Name: How does Russia profit from the US-Israel war with Iran? | Global News Podcast
Uploaded: 2026-03-14T23:02:03.000Z
Duration: 11 min
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Welcome to the BBC's Global News podcast on YouTube.

And today we're looking at whether the biggest winner from the war in Iran could be not Israel, not the U.S.

Well, we're joined from Kyiv by our diplomatic correspondent, James Landell.

And James, analysts are claiming that the oil price shock is benefiting Russia.

Well, yeah, that's clearly right because, you know, Russia's economy is substantially dependent on its energy sales.

In particular the sale of crude oil that has been heavily restricted in recent years by two things.

One, by economic sanctions from the international community following Russia's full scale invasion of this country, but

also because of the largely depressed oil price.

And that meant Russia was suffering economically.

As we've seen in recent days, the price of oil has rocketed and as a result, Russia is benefiting substantially.

President Zelensky in a news conference said that he reckoned that so far Russia was benefiting about, you know, sort of $10 billion already because of the change in the oil price.

So clearly, you know, the Russians at the moment, you know, are making the most of it because their financial public finances were not in a great state, but

they are clearly benefiting from these price changes.

So, James, what could this mean for the war in Ukraine?

Well, in practical terms, it just means that Russia can carry on for longer.

It can buy more and build more drones, it can buy and build more missiles.

It can continue to pay very large bonuses trying to persuade young men from distant parts of Russia to sign up to its so called meat grinder of an army at the moment, because it's losing, remember, roughly on average, about 1,000 men and women a day in casualties, both killed and wounded.

So all of that money will go to help that at the moment because Russia's financial problems have been so severe in recent months.

Russia's had to sell off some of its gold reserves.

It's had to increase consumption taxes like VAT and things like that.

There'll be much less pressure on Russia to do that because it's making more from its oil sales.

So to a certain extent, it definitely eases pressure on Russia and makes it less likely that Russia feels under any pressure whatsoever to end this conflict, especially now that the US Is loosening the sanctions that were imposed on Russian oil.

And the diplomatic efforts to try to end the war in Ukraine appear to have been put on the back burner.

The American decision to ease partially some of the sanctions on Russia will be another boost for Russia because not only are they benefiting from the high oil price, they can.

They can potentially sell more of their oil.

And that means that, yes, while these talks may or may not continue, we don't know when they're going to restart.

The world's attention is very much on the Middle east, for obvious reasons at the moment.

But at the moment, most people, most analysts look at those talks and they believe that they're largely performative.

One diplomat I spoke to the other day said, you know, it's pure theater for an audience of one, namely Donald Trump.

Both sides, the Russians and the Ukrainians, carrying on with the talks so that they do not incur the wrath of the United States.

As a result of the changing economic circumstances and global distraction, I think that's even less likely that we're going to end up getting any kind of a deal soon.

President Zelensky is in Paris today for talks with President Macron.

The Europeans have refused to unlock frozen Russian assets that are held in European jurisdictions.

The Europeans have failed to agree on that.

They could make a different decision and give all of that, some of that money to Ukraine.

The Europeans also promised to raise some of their own money, 90 billion euros.

They've promised that to the Ukrainians, but that's held up because of a row with Hungary.

The one sort of shaft of light for the Ukrainians at the moment is this, which is Ukraine is perhaps the world's foremost developer and user of cheap air defenses at the moment.

And the world is coming knocking on Ukraine's door, asking for help.

The Gulf, Europeans, even the United States, saying, how do we defend against these Iranian drones?

And that is something that Ukrainians are using to get into that conversation.

You know, we can make some money from this.

We can make some more allies in the Gulf, which has largely been neutral in this war.

But above all, keep Ukraine part of the conversation, keep it relevant.

And I think that's something that I think will be a central part of the talks that President Zelensky is having with his European counterparts at the moment.

And to that end, Ukraine has dispatched experts to the Gulf states to.

To help them defend themselves against the Iranian counterattacks.

Yeah, I mean, these experts are not actually, you know, doing any defending themselves.

These are people who know about cheap interceptor drones.

They have to be fitted into military structures.

You've got to have data that's transferred between different locations.

There's an awful lot of things that need to be sorted before you get these drones and you stick them up into the sky and you try and destroy incoming Iranian attack drones.

So those are the conversations that have been had at the moment.

But here in Kyiv, there's a real balance to be struck.

On the one hand, the Ukrainians want to sell all these and make some money and, as I say, win some friends in the Gulf.

But equally, the government here does not want to leave itself open to the accusation that it is selling the shop, giving so many interceptors to the Gulf that it leaves these skies vulnerable.

I think we need to differentiate between two things here.

Cheap interceptor drones that cost, you know, $1,000 plus Ukraine can produce these and is producing them row after row.

They will be able to substantially scale up production and sell that to whoever wants to buy it in the Middle East.

The difficulty are the much more expensive, bigger air defense missiles.

Some of these missiles, the Patriot missiles and things like that, they cost upwards of 3,4 million dollars.

Hundreds of them have been fired off in recent weeks in the Gulf, leaving a global scarcity that Ukraine and others had not been anticipating.

And that is the fear that Ukraine has that it now finds itself harder to get those patriots because other countries will say, we haven't got enough.

They're not producing enough because they cost a lot.

They take a huge amount of effort to produce.

And I think that's where the Ukrainian concern is, which is why President Zelensky is saying, look, we'll give you our interceptors, but

in return, we want some more Patriots because those are the missiles that they need to defend these skies from the devastating Russian missiles that come in and cause so much wreckage and devastation.

By starting this war in Iran, has the US Lost the moral high ground?

Well, I imagine it's a matter for debate about whether or not the United States is starting from a position of being in the moral high ground.

I think what is significant here is that the argument that the international community, and

by that I mean largely the west, that is Europe, and

the United States, has been that Russia in this country was in the wrong because it had breached international borders, it had disrupted the territorial integrity of Ukraine and challenged its sovereignty by invading in a way that we haven't seen since the Second World War.

In other words, this was not just a decision that was bad for Western security.

It was against international law, and thus, thus immoral.

And so the United States, by launching an unprovoked attack on Iran in a way that many international lawyers would say is wholly in breach of international law, means that it's harder for the United States to point the finger at Russia and say, look, what you've done in Ukraine is wrong.

My own view, I think my own assessment would be, is that we're slightly beyond those arguments four years into this war, since the full scale invasion, that actually people aren't debating first principles anymore.

They're now debating how do they bring this conflict to an end, how do you put more pressure on Russia so that the Kremlin gets into a position where it thinks that it cannot further its aims through further violence.

Because at the moment, the Kremlin, Vladimir Putin, believe that they can continue to make gains by continuing combat.

And until that changes, I think the situation is unlikely to change.

And finally, we've talked a lot about the benefits for Russia.

But doesn't Moscow look weak in not coming to the help of allies like Iran or Venezuela before it?

Well, yeah, this is the narrative that says, look, slowly but surely, Vladimir Putin's allies are being removed, displaced, going somewhere else.

President Assad is now hiding in Moscow somewhere.

Venezuela has had a change of leadership because of the American action there and now Iran.

But I think what that does is that kind of, it mischaracterizes the nature of the relationship.