Russia urges Israel to respect Syrian sovereignty, calls for diplomatic solution to Iran conflict

Russian President Vladimir Putin, during a phone conversation, urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to respect Syria’s territorial sovereignty, the Kremlin announced on Monday.

War-torn Syria has recently been plagued by inter-ethnic violence, following attacks by Syrian regime forces and their Islamist Bedouin allies on the Druze minority community. Israel, which maintains close ties with the Druze, vowed to protect the community and responded by targeting Syrian regime forces.

Putin reportedly stressed Moscow’s “undisputed” backing for diplomatic solutions to conflicts in the Middle East. The Russian leader also offered to mediate a diplomatic solution to the ongoing conflict between the Iranian ayatollah regime and the State of Israel following last month’s Israeli Operation Rising Lion military offensive against Tehran’s military and nuclear assets. 

The phone conversation between Putin and Netanyahu was reportedly the third in three months. Officials in Moscow stated that the Russian and Israeli leaders both agreed to preserve a dialogue on crucial bilateral and global issues that are important to both Russia and Israel. Russia, which has developed close military and commercial ties with the Iranian regime, is interested in finding an end to the ongoing conflict with Israel and the standoff concerning Iran’s severely damaged nuclear military program. 

It is unclear how Putin envisions a diplomatic solution when the ayatollah regime is ideologically committed to the Jewish state’s destruction and praised the Hamas Oct. 7 massacre of 1,200 Israelis, the largest single-day massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.

While still stable, diplomatic relations between Russia and Israel have deteriorated since the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the Hamas-initiated Gaza war. Israel has increasingly backed the Western condemnations against Russian aggression in Ukraine while Moscow has hosted senior Hamas officials and maintained close relations with Israel’s arch enemy – the Islamic Republic of Iran. 

The Russian government condemned last month’s U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran’s nuclear and military assets. However, Moscow stopped short of providing any tangible military or financial support to the Iranian regime – a move that reportedly sparked tensions between Tehran and Moscow. Russia has also urged its Iranian ally to accept U.S. President Donald Trump’s offer to lift all economic sanctions in exchange for a complete halt to uranium enrichment. Prior to the recent conflict, the Iranian regime had enriched uranium to 60% – a level close to weapons-grade and just a short step away from developing a nuclear bomb.

Despite tensions between Moscow and Washington concerning the Ukraine war, both Russia and the United States seek to stabilize the volatile situation in Syria. The U.S. envoy to Turkey Tom Barrack recently announced that he hosted the first meeting between Syrian and Israeli ministers in 25 years. 

“I met this evening with the Syrians and Israelis in Paris. Our goal was dialogue and de-escalation, and we accomplished precisely that. All parties reiterated their commitment to continuing these efforts,” Barrack wrote in a post on 𝕏.

The Trump administration has so far refrained from condemning the Syrian regime-backed attacks on the Druze community in the country. Instead, ambassador Barrack claimed that all sides had committed massacres and urged the ethnically and religiously diverse Syria to unite and build a better future. 

“We call upon Druze, Bedouins, and Sunnis to put down their weapons and together with other minorities build a new and united Syrian identity,” Barrack stated.