Name: Will Putin benefit from the Iran war? | BBC Newscast
Uploaded: 2026-03-15T16:37:55.000Z
Duration: 31 min 37 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Adverbs of degree

It is Saturday afternoon and I'm recording our conversation at about 4:30 in what has been a very, very fast paced news moment as the war in the Middle east passes the fortnight mark.

There are three stars of the show this afternoon.

First of all, you with your questions and messages about the ongoing conflict in Iran.

Second of all, we're going to talk to the BBC's Frank Gardner who's reporting for us from Riyadh in Saudi Arabia.

He'll bring us the very latest on what's been happening in the conflict.

And the BBC's Steve Rosenberg will join us too from Moscow after Donald Trump controversially relaxed some of the restrictions on Russia selling its oil.

So plenty to come, but your questions are at the top of our list.

We had a message from sue, clever sue in Cardiff back on the 10th of March, and

she wrote, putin has congratulated the new supreme Leader.

He's helping Iran with defense information.

Yet Trump may lift oil sanctions on Russia.

And this week Sue's prediction came true.

America did loosen sanctions on other countries buying Russian oil.

It might not make you feel good, but you were right.

So we'll find out today how important that move was from Donald Trump's ever controversial White House.

And we'll hear from Riyadh in Saudi Arabia about the very latest events in in the war.

And we are now two weeks into a new war in the Middle East.

And we know, we promise to you on newscast that we will keep you up to date every day on all the things that are happening in that conflict which has spread right across that region.

And today we're joined by Frank Gardner, our security correspondent, who's in Riyadh in Saudi Arabia, one of the countries that has come under attack.

Now, where you are right now it's Iftar, which is the break of Ramadan.

So before we get into the details of what's happened in the conflict, just what's it, what's it like where you are right now?

I'm going to be really honest with you here in Riyadh, you wouldn't know there is a war on.

I'd love to tell you that I'm ducking into bunkers, but it really isn't true.

This is because it's quite a long way from the actual coast of the Gulf, which has been taking a lot of the hits.

So Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, UAE, Dubai, etc.

They, they've all taken a Real pummeling in particularly on their economic facilities.

But Riyadh being the capital here, the Saudis are trying very hard to stay out of this, but

they're not immune from it, as you rightly say.

Yesterday, I think they intercepted about 18 incoming projectiles.

Most of these have been aimed at the east of the country, at the oil producing part of the country.

And I spent part of yesterday visiting a British Army Royal Artillery Air Defense unit out in the desert, whose job it is to help protect some of the critical national infrastructure here in Saudi Arabia.

Things I think people accept could probably get a whole lot worse.

And they are in varying degrees of annoyance.

They are furious with Iran, America and Israel.

But there is no sign of things calming down or de escalating.

And in the last 24 hours, both Iran and the US have been hitting key oil facilities in the Middle East.

And there was an intercepted drone strike hitting one of the Middle East's largest oil storage facilities, with, of course, all the consequences that there are from that.

So everyone's heard of Dubai, everyone's heard of Abu Dhabi, but

they are only 2 out of 7 emirates in what makes up the United Army Arab Emirates.

The only one that's got a port outside the gulf, in the Gulf of Oman on the Arabian Sea is Fujairah.

And that was hit today by falling debris from an intercepted drone.

And that's a worry because people on that side of the country thought they might well get through this without necessarily being hit.

Even Oman, which argued really vociferously against this war, Oman has been hit even quite far down south.

And that's extraordinary because Oman has gone to great lengths to not just stay neutral, they've stayed on good terms with Iran.

And they actually, the Foreign Minister flew to Washington, to D.C.

right on the eve of all of this to try and persuade the Americans not to do it.

So this war has spread from very quickly, from being military targets, US Bases in the region which Iran always said it would threaten to attack if it was attacked, to diplomatic and economic targets and civil targets, civilian targets.

I feel like we're all getting to know the map, which maybe was a bit of a mystery to many of us thousands of miles away.

But with all your experience of covering that region, Frank, are You so surprised by the way in which Iran has expanded its attacks beyond, as you say, what they'd always said.

If you hit us, we'll hit American bases in the region.

Are you surprised at how they've retaliated?

I mean, this is my third Gulf War, the first one being 1991, Desert Storm, second one being 2003, the US led invasion of Iraq and this one.

And I think that there are going to be some really big long term changes, some kind of seismic shifts because for most of these countries there is no substitute to the United States as their big strategic partner and ally and provider of arms.

But the problem for people in this region is that the United States has a very close relationship with Israel of a strategic partnership.

And they see that many people here see that as a liability.

Governments in this part of the world are often closer to Israel in some cases than they are to their own people.

So for example, under the Abraham Accords, you've got Bahrain and the uae.

They've got full diplomatic and trade relations with Israel.

But most people on the ground don't like Israel there.

They're not happy with what's happening in the west bank.

And that is a liability for governments here.

So there's no easy way out of this for the governments.

And they've got, they've come to live with their great big neighbor, the Islamic Republic of Iran, just across the waters.

They don't like the revolutionary nature of the Islamic Republic.

They don't like the fact that Iran sponsors these proxy militias around the region, which it's governments here see as being very disruptive.

Things like Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, Hamas in Gaza and a whole host of proxies in Iraq.

These are all in the eyes of governments here, troublemaking militias.

But nevertheless, they would still rather have an uneasy peace with Iran than what's going on now because it's hurting their economies and it's hurting their tourist industries and it really is potentially hurting absolutely everywhere if the oil price stays as sky high, if this conflict runs on for a long time and the latest American strikes on the other side, which America said it's, and

I'm quoting, totally obliterated targets on Kharg island, which houses Iran's major oil terminal.

I mean, do we know the extent of those attacks, Frank, and

What they've done, what the Americans have done is to go after the military targets.

Kharag island is important because it's the export terminal for 90% of Iran's oil.

That's the lifeblood of the Iranian economy.

Why does it have to come out through an island?

Because the Gulf is quite shallow and big tankers, ocean going tankers, one's called vlcc, that's very large crude carriers, they can't get close enough into the coast to take on board hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil.

Subtitles ListPlay Video

Will Putin benefit from the Iran war? | BBC Newscast

sort

absolutely

critical

conflict