By Ana By Nils Adler
Analysts say that Moscow could offer a ‘lifeline’ in troubled times, but logistical issues and costs of new trade routes would offer little long term incentives.
As Iran stares down the economic consequences of a prolonged blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, attention is shifting north.
With Gulf shipping lanes disrupted and oil exports constrained, Tehran may seek to depend less on the Gulf and more on a patchwork of railways, Caspian ports and sanctions-era trade networks linking it to Russia. The importance of that relationship was underscored this week when Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi travelled to St Petersburg for talks with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, praising Moscow’s “firm and unshaken” support as the two sides discussed the war, sanctions and the future of the Strait of Hormuz.
But could Moscow really offer a lifeline for Iran’s beleaguered, war-torn economy, and would it even want to? We spoke to experts to find out.
Increasing but modest bilateral trade
Economic relations between Iran and Russia deepened after the US withdrew from a 2015 nuclear deal with Iran and other nations in 2018 and reimposed sweeping sanctions on Tehran.
Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 served to accelerate that trend as both countries found themselves increasingly cut off from the Western financial system. They turned to sanctions-evasion networks, alternative payment systems and non-Western trade corridors to keep goods, energy and money flowing.
Current trade is dominated by agricultural products – especially wheat, barley and corn – alongside machinery, metals, timber, fertilisers and industrial inputs. Tehran has also supplied Russia with low-cost Shahed drones, which Russia updated and has been using in its war on Ukraine.
“Trade turnover reached $4.8bn last year [2024], but we believe that the potential for our mutual trade is much greater,” Russian Energy Minister Sergey Tsivilyov told an intergovernmental commission on trade and economic cooperation between Moscow and Tehran in 2025. Bilateral trade is reported to have increased by 16 percent during that period, driven largely by Russian exports of grain, metals, machinery and industrial goods.
But experts say that despite this increase, the overall trade relationship remains relatively modest compared with Iran’s trade with China or the Gulf countries. Trade between the two is “not substantial, because both countries are producing almost similar products and the industries are similar”, Mahdi Ghodsi, an economist at the Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, told Al Jazeera…
Does Moscow want to help Iran?
Most analysts say throwing an economic lifeline to Iran is not in Russia’s interests. “They’ve got their own economic problems,” John Lough, head of foreign policy at the New Eurasian Strategies Centre, told Al Jazeera, pointing to signs of stagnation inside Russia, pressure on reserves and growing frustration over the prolonged war in Ukraine. While Moscow could offer symbolic support or limited humanitarian assistance, “now is not a good time” to invest in Iran, he said, referring to the US-Israel war on the country.
Replacing maritime trade with overland routes would be extremely difficult, despite years of discussion about alternative corridors linking the two nations, he said.
It also won’t necessarily help Iran’s economy, which needs all the export revenue it can get, experts say.
“Much of Iran’s economy revolves around the sale of oil, and with that blocked or prevented by the American blockade, Russia really can’t help in that regard”, Hashemi said.
Others are more optimistic, however. Source: aljazeera.com
