Abbas Araghchi met Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin on Monday 27 April. Putin told reporters in televised remarks that "this absolutely unprovoked aggression against Iran is unjustified"1. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov sat to Putin's left in the Kremlin photograph released by TASS (the Russian state news agency); beside him sat Igor Kostyukov, Deputy Chief of the Russian General Staff, and Presidential Aide Yury Ushakov.
Kostyukov runs the GRU (Russian military intelligence) directorate that supplies foreign partners with electronic-warfare kit; his seat at the photograph would be unusual for a routine ministerial reception. RFE/RL reports Russian Ilyushin Il-76 transports flying radar systems, electronic-warfare components and aviation parts into Mehrabad and Bandar Abbas at high tempo2. The Pentagon assesses the China-Russia "two-way street" as the reason Iran's military machine remains operational after the February strikes.
No Lavrov-signed joint statement emerged from the meeting. Lavrov's separate phone-call readout confirmed Iran's commitment to allow Russian shipping to pass safely through Hormuz, the first explicit Iranian carve-out for a third-party flag during the blockade; twenty Rosatom technicians remain at the Bushehr civilian reactor. The pattern is rhetorical condemnation on one channel and material logistics on another, in practice substituting Il-76 sortie tempo for the diplomatic paper that would normally accompany such a shift.
