Mikhail Ivanovich Ulyanov, Russia’s representative to international organizations in Vienna, made comments to Iran’s state media, IRNA, indicating that Moscow supports diplomacy as the “only way to reach an agreement with Iran over its nuclear program.”

Simultaneously, Moscow is “dismissing” the US’s threats against Iran. That means that Russia hopes to insert itself in any kind of indirect talks between Tehran and Washington.

A Russian diplomat said that Moscow wanted to see “professional negotiations far from any threats and provocative blackmailing.”

This comes as Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian recently spoke with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and claimed that Iran does not want war with any country.

Russia’s foreign affairs tactics

Russia has done this before. In fact, all the way back in the lead-up to the Iran deal in 2015, Russia was able to also leverage its influence to get the US to dial back tensions with Moscow to get the deal. At the time, US President Barack Obama’s administration obliged Moscow.

Russia thus leverages its influence and is also able to wield power over Iran and the US in this manner by seemingly putting its hand on the line linking Iran to a nuclear weapon.

Moscow can then use this to influence a potential deal in Ukraine.

Reports over the last month have indicated that Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, has been tapped into Russian and also potential Iranian talks. He was also influential in getting the ceasefire deal in Gaza.

“We are definitively opposed to any US threats of using force against Iran, let alone threats of military action against [Iran’s] nuclear sites. We condemn such policies.“Russia has always believed that the only solution to Iran’s nuclear program is through diplomacy,” Ulyanov said on Saturday, IRNA noted.

It’s important that Iran’s state media is highlighting this because it has often highlighted Moscow’s comments in recent weeks. This is part of Iran’s message to Moscow that it is relying on Russia to basically run interference on its behalf.

“We are now facing a paradox,” Ulyanov added. He noted that Trump had withdrawn from the Iran deal during his first administration.

Trump’s first administration also began a campaign of maximum pressure, targeting Iran with sanctions. The second Trump term has sought to continue sanctioning Iran.

However, it is also open to talks. Iran says it does not trust the US but might consider indirect talks. It appears that Iran will need to decide within the next month what it will do.

“What we are witnessing now is that the US administration has escalated tensions and resorted to military threats and pressure. Yet Trump continues to claim that he wants an agreement,” Ulyanov said.

IRNA noted that he added, “If Trump really wants to reach an agreement with Iran, the only viable way is through diplomacy – not threats or use of force.”

Meanwhile, the Iranian leader of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps also said that Iran is ready for war but that Tehran does not want to initiate one. This is the same message coming from Iran’s president and other Iranian state media.

“We are ready for both psychological warfare and military action by the enemies, but we will not retreat a single step if that happens,” IRGC head Maj.-Gen. Hossein Salami told commanders on Saturday.

The IRNA added that “he warned that adversaries, operating under false assumptions about Iran’s deterrence capabilities, are attempting to corner the nation into choosing between confrontation or submission to their terms.”

“We are not worried at all. We will not start a war, but we are ready for it,” Salami said, according to the news outlet.

Pezeshkian said that the United States’ actions contradicted its calls for negotiations with Iran in another comment reported by IRNA. “Pezeshkian made the remarks during a meeting with the minister of science, research and technology and his deputies in Tehran on Saturday,” it reported.

The Iranian president noted that “the Islamic Republic wants dialogue from an equal position” that does not combine the desire to negotiate with Iran on the one hand and the need to threaten it on the other,” per the IRNA.

Further, it said that Pezeshkian rejected the US “maximum pressure” campaign.

How to deal with US President Donald Trump has become Tehran’s primary concern, the official continued.

“Every meeting is dominated by discussions about him, and none of the regional groups we previously supported are being discussed,” the Telegraph quoted the official as saying.

Iran reportedly ordered its military personnel to leave Yemen, leaving the Houthis to fend for themselves as the US continues attacking Houthi military assets.

The reason behind the move was to avoid a direct confrontation with the US if an Iranian were killed in Yemen, the official stated.

“The view here is that the Houthis will not be able to survive and are living their final months or even days, so there is no point in keeping them on our list,” the official continued, as reported by the British news site.

“They were part of a chain that relied on [former Hezbollah chief Hassan] Nasrallah and [ousted Syrian president Bashar al] Assad, and keeping only one part of that chain for the future makes no sense.”

The Houthis in Yemen

Mahmoud Shehrah, a former Yemeni diplomat, said, according to the Telegraph, “After the collapse of Hezbollah and Assad’s regime, the Houthis are now on the front line and they have been conducting very intensive attacks – they are escalating and taking adventure because it makes their political life longer in Yemen, according to their own calculation.”

Shehrah alleged that when the Houthis received missiles and other equipment from Iran, they rebranded them with Houthi names because “they don’t want to show they have links with Iran because of domestic propaganda.”

According to him, the Houthis are not popular in Yemen. “Yemeni streets are full of anger – the Houthis are not paying salaries and have absolute taxation with zero representation so the social base for the Houthis is not very strong, that’s why they rely on the Gaza war.”

Regardless, the Houthis control Sanaa, print money, collect taxes, divert aid, smuggle drugs, sell weapons to terror organizations in Africa, and disrupt international shipping routes in the Red Sea, the Teleraph reported.

Additionally, Yemen’s mountainous terrain helps them hide their weapon stockpiles in caves and underground. “They are not experienced like Hezbollah but are more aggressive and more dangerous at the same time – Abdul Malik al-Houthi has an ambition of leading the axis of resistance,” Sherah said.