Putin has arrived in Tehran, as Russia and Iran grow closer in their isolation

“Many of today’s countries didn’t even exist back then,” he said.

Peskov said Iran and Russia could soon sign a treaty on strategic cooperation, expanding their collaboration in banking and finance, and moving away from using the dollar to denominate their trade.

Mohammadrez Pourebrahimi, head of the economic committee in the Iranian parliament, called increasing such measures a priority for both countries. “Sanctions imposed by the U.S. and Europe on Russia have made it more of a necessity for Iran and Russia to cooperate,” he said on Monday.

The Kremlin is eager to show the world — and its own people — that it still has friends, despite the global opprobrium over the war in Ukraine. That is giving Iran a new opportunity to stimulate its sanctions-starved economy, with Russian businesses that had been focused on trade with the West now racing to find new markets and suppliers. A restoration of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal that could relieve sanctions on Iran still appears to be far off.

“We have the greatest expectations,” Russia’s ambassador to Iran, Levan Dzhagaryan, told Russian state television before the visit.

Putin touched down in Tehran at about 5 p.m. local time, according to Russian state media, with his meetings expected to stretch late into the evening. It is only his second trip outside Russia since the start of the Ukraine war.

He will meet with Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, an honor hinting at how much both countries attach to deepening their ties. An Iranian news website, Fararou, pledged that “the more aggressive the U.S. gets in confronting Iran, the closer we will get to Russia.” A conservative Russian outlet, Tsargrad, proclaimed that the emerging alliance represented “a new axis of the good.”

Putin will also meet Tuesday with Iran’s president, Ebrahim Raisi, as well as with his Turkish counterpart, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who will also be in Tehran. In a three-way summit, the presidents will discuss Syria, where Erdogan has been threatening a new military incursion into the northeast to flush out Kurdish militiamen whom Turkey considers terrorists. Erdogan says any military action would be intended to entice refugees from Syria’s civil war to return to their home countries.

Khamenei set a chilly tone for that summit earlier Tuesday in a separate meeting with Erdogan, appearing to reject Turkey’s military plans.

“Terrorism must definitely be confronted, but a military attack on Syria will only benefit the terrorists,” said a message on Khamenei’s Twitter account alongside a photograph of him meeting with the Turkish leader.

There was no immediate response from Turkey.

Hossein Amirabdollahian, Iran’s foreign minister, said that in addition to increasing economic ties, Tuesday’s meetings would address security issues and concerns about a shortage of food supplies. Erdogan, who has close ties to both Putin and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine, has emerged as the most active mediator between the two men and is working on a deal to allow Ukrainian grain to be exported past the Russian warships in the Black Sea.

According to U.S. officials, Russia is looking to Iran to fill its shortage of battlefield drones in Ukraine. Peskov has declined to say whether Russia has any plans to purchase Iranian drones, and he has said Putin would not be discussing the issue Tuesday.