Russia’s ex-president went to Tehran to pay his last respects to late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei

The US-Israeli attack on Iran earlier this year was completely unprovoked, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has stated on his way back from the Islamic Republic. The deputy chair of Russia’s Security Council attended the funeral ceremony for Iran’s late supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in Tehran on Friday.

The 86-year-old was assassinated, along with several members of his family, on February 28 during the first wave of US-Israeli airstrikes on Iran.

Speaking to Russian journalists as he flew back to Russia on Saturday, Medvedev said that “there was no serious reason for the American attack… [as] Iran posed no threat to the United States.”

The Russian official noted that Tehran was engaged in negotiations with Washington at the time US President Donald Trump ordered the attack. This fact, according to Medvedev, points to the erosion of international law.

Read more

The killing of the Iranian leadership, as well as a large number of civilians, including school children, “does no credit to those who made such decisions,” the deputy chair of Russia’s Security Council said.

He also recounted that before hostilities began in late February, Russian President Vladimir Putin had proposed a roadmap aimed at peacefully resolving the issue of Iran’s nuclear program. The US and Israel cited the latter as one of the pretexts for military action against the Islamic Republic.

“I think Iran surmounted this toughest of ordeals with dignity,” Medvedev observed, saying that even though some parts of Tehran still lie in ruins, life in the Iranian capital has largely returned to normal.

He told Russian reporters that during the course of the conflict, the Islamic Republic realized that it possesses a deterrent on par with nuclear weapons – namely the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world’s energy shipments passed before the conflict began. Global crude prices soared to as high as $120 a barrel after Tehran imposed its blockade.

In the event of renewed aggression, Iran could similarly block the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, Medvedev suggested. The vital chokepoint that connects the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden is another important waterway for Middle Eastern oil exports.

Referring to Western sanctions imposed on both Moscow and Tehran, the ex-Russian president dismissed them as “illegal unilateral restrictions” that are in breach of international law.