Of all the parties watching the chaos in the Middle East unfold, one should be rubbing its hands together with particular satisfaction. Russia has not fired a shot in this conflict, lost no allies it cannot afford to lose and has so far gained rather a lot, with more to come. A cynic might call it the perfect war for Vladimir Putin.

Moscow’s public reaction has been characteristically theatrical. The Foreign Ministry denounced American and Israeli actions as a “reckless step” and a “dangerous adventure.” Things have gone no further. There has been no announcement of political or military support for Iran from the Kremlin – nor is there likely to be: Russia needs its drones and missiles for Ukraine. In any case, Iran’s military usefulness to Moscow has already passed: they have already mastered and indigenized Iran’s Shahed drone technology so Tehran is no longer needed as a supplier. Bilateral trade between the two countries amounts to a modest $5 billion, mostly agricultural goods that can easily be sourced or sold elsewhere. The loss of Iran as a partner worries the Kremlin very little.

What the Kremlin does care about is money – and here the Middle East crisis has been unexpectedly generous. Oil prices for Russian crude have climbed from under $40 a barrel in December to around $72 in the past week and are rising, first on expectations of war and then as tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz ground to a halt. This is already well above the $59 baseline built into the Russian Finance Ministry’s 2026 budget – a welcome development given that January’s oil and gas revenues fell to a four-year low of 393 billion roubles ($4.97 billion), and........

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