Why Iran's Hardliners Welcome Russia's Invasion Of Ukraine

The last weeks of the year in Iran are traditionally the time that the prices jump in anticipation of more demand and this year is no exception, especially with general inflation hovering around 40-percent for the past year making the situation worse.

Food prices have been rising much faster, with government figures showing above 60-percent inflation at retail level in 2021, compared with 2020.

Sugar and different types of rice are usually items with highest price increases followed by different kinds of meat, chicken and eggs as well as cooking oil.

Each year the government announces some measures to control the prices such as supplying subsidized food items, distributing basic goods through state-owned chain stores, banning exports or punitive measures for wholesale middlemen or retailers who don’t abide by state-regulated prices. Usually, all such measures turn out to be ultimately in vain and only lead to more tension in the market or corruption by state companies who control the distribution of sugar, rice and other basic food items.

In recent months, prices for rice – which is the main staple food in Iranian diet -- experienced a lot of fluctuations, reaching to about 1,000,000 rials (about $4) per kilogram, which is enough for five to eight people for one meal and many families eat some rice-based meals twice a day. However, an average Iranian wage-earner gets $100 to $200 per month.

To regulate the rice market, the government recently started fixing the price of this commodity, and the Agriculture Ministry announced a price list for different types of Iranian and foreign rice.

But still consumer prices at grocery shops are different from those announced by the authorities. When the ministry’s inspectors confront the wholesalers and retailers about their higher prices, their response usually is that they rather close their businesses than sell their goods at government prices and lose money. Somewhere in the supply chain prices go up and especially retailers complain that they pay much more than the official price.

In addition to rice, the red meat market is also in so much turbulence that the government has banned the export of live cattle to prevent rising prices.

According to data provided by the Trade Ministry, the price of one kilogram of beef in December was over 40 percent more than that of the corresponding period in the previous year.

The head of Cattle Farmers Association, Ahmad Moghaddasi, told Mehr News that producers’ prices have not changed in recent months, but retail prices have jumped dramatically.

He criticized the authorities for failing to control the prices in the meat market, stating that “unfortunately the brokers and intermediaries are stronger than the authorities,” therefore they benefit from the losses of both producers and consumers.

The highest price increase is related to sugar, which jumped by 76 percent compared to October 2020 as the government stopped allocating cheap dollars for its import.

Since April 2018, Iran has been providing US dollars to importers of essential goods at the preferential rate of 42,000 rials, while the dollar has steadily climbed against Iran’s rial, reaching 290,000 in November.

This was in fact a food subsidy first provided when looming US economic sanctions in early 2018 were already creating high inflation in the country.

The advanced persistent threat (APT) actors have been active across various sectors, including telecommunications, defense, local government, and oil and natural gas, in Asia, Africa, Europe, and North America since approximately 2018.

The report is the result of cooperation among numerous US and UK security and law enforcement agencies and authorities, such as the FBI, the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre.

MuddyWater -- also known as Earth Vetala, MERCURY, Static Kitten, Seedworm, and TEMP.Zagros – “exploits publicly reported vulnerabilities and uses open-source tools and strategies to gain access to sensitive data on victims’ systems and deploy ransomware” and maintain persistence on victim networks to trick legitimate programs into running malware.

Earlier in January, the US military confirmed that MuddyWater is a subordinate element within Iran's intelligence ministry that steals data from networks around the world, “conducts domestic surveillance to identify regime opponents” and “surveils anti-regime activists abroad through its network of agents placed in Iran’s embassies".

However, a spokesman from the UN mission of the Islamic Republic speaking to Reuters rejected "these baseless allegations and insisted these allegations are part and parcel of the psychological warfare waged against Iran and of no factual or legal value whatsoever”.

The phone call, apparently initiated by Raisi, followed Russia's invasion of Ukraine. "The President of Iran expressed understanding with respect to Russia’s security concerns caused by the destabilizing actions of the United States and NATO," a Kremlin press release said Thursday evening.

Putin told Raisi that Russia had taken "a legitimate response" to decades of the “West” violating security agreements and efforts to undermine Russian security, Press TV, Iran's state-run English-language channel, reported.

“The eastward expansion of Nato is a source of tension,” Raisi told Putin. “The continued expansion of Nato is a serious threat against the stability and security of independent countries in various regions of the world.”

Ten eastern European countries have joined Nato, a military alliance, since 1999. With the Ukrainian government wanting to follow suit, Moscow had requested assurances from Nato that Ukraine would not be admitted.

Some Iranian journalists and media have criticized Raisi's call. "What is the justification for Raisi's call to Putin on the first night of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and subtly supporting Russia?" Behrouz Azizi, an Iranian journalist who calls himself a "moderate conservative", tweeted Thursday.

Others have argued that Raisi's views on Nato breach both Iran's official "Neither West, Nor East" mantra and its constitution. "Raisi violated Articles 152 and 154 of the Constitution without any qualms" with his phone call with Putin, Milad Alavi, journalist in Tehran, tweeted Thursday. Article 152 requires “non-alignment with respect to the hegemonist superpowers,” taken at the time to be the United States and the Soviet Union.

Rallying to the Ukrainian cause, journalist Saeed Maleki lashed out at Raisi, tweeting: "You've become so Russophile that you don't even dare to openly condemn the war on Ukraine and the killings. In the phone call all you can do is wishing that these have good consequences…Nothing worse than this could be said."

Russian 'Honeymoon' Won’t Last

Former Iranian ambassador to Baku, Afshar Soleimani, said Iran has not officially approved of Russia's invasion but is standing by Russia's side with "subtle approval." Ali Motahari, a former deputy speaker of parliament, criticized the state media for reporting as if "the mouthpiece of a Russian colony."

Others highlighted Nato’s role.In a series of tweets Friday, Abdollah Ganji, former managing director of Javan newspaper, which is affiliated to the Revolutionary Guards, said Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had set the course for war by visiting Nato headquarters last year. Ganji predicted Russia’s "honeymoon in Ukraine" would not last.

The Friday imam of Tehran, Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami, in his sermon Friday said Nato and the US were "meddling all around the world" and "complicating the situation" in eastern Europe as the European Nato powers were "beating on the drums of war."

Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian held a telephone conversation with his Hungarian counterpart Péter Szijjártó on Friday about the crisis in Ukraine and how Budapest can help Iranian nationals who want to leave Ukraine.

“Iranian citizens, including students, families of diplomats, and other Iranians living in Ukraine, want to enter the Polish and Hungarian borders to return to Iran,” Amir-Abdollahian said.

According to Szijjártó, Hungary will open a humanitarian corridor for citizens from third-party countries like Iran or India fleeing Ukraine.

It will let them in without visa and take them to the nearest airport, which is Debrecen, Hungary’s second-largest city about 170 kilometers from the Ukrainian border.

Szijjarto also said in a video posted on his Facebook page that cars were queuing for up to 3-5 kilometers on the Ukrainian side at five crossing points.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry said on Thursday that it is trying to obtain necessary permissions for one or more special flights to evacuate Iranians from some parts of Ukraine despite the fact the country’s airspace remains closed because of the Russian invason.

According to estimates, about 5,000 Iranian nationals work or study in Ukraine.

In an article published by the Jerusalem Post on Thursday, Barry Rosen said the United Nations body is a prominent promoter of Iran as safe destination for foreign nationals.

Rosen was taken hostage in Tehran in 1979 after the Islamic Republic was established when militants took over the US embassy in Tehran and seized the diplomatic staff, holding them hostage for 444 days.

He urged the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) to expose and oppose outright lies and distortions that cast doubt on official warnings against travel to Iran to stop its decades-long hostage diplomacy.

The United Stated, Britain, Canada and many others tell their citizens that tourists in Iran are at tremendous risk of being taken hostage by the regime, but such messages are undermined by the UNWTO and its head, Zurab Pololikashvili, a Georgian diplomat, who is depends on Iran’s support for his job because the regime is a member of the UNWTO Executive Council.

Rosen wrote that the UNWTO held its 40th anniversary conference in Tehran three years ago -- the same city where foreign tourists are held captive, tortured and abused --, when the UN agency announced it is “willing to introduce Iran as a safe and peaceful destination… to attract more and more tourists to Iran”.