Russian President Vladimir Putin wants Israel’s war with Hamas to lead to a worse crisis, according to senior officials from NATO member states who keep a close watch on the Kremlin.
“It is in Putin and Russia’s interest to get more and more conflicts, military conflicts and disaster globally,” Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna told the Washington Examiner. “Russia has the capabilities to be a part of or to be connected to many different conflicts. And also, [new conflicts require Western allies] to focus on different things. We have to do many things at the same time.”
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Russia’s relationship with Hamas in recent years has helped to fuel those suspicions, in addition to other factors. The Kremlin’s burgeoning military alliance with Iran and foreign ministry statements accusing Israel and the United States of provoking the Oct. 7 terrorist attack likewise feed into the perception that Moscow sees a diplomatic opportunity in the crisis despite Moscow’s stated desire for a ceasefire.
“Putin will not miss an opportunity to make things worse,” another senior European official said on condition of anonymity. “He doesn’t have a problem regarding war in the Middle East ... because it would not harm him, in his view. It would not harm the Russian economy; it would not harm his standing among the Russian public. And, exactly, it would distract the attention of the others, and he would think that it is to his advantage.”
Those European assessments echo a jubilant statement by a senior Hamas official who boasted about the terrorist organization’s relationship with Moscow one day after Hamas terrorists massacred more than 1,400 people in an unprecedented rampage across southern Israel.
“Even Russia sympathizes with us,” Hamas National Relations Abroad chief Ali Baraka said during an interview with Russian state media outlet RT. “They sympathize with us. Russia is happy that America is entangled in Palestine. It relieves the pressure on the Russians in Ukraine. One war relieves the pressure of another war. So we're not alone on the battlefield.”
Baraka also said Russia helps Hamas produce weapons in Gaza.
“We’re manufacturing the bullets with permission from the Russians. We have factories for Kalashnikovs and their bullets,” he added, per CNN’s translation. "We’re building it in Gaza.”
Russian officials hastened to deny they are “supplying Hamas paramilitary groups with weapons and ammunition” but attributed the allegation to Western governments.
“There are even fantastic insinuations about setting up production of small arms and light weapons (SALW) in the Gaza Strip ‘with Russian assistance,’ as well as ammunition for them,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Oct. 14, in a statement that made no mention of Baraka. "In short, the collective West is ready to do anything to preserve its notorious world order, based on some rules it has invented for itself.”
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has hosted Hamas in Moscow on multiple occasions, including in September 2022 and, according to Hamas leaders, March 2023.
"They started to work with Hamas a year ago, already, again,” the second senior European official said.
Lavrov has in the past defended those contacts as legitimate.
Still, some close observers of Russia’s priorities in the Middle East doubt that the Kremlin would want to see a “regional war” erupt.
“It would be hard to see [how] right now. Russia would hope for a much bigger escalation because it would be quite unpredictable,” former Estonian diplomat Peter Laudsik, the Middle East expert at the Baltic State’s mission to the United Nations from 2019 to 2022, said. “There needs to be much more violence on a local level before any of the states actually somehow gets involved. That’s way too far behind the curve. The scenario is there. I think we can say that.”
Russia’s potential to orchestrate any escalation of the conflict is regarded as doubtful, even among officials who suspect Putin of favoring it given Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s status as the primary patron of Hamas and the other terrorist groups most capable of threatening Israel.
“I think [the] Iranians are very much independent in their decision-making, and I don’t think they trust [the] Russians. Khamenei doesn’t trust [the] Russians. He can work with them, but trust them?” the second senior European official said. "The decision will be made by Khamenei. ... Full-out war, it’s his decision.”
Laudsik, the former diplomat, thinks that Putin primarily wants to exploit the Arab world’s anger at Israel’s bombardment of Gaza.
“I don't see too much value, from Moscow’s side, to really pour some oil in the fire, trying to make it the bigger thing than it is already,” he said. “So, [they’re] keeping a delicate distance making their compulsory statements ... trying to win the hearts and minds of the Global South.”
Yet the current officials can’t help but suspect that Putin will embrace any scenario he considers troublesome for the United States and its allies.
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“I don’t know it, but I just analyze that it’s actually useful for Russia, more and more — dividing the world, also but more attention from the West democracies to different conflicts,” Tsahkna, the Estonian foreign minister, said
The other senior official offered a similar assessment. “The Russians will use [anything] to their advantage and chaos. They think that it's to their advantage,” the second senior European official said. ”But, they will not coordinate. I don't think they will coordinate with Iran or [that] Iranians want to be coordinated with Russians.”