Moscow

Moscow is Russia's capital and seat of federal power, home to roughly 13 million people and approximately 20 per cent of Russian GDP. The Kremlin directs Russia's dual-track posture: military pressure in Ukraine alongside diplomatic positioning in a widening set of global conflicts.

Moscow became a focal point of Iran diplomacy on 25-27 April 2026 when FM Abbas Araghchi flew from Muscat to the Kremlin after the Islamabad talks collapsed. Putin received him publicly, declared the war on Iran 'absolutely unprovoked', and Russia formally declared the US naval blockade unlawful. RFE/RL reported Russian Ilyushin Il-76 transports flying radar systems, electronic-warfare components and aviation parts into Mehrabad and Bandar Abbas at high tempo, and the Pentagon assessed China-Russia support as the reason Iran's military remained functional after the February strikes.

On 27 May 2026, Trump rejected Russia as a custodian for Iran's uranium stockpile, removing Moscow from the only third-country storage arrangement then on the table. Moscow's dual role, peace-process participant in Ukraine and Iran's military logistics partner, has split EU consensus on whether to treat Russia as a negotiating partner or an active enabler. That dual role deepened further when Ali Khamenei's death led to a six-day state funeral from 4 to 9 July; Moscow sent former president Dmitry Medvedev as Putin's personal envoy, one of more than 30 national delegations invited after Iran's foreign ministry excluded every European government.

Moscow hardened its negotiating line in early June 2026. At the St Petersburg International Economic Forum on 5 June, Putin rejected Zelenskyy's open letter proposing a face-to-face meeting, saw 'no point', and repeated the precondition that a treaty pre-agreed on Russia's terms, including all of Donetsk, be settled before any summit. Britain, France and Germany answered by backing a five-point E3 framework that takes the current line of contact, not Ukraine's 1991 borders, as the starting point for talks.

The forum also exposed the strain behind the bravado. Russia's oil and gas revenue jumped 32.4% year-on-year in May to 678.9bn rubles on a Hormuz-driven price spike, but Deputy PM Novak cut the 2026 GDP growth forecast to 0.4% and Severstal's chairman disclosed a 24% capital-spending cut. Ukraine, meanwhile, struck deep into Russia: more than 400 drones reached the Baltic Fleet base at Kronstadt outside St Petersburg overnight into 6 June, and Moscow did not dispute the strike.

Moscow's own fuel supply became a front line in June: an 18 June Ukrainian drone strike shut the Kapotnya refinery, just ten miles from the Kremlin and source of roughly 40% of the capital region's petrol, met by Russian air defences scrambling 555 interceptor drones. The resulting queues, initially confined to occupied Crimea, spread into Russia proper; Putin personally acknowledged the shortage on 28 June, extending the gasoline export ban to 31 July. Russian air defences reported intercepting at least 660 drones in a single overnight barrage on 26 June, among the heaviest of the war, as Meduza separately reported the Kremlin using financial leverage over Belarus to draw Alexander Lukashenko deeper into the conflict.

On 8 July, Deputy PM Alexander Novak, in a televised meeting chaired by Putin, went further than the export ban: for the first time the restriction reached producers as well as traders, banning diesel exports outright to 31 July. The decree ratified a fall already under way, seaborne diesel exports having dropped 39% month-on-month in June, and global benchmark diesel prices rose almost 13% on the announcement. CREA put average Urals crude at $63.18 a barrel in June, down 26% month-on-month, though oil-product revenue rose 14% to its highest since June 2024 as tighter global supply lifted prices even as Russian volumes fell.