For over a decade, the Kremlin has backed an Iran-Syria alliance in the Middle East that puts it on the opposite side of Israel. Yet, for a variety of reasons, both Jerusalem and Moscow have kept up at least the illusion of good relations, coupled with Vladimir Putin’s efforts to show himself to be a friend of the Russian Jewish community. That arrangement has been gradually breaking down over the past many months, with leaders of Hamas visiting Moscow, Russian officials speaking openly of a “strategic partnership” with Iran, attacks on Volodymyr Zelensky in state-controlled media taking on an anti-Semitic tone, and Russian Jews feeling less secure than they have in a long time.
All this has gotten worse since October 7, as Daniel Rakov explains:
President Vladimir Putin has adopted the Palestinian narrative, explaining the current eruption of violence as a result of Israel’s “settlement policy” and its decades-long failure to provide a political solution to the Palestinian problem. Moreover, he claims, “an extraordinary sense of injustice in this regard nests in the heart of every Muslim.” Putin [has also] . . . refrained from referring to Hamas’s attack on Israeli civilians.
The seenior Hamas officials Mousa Abu Marzouk and Ali Baraka have both stated that they have been in contact with Moscow and that the Russians conveyed a sympathetic message to the organization following the attack on the Gaza border communities inside Israel. Russia has not denied this.
Much of Russian messaging in recent days is consistent with the characteristics of “modern anti-Semitism”—conflating Israel and the Jews [and] accusing them of every possible sin, including comparing them to Nazi Germany. These messages are, in addition to other indications of a return to Russian state anti-Semitism, similar to those that existed in the Soviet era.
Read more on Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security: https://jiss.org.il/en/rakov-the-war-in-gaza-a-nadir-in-russian-israeli-relations/