Putin and Iran’s Bloody Dossier: What Happened Behind Tehran–Moscow Security Cooperation?

After Masoud Pezeshkian travelled to Moscow and met Vladimir Putin on 5 Aban 1405, corresponding to 27 October 2026, I decided to examine the movements of Islamic Republic and Russian officials since the war of Khordad 1404. My initial investigation identified around twenty missions and visits, although that figure remained uncertain because of secret trips and overlapping delegations. Yet the number of meetings, particularly at senior political and security levels, caught my attention.

Remarks by Kazem Jalali, the Islamic Republic’s ambassador in Moscow, deepened my doubts. He had said that, during the year and a half before he was killed, Ali Larijani travelled to Russia seven times, only two of which were made public. The other five visits had remained secret by agreement between Tehran and Moscow.

Do the two countries not have embassies, ambassadors, foreign ministries and direct channels of communication? Face-to-face meetings between governments are, of course, normal. But when war, national security and secret negotiations between senior officials are involved, the public has a right to ask about the purposes and outcomes of these visits.

Three fundamental questions arose for me:

1. During these repeated visits, particularly the secret ones, what decisions did Islamic Republic officials discuss with Moscow that the Iranian people were not entitled to know about?

2. What did Russia gain in exchange for receiving military technology, drones, economic contracts and access to Iran’s resources? And when Iran came under military attack, what practical, measurable support did Russia provide?

3. Where is the boundary between strategic cooperation and security dependence? Has the Islamic Republic consulted Russia about its internal affairs, even popular protests, to protect the security and survival of the regime—or sought its permission?

Examining the timing of security contacts between the two countries made my questions more pressing.

The protests of Dey 1404 began amid economic pressures and developed into widespread political protests. The government responded to the people with bloody repression and an internet shutdown.

In the very midst of this crisis, on 12 January 2026, Sergei Shoigu, secretary of Russia’s Security Council, spoke with Ali Larijani. According to Reuters, Shoigu expressed regret over the deaths and condemned what he described as foreign interference. The two sides also agreed to maintain contacts and security coordination.

Eighteen days later, on 30 January, Larijani met Putin at the Kremlin on an unannounced visit. Full details of the talks were not released.

This coincidence in timing establishes a clear fact: while protesters were being killed and millions of Iranians were cut off from the world, contacts and coordination between senior security officials in Tehran and Moscow continued.

I was still examining this issue when, on 28 October, Vladimir Putin himself made remarks that changed the course of my investigation.

On the sidelines of the Russia–Africa summit, he attributed the protests in Iran largely to social networks beyond government control and discussed the communications shutdown in the context of information sovereignty.

But the most significant part of his remarks was another sentence:

‘It is not only the Revolutionary Guards who give us this information; we ourselves could also see it clearly from outside.’

This statement was recorded by the Russian news agency Interfax.

The issue was now more than speculation about security relations. Russia’s president himself was speaking of receiving information from the Revolutionary Guards about developments inside Iran.

But what information? Reports from the streets, social media, protester numbers, or something else? Putin did not explain.

The issue becomes more serious when we turn to the twenty-year Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Treaty between Iran and Russia. Article 4 provides for information exchange between the two countries’ security and intelligence agencies. Yet the same treaty places no mutual defence obligation on Russia.

In other words, Moscow can be the Islamic Republic’s intelligence and military partner without being obliged to defend Iran in a war.

Meanwhile, a joint investigation by Le Monde and Forbidden Stories in March 2026 showed that Russian FindFace facial-recognition technology had entered Iran through intermediary companies years earlier and been offered to government institutions.

There is still no direct evidence establishing that this technology was used to identify specific victims of the Dey protests. Nevertheless, taken together, the transfer of surveillance technology, the intelligence-sharing treaty, security meetings during the protests and Putin’s remarks make the need for an independent investigation clear.

In its September 2026 report, the United Nations fact-finding mission documented widespread killings, torture and arbitrary detention during the suppression of the protests, characterising many of them as crimes against humanity.

In the face of such atrocities, invoking ‘information sovereignty’ cannot justify cutting people’s communications or violating their rights. National sovereignty does not mean that a government owns its citizens’ lives and freedom.

The imagined independence that the Islamic Republic has proclaimed for years faces a serious question when set against secrecy over security cooperation with a foreign power.

Primary responsibility for repression rests with those who order and carry it out. But could a foreign state’s possible responsibility also be examined?

Under Article 16 of the rules on the international responsibility of states, a state’s knowing assistance to another state in committing an internationally wrongful act may, if the legal conditions are met, entail international responsibility.

Therefore, if it is ever established that Russian institutions knowingly supplied the Islamic Republic with intelligence, technology or resources that helped it unlawfully suppress its people, the responsibility of the Russian state could become a matter for legal action. Any potential individual criminal responsibility would also require a separate investigation.

A change of government in Iran could open the way to accessing classified documents, examining security contracts and seeking compensation for victims.

For me, the investigation began with the number of visits between Tehran and Moscow. But it has now reached something far more important: the lives of those who were killed, the families left grieving and the people who still do not know the truth.

Putin cannot expect his reference to receiving information from the Revolutionary Guards to pass without questions about the nature of that information and its possible uses.

This dossier must not be closed under the heading of ‘strategic partnership’. Secret contracts and political considerations cannot take the place of truth-seeking and accountability.

Finally, I put two questions to readers, the Russian government and the international community:

If it is ever established that the Russian government knowingly played a role, through its intelligence, equipment or technology, in identifying, arresting, torturing or killing people in Iran, will Vladimir Putin and his responsible officials be held accountable before the Iranian people and international courts? Or do they imagine that the blood of Iran’s young people can also be forgotten in the shadow of secret contracts and political interests?

And is a government that proclaims independence yet exchanges intelligence with a foreign power about its own people’s protests protecting Iran’s independence? Or has it endangered the security and rights of the very nation it claims to represent in order to preserve its own power?

Source note: This article draws on statements by Vladimir Putin and Kazem Jalali; reports by Interfax and Reuters; investigations by Le Monde and Forbidden Stories; the documents of the Iran–Russia strategic treaty; and reports by the United Nations fact-finding mission.