“Lavrov backs Tehran, but does Russia also gain from the US-Iran crisis?”

Russia’s main oil tax is set on the previous month’s oil price, so a price jump shows up in the budget a month later. Brent, used in the boxes below, is the global benchmark oil price.

• Spring: the jump. Reuters, 9 April: Russia will see revenue from its biggest single oil tax double to $9 billion in April, from 327 billion roubles in March to around 700 billion. The revenue is up by some 10% from April last year. Reuters called it some of the first concrete evidence of a windfall, and added: there are limits on the windfall for Russia. The piece writes the projection in the past tense: the tax had roughly doubled.
• Summer: the dip. Urals, the main blend of oil that Russia exports, fell back to $63 per barrel in June and $60 in July (Moscow Times, 1 September). For January to July, oil and gas taxes came in an extra 127.6 billion rubles over the budget’s projections. The same Moscow Times article says: Russia’s windfall looks surprisingly meager.
• The year so far. Russia’s Finance Ministry, via Interfax, 9 October: January to September oil and gas revenue fell 17.2% year-on-year to 5.471 trillion rubles, that is, against the same months of 2025. The total is still above the budget-rule baseline of 5.306 trillion. The budget deficit is 5.186 trillion roubles against 3.786 trillion planned. In September, the state’s payments to oil refiners consumed the entire additional revenue from the mineral extraction tax, Russia’s main oil tax (The Bell, via Ukrainska Pravda).
• Autumn: back up. The oil price used for tax averaged $92.10 in September, up from $67.10 in August. The Finance Ministry expects October oil and gas revenue to exceed the baseline by almost 290 billion rubles (Moscow Times, 5 October).
• Which comparison fits? “Down 17.2% on last year” compares 2026 with 2025. And 2026 started low: Urals averaged $44.59 in February, before the war, against the $59 the budget assumed (Reuters). “Above baseline” compares the year with the level set under Russia’s budget rule. Neither number shows what Russia would have earned with no war.

Brent figures for late February, 30 April and 1 July come from a compiled market chronology (Wikipedia), not a primary price feed. The Monday close is from a Reuters-based report.

The large quotes below come from the Russian Foreign Ministry’s English summary and Russian transcript of the 19 October press conference with Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s foreign minister. They are Moscow’s own record of what was said.

1. On whether Russia gains · not in the piece

   “Some claim that Russia supposedly benefits from the crisis in energy markets. Prices are rising, they say, and we are supposedly ‘rubbing our hands’ and filling our coffers … President Putin has repeatedly stressed that we have no interest in price volatility, with prices swinging up and down.”

   Lavrov also said: As a responsible state, Russia wants stability, including stable prices. TASS, Interfax and Vedomosti carried these remarks. Lavrov’s answer addresses price swings. It does not say whether Russia gained.

2. Support · the piece says Lavrov “pledged Moscow’s support”

   “At the UN, we thwarted attempts to justify the illegal acts of aggression by the US and Israel against Iran.”

   The support Lavrov named was diplomatic, humanitarian and economic. Euronews carried Lavrov’s line that Iran’s cause, like Russia’s, is a just cause. That is firmer than the piece’s wording. Radio Free Europe noted that a Russian statement on the meetings made no mention of military or intelligence cooperation, adding that what was not on the public agenda was the focus of much of the world.

3. Bushehr · the piece says specialists “would gradually return”

   “Наши специалисты постепенно возвращаются на АЭС «Бушер».” [Our specialists are gradually returning to the Bushehr plant.]

   The transcript uses the present tense: the return is under way. It began in July, when Rosatom, Russia’s state nuclear company, said its first team of six had gone back. The piece’s clause heavily damaged in US strikes is not Lavrov’s. In March the UN nuclear watchdog’s head said there was no damage to the reactor itself, though projectiles hit the site. In April, The New Arab reported the watchdog found the latest strike did not damage the power plant.

4. Hormuz · the piece does not attribute this to Lavrov

   “…restore the pre-crisis situation in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, including freedom of navigation and guarantees that the aggression will not recur.”

   The piece mentions restoring Hormuz shipping only as a request the Gulf states made of Russia.

Trump’s post on Truth Social, Sunday 18 October, explaining the waiver of the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act. We read it through a mirror account that copies Trump’s posts, and did not open the original.

• Ukraine (quoted in the piece): don’t want to do anything that will drive, foolishly, Russia away from the bargaining table.
• Iran (not in the piece): Perhaps more importantly, Russia is doing very little, if anything, to help the Islamic Republic of Iran, compared to what they could be doing, and I want to keep it that way, and will, unless stupid people get in the way.
• Diesel (not in the piece): Zelenskyy is using Diesel Refineries in Russia as a target, knowing that these attacks are seriously hurting the world diesel markets, including those in the United States. This is close to the piece’s line that Washington eased sanctions to bring down fuel costs.

The waived sections are the law’s Russia measures, including tariffs of up to 100% on the top five buyers of Russian crude oil and gas (ABC). Trump’s executive order on the waiver cites the national interests of the United States. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the president wants to take the 60-day period of time to sort of analyze what imposing both sanctions and tariffs will mean to the global economy and even to the US economy. The Kremlin says that in the 9 October Putin–Trump call, Russia confirmed its willingness to supply oil and petroleum products to the US market. The US diesel permit is dated the same day.

• Who speaks. Quoted directly: Nader Hashemi (Georgetown University), John Lough (Chatham House; New Eurasian Strategies Centre), Abbas Araghchi (two posts on X) and Donald Trump, plus one phrase each from the Russian Foreign Ministry and the Gulf Cooperation Council. Paraphrased: Sergey Lavrov and Nikita Smagin. No economist is named. The piece credits its revenue figure to Reuters calculations.
• The piece paraphrases Smagin fairly. It reports that Russia certainly has a partial interest in the conflict continuing but likely does not want to see it escalate. Smagin’s own June article for the Carnegie Endowment, headlined Simmering U.S.-Iran Conflict Is Moscow’s Ideal Outcome, says the same two things: a messy status quo is firmly in Moscow’s interests, a full-scale war is not. The piece’s version drops two points from Al Jazeera’s own 19 October report of what Smagin said. One is that Russia’s leverage over either Iran or the US to influence the course of the conflict remains limited (the report’s wording). The other is Smagin’s reason for Russia’s gain, quoted directly: China effectively forced to buy Russian oil at higher prices.
• Voices the piece leaves out mostly agree with it. An Iranian outlet, Eghtesad Online: Russia has secured substantial economic benefits from the US war with Iran. An analyst at the Emirates Policy Center, on Sky News Arabia, said Russia benefits from higher energy prices. None of the Iranian or Gulf voices we found pushes back on the claim that Russia profits. Moscow does.
• The piece is built partly on an Al Jazeera report from the day before. At least six of its paragraphs rework Al Jazeera’s own 19 October news report from Tehran, including that report’s Bushehr wording.

• The Putin–Trump–Xi meeting. The piece says: Last month, the Kremlin said Putin and Trump had discussed meeting Xi Jinping. In September the Kremlin’s Yury Ushakov said a three-way meeting could be organised. The idea came up in Putin’s talks with Xi. The report that Putin raised the idea with Trump is the Wall Street Journal’s, on 18 October, citing a former Russian intelligence officer. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: all three parties acknowledge the hypothetical possibility of such a meeting taking place.
• Who relayed Iran’s views. The piece says Putin stated he relayed Iran’s views to Trump on 9 October. The statement came from Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, the next day (TASS). The Kremlin also said Trump was welcoming Moscow’s involvement on Iran. The piece doesn’t carry that, and we found no US confirmation.
• The Gulf’s request. Jasem Albudaiwi, head of the Gulf Cooperation Council, asked Russia to urge Iran to comply with Resolution 2817 (2026), cease its attacks, respect freedom of navigation, and engage in serious dialogue with the GCC states. The piece keeps the call for “serious dialogue” and the request about Hormuz. It leaves out the call to stop attacks.
• States struck. The piece’s list (These include) names Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Jordan and the UAE. Qatar (Al Udeid air base; the Ras Laffan gas terminal) and Saudi Arabia were also struck. The list is not presented as complete.
• Mediators. The piece’s section on mediation does not mention Pakistan or Qatar. Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei said last week that technically, in the strict sense of the word, Pakistan and Qatar remain the mediators (The New Arab). Al Jazeera covered Pakistan’s and Qatar’s roles in a separate piece at 14:39 UTC the same day.
• Republican reaction. The piece calls the reaction outrage. CNN: A fierce backlash; Sen. Thom Tillis: Beyond irresponsible. ABC: mixed reactions from Republican lawmakers. The word fits some Republicans, such as Tillis. ABC’s report shows that the reaction as a whole was mixed.
• Diesel volumes. Lough says the relief lets Russia supply diesel to the US. Valdis Dombrovskis, the EU’s economy commissioner, in Al Jazeera’s 17 October piece: there are strong doubts whether Russia is even able to supply those volumes. Russia has banned diesel exports since 8 July, with exceptions such as government-to-government deals (Ship & Bunker; Interfax). On 10 October it partly lifted the ban to allow 500,000 tonnes of exports (Interfax).

For a quote, CONFIRMED means the words were said as printed. Whether what they say is true is a separate question.

1. CONFIRMED. The war began with US and Israeli strikes on 28 February. The 20-year treaty, signed in January 2025 and in force since October 2025, has no mutual-defence clause; it bars each side from helping an aggressor against the other.
2. CONFIRMED. The US and UK accused Iran of sending Russia ballistic missiles, 10 September 2024.
3. CONFIRMED (said). Araghchi’s Never in our history have Iran and Russia worked as closely as now, word for word, posted Tuesday 03:24 UTC. The same post mentions nuclear cooperation; the piece doesn’t.
4. CONFIRMED. The diesel permit: US Treasury General License 135, dated 9 October, runs to 7 April 2027 and covers importation, including importation into the United States, of diesel fuel of Russian origin.
5. CONFIRMED. The waiver: an executive order late on 16 October waived the new law’s Russia measures. Trump’s drive, foolishly, Russia away from the bargaining table is exact.
6. CONFIRMED. Washington eased sanctions to bring down fuel costs. Trump gave that reason for the diesel permit, and the Sunday post cites diesel markets. The executive order on the waiver itself cites only “national interests”.
7. CONFIRMED. The 9 October Putin–Trump call; Lavrov expects President Masoud Pezeshkian at the gas exporters’ summit in Moscow; Brent above $109; the 3 November midterms; APEC in Shenzhen in November.
8. CONFIRMED, with a wording problem. Hormuz carries about a fifth of world oil consumption (US Energy Information Administration). The piece’s fifth of “natural gas” applies to traded liquefied gas, not to all gas.
9. PARTLY. The $9bn was a projection made on 9 April. It was double the March figure and up 10% on April 2025. The piece puts Brent as high as $120. Brent’s highest price during trading was about $126.
10. PARTLY. Trump’s threat to soon finish the job came with a condition: unless they change their ways, rapidly. Trump wrote it in a post endorsing Netanyahu. The piece quotes only part of Araghchi’s reply.
11. NOT SUPPORTED. Bushehr heavily damaged in US strikes. The Kremlin said Putin and Trump discussed meeting Xi. Putin stating he relayed Iran’s views: those were the Kremlin spokesman’s words.
12. CLAIMED, UNVERIFIED. The three analysts’ words (told to Al Jazeera). Russia and China supplied Iran with satellite imagery and weapons components. The piece does not name the US outlets. CNN reported on Russian imagery in March, and said China may be preparing to send missile components. Iran’s drone technology enabled Russia to build its own version.
13. DISPUTED. That the war has filled Russia’s coffers (subheadline). For: the spring jump, October’s expected 290 billion roubles over baseline. Against: the summer dip, the year down 17.2% on 2025, the deficit above plan.

When (UTC)	Headline	Casts Russia as	Carries Lavrov’s price reply?
10 Mar	CNBC“As the Iran war upends energy flows, Russia is emerging as the real winner”	Winner	Published before the reply
1 Sep	Moscow Times“Why the Middle East Oil Shock Failed to Save Russia’s Budget”	Small gainer	Published before the reply
17 Oct 11:10	Al Jazeera“Trump eases Russia oil sanctions, but is Europe still buying Moscow’s gas?”	Beneficiary of US policy	Published before the reply
19 Oct 13:22	Al Jazeera, news from Tehran“Russia’s Lavrov discusses US war and regional security during Tehran visit”	Partner, would-be mediator	No, in the version we saved
19 Oct 13:46	Radio Free Europe“Lavrov In Tehran Amid Questions Over Whether Moscow Is Helping Iran In War With US”	Quiet supporter of Iran	No, in the version we saved
19 Oct	TASS (Russian state)“Russia wants price stability in global markets — Lavrov”	Partner, mediator	Yes, in its headline
19 Oct 19:20	Euronews“Lavrov backs Iran, hours after Trump says Russia doing ‘very little’ to help Tehran”	Ally; mentions revenue in one line	No
20 Oct 08:11	Eghtesad Online (Iran)“Behind Lavrov’s Visit to Iran: What Is Moscow’s Mission in Tehran?”	Gainer from the war	No
20 Oct 14:15	Jerusalem Post“Iran hosts Russia’s FM Lavrov as Moscow seeks benefit from US sanctions relief - analysis”	Gainer from US relief	No
20 Oct 16:01	Al Jazeera explainer · the piece reviewed here“Lavrov backs Tehran, but does Russia also gain from the US-Iran crisis?”	Ally and gainer	No

The 13:22 and 13:46 pieces first went out before Lavrov’s price remarks were reported; their “No” refers to the later versions we saved. Reuters, AP, AFP, Bloomberg, the FT, the Guardian, the New York Times, the BBC and Iran’s state agencies could not be read in full for this debrief. Sky News Arabia (08:02) also tied the trip to Russia’s gains, through an analyst at the Emirates Policy Center.

The wider picture

1. Since March, some outlets have written that Russia is gaining from the war. Others have doubted it. CNBC, 10 March: Russia is emerging as the real winner. Al Jazeera, 17 October, reporting the economist Vasily Astrov: the Russian government will likely be the greatest beneficiary of the eased sanctions. On the other side, the Moscow Times said Russia’s windfall looks surprisingly meager, and CNN, after the waiver, wrote of Moscow’s depleted coffers.
2. Russia’s oil money follows the price, with a month’s lag, and refiners take a share. When world fuel prices rise above fuel prices inside Russia, the state pays refiners to supply the home market. In September those payments used up the whole rise in revenue from the main oil tax.
3. In October the US eased two sets of Russia sanctions. These were the diesel permit (9 October) and the waiver of the new sanctions law (16 October). Neither is permanent: the permit ends in April 2027. Rubio says Trump wants 60 days to study what the sanctions and tariffs would mean for the economy, and the executive order says the waiver lasts until further action is appropriate.
4. The Gulf states want Russia to press Iran. Iran names other countries as mediators. The Gulf states asked Moscow, a permanent member of the UN Security Council, to urge Iran to stop its attacks. Iran’s spokesman said that technically, in the strict sense of the word, Pakistan and Qatar remain the mediators.

Three readings, tested

All three agree Russia gains something. They differ on where the gain comes from and how long it lasts.

What would tell the readings apart. For A: how large and lasting the oil gain is once prices fall. For B: whether US relief survives if evidence of Russian help to Iran grows firmer. For C: whether Moscow urges Iran to hold the dialogue the Gulf states asked for.

Who benefits: from the events, and from how they are told

From what happened

• Russia. A diesel permit to April 2027, a sanctions waiver, and a role the Gulf states are asking it to play.
• Iran. Public backing from a permanent member of the UN Security Council, and Russian staff returning to Bushehr.
• Trump. Lower diesel prices, which Trump has said the diesel permit is meant to bring.

From how the story is told: whose argument each reading fits

• “Russia profits” is the argument Kyiv and critics of the waiver in Europe and Congress make. President Zelenskyy called the diesel deal a gift to Putin.
• “Russia gains little” is closer to the case Trump made for the relief: Russia is sending, at a low price, millions of barrels of diesel to the World.

What would change the picture

1. Russia’s October and November budget figures. Revenue near the expected 290 billion roubles over baseline would back the subheadline’s claim, “filled its coffers”. A fall in revenue along with the oil price would back the view that the gain “comes and goes” with the price.
2. The end of the 60-day period Rubio mentioned. If the waiver holds even as reports of Russian help to Iran firm up, reading B weakens. If the waiver is withdrawn over Iran, B gains support.
3. The APEC meeting in Shenzhen, 18–19 November. Whether Putin, Trump and Xi meet, and whether Iran is on the agenda.