Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov defended Iran's retaliatory military strikes as legitimate self-defense and mocked the US-Israeli coalition's expectations of a swift victory, while offering Moscow's services as a mediator.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has publicly defended Iran's recent retaliatory strikes against Israel and US assets as a legitimate act of self-defense. According to statements circulated by Qatari state-owned Al Jazeera and Iraqi channel NAYA - NAYA (which maintains a strongly anti-US and anti-Israel editorial stance), Lavrov asserted that Iran is in a state of self-defense and is rightfully "targeting the military facilities of the state that attacked it."
Lavrov's comments come in the midst of an unprecedented regional war that began earlier this month with Operation "Epic Wrath," a massive US-Israeli campaign aimed at neutralizing Iran's military and nuclear capabilities. Following the assassination of Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei during that campaign, Tehran launched a severe retaliatory barrage of missiles and drones against Israeli cities and American regional bases.
The Russian Foreign Minister also directly mocked the strategic calculations of the architects behind the initial strikes on Iran. As reported by the pro-Iranian Lebanese network Al Mayadeen and the Palestinian outlet QudsN, Lavrov stated: "If the countries that planned the attack on Iran expected to occupy the country within 24 hours, they now realize the extent of their mistake."
Despite aligning closely with Tehran's narrative of the conflict, Moscow is simultaneously positioning itself as a potential peacemaker in the escalating crisis. Al Mayadeen Breaking highlighted Lavrov's announcement that Moscow is "ready to play a mediation role in the Iranian crisis if necessary."
The prompt contains a slight contradiction in its boilerplate instructions, asking for an English digest in several places but mentioning 'When translating to Hebrew' in the Translation Fidelity section. I adhered to the primary requirement to write the digest entirely in English. The source channels uniformly echo Lavrov's quotes without added commentary, indicating widespread Arabic media amplification of Russia's diplomatic backing of Iran.