalate and pulls the United States into a prolonged ground campaign, it will drain U.S. resources and give Vladimir Putin an opportunity to gain a strategic advantage in Europe, while effectively undermining what remains of the post-Cold War order.

As Russia has made clear through its Belarus forward-basing strategy, Moscow is not passive — it is actively positioning itself to capitalize on every window that the Iran war opens.

The deeper strategic logic behind Russia’s posture is now plain: the longer the United States is consumed in the Middle East, the more latitude Putin has to consolidate gains in Europe, undermine NATO cohesion, and rebuild the military capacity worn down by four years of war in Ukraine. Russia’s fossil fuel revenues are now rising at a pace that is directly financing that effort.

The EEAS threat report’s findings make equally clear that the information front is as active as the military one. Russia is not merely a bystander to this conflict. It is, by almost every measure, its biggest winner.

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