Notes

Friends like these. Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, don’t usually issue news releases about the deals they make—but it seems they’ve been making more and more of them. Western intelligence officials said in September that Iran had sent about 200 ballistic missiles to Russia. They worried that in return, Moscow might be ready to share secrets for making a nuclear bomb with Tehran. Iran has also provided the Kremlin with thousands of drones for the war in Ukraine.

These deals belong to a pattern of closer ties among Russia, Iran, China, and North Korea: North Korea has given Russia more than a million artillery shells; Russia reportedly built a drone factory in China; and China now says it supports Iran in the widening conflict in the Middle East. What’s happening here? Today, Lucan Way looks at how the increasing collaboration among the world’s most powerful autocracies is grounded in Russia’s war on Ukraine—and at what this collaboration means for the world’s democracies.

—Michael Bluhm