Just three days before US President-elect Donald Trump returns to the White House, Russia and Iran are set to finally sign a “comprehensive partnership agreement,” a deal that’s been in the works for months.

It’s a move that will refocus attention on a partnership that has shaped the battlefield in Ukraine, and which remains committed to challenging the US-led international order – even as the new US administration promises greater engagement with Russia.

Russian and Iran share a complicated past, peppered with conflict, and even now tread a fine line between cooperation and mistrust. And yet, the war in Ukraine has pulled Moscow and Tehran closer.

In July 2022, five months into his full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Tehran, his first wartime trip outside the former Soviet sphere.

Behind the photo ops and handshakes, his “special military operation” was not going to plan. His army had lost a lot of its initial gains as it was pushed out of the Kyiv region – and would go on to lose more later that year in two further successful Ukrainian counteroffensives.

Those drones have formed the backbone of Moscow’s attritional war, swarms of them – targeting civilian areas and energy infrastructure in an effort to break the resolve of Ukraine’s people and deplete its air defenses.

Moscow has also, according to the US, taken delivery of Iranian ballistic missiles – and while no evidence of their alleged deployment has surfaced yet, that news alone sent a strong signal to Ukraine’s allies that Putin was willing to escalate.

Less desirably for Moscow, it was also one factor that helped shift the debate around providing Ukraine with permission to fire Western-supplied long-range missiles at military targets in Russia. Several prominent Russian military bloggers claimed in early January, without providing evidence, that Iranian missile launchers and other equipment were being delivered to Russian military training grounds ahead of the deal’s signing.

Two-and-a-half years on from Putin’s Tehran visit, the dynamic has markedly shifted for both sides. Russia now has the advantage in Ukraine. It is gaining territory on the eastern front, and with the help of North Korean soldiers, slowly pushing Ukraine back in the Russian region of Kursk. The incoming Trump administration, to Moscow’s barely concealed glee, wants to start talks, and is making noises about letting Russia keep the territory it occupies, and stalling Ukraine’s bid for NATO membership.

Iran, meanwhile, is feeling decidedly less secure. Nikita Smagin, an independent expert on Russia and Iran, who worked for Russian state media in Tehran before the invasion of Ukraine, says the Pezeshkian administration is rushing to get this treaty signed with Russia amid multiple threats to its security.

“They are frightened by the Trump administration, they are frightened by Israel, they are frightened by the collapse of Assad, the collapse of Hezbollah,” he said, explaining that Iran is looking for a show of support.

Moscow may look to exploit this. The Russians have “a great nose for somebody in trouble,” said Alterman, and may be thinking “we can help them a little bit, but we can get them where we need them and extract more from them that we want.”

What more Russia wants is less clear. It has now indigenized Shahed production on Russian soil – and having paid its dues to Iran under an initial franchise deal to manufacture them, is now doing so with much less direct Iranian involvement.

Russia’s recent battlefield gains have come at a huge cost to its troops – so while its manpower issues are nowhere near the level of Ukraine’s, it could use more boots on the ground. But experts are skeptical Iran would be as amenable in this regard as North Korea, which has deployed around 11,000 of its troops in Russia’s Kursk region, according to Ukrainian and Western assessments.

“Even when Iran is fighting their wars outside Iran, they are not willing… to sacrifice their soldiers,” said Smagin, “and when we’re talking about Iran and Russia there is a very big background of distrust from the Iranian side to Russia.” And Russia may be wary of any mutual defense pact, given the more immediate threat to Iran from Israel.

“I think this is partly intended as a message to the Trump administration that we each have options,” said Alterman. “I think the Iranians are looking for tools they can use with the Americans… and there’s a sense that this gives them something to trade or something to talk about.”

Iran, facing the prospect of a possible revival of UN sanctions that were lifted under its 2015 nuclear deal, is urgently looking for ways to persuade the US to rejoin that deal, which Trump exited in 2018 – or restart negotiations.

For Russia, a new treaty with Iran – a country which might be closer than ever to being capable of producing a nuclear weapon – may be partly about dangling the specter of further escalation before a new US administration that it sees as less committed to Ukraine.

“The Iranians certainly have some worrying capabilities, the Russians certainly have demonstrated a willingness to use worrying capabilities,” Alterman said.

India on Thursday became the fourth country to successfully achieve an unmanned docking in space, a feat seen as pivotal for future missions as New Delhi cements its place as a global space power.

The United States, Russia and China are the only other countries to have developed and tested the docking capability.

“Spacecraft docking successfully completed! A historic moment,” the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) said on X.

The Indian space agency’s mission, called the Space Docking Experiment (SpaDex), involved deploying two small spacecraft, weighing about 220 kilograms each, into low-earth orbit. The two spacecraft, called Target and Chaser, blasted off from the Satish Dhawan Space Center in southern Andhra Pradesh state on December 30 aboard an Indian-made PSLV rocket.

On Thursday, they conducted a rendezvous before docking together.

India’s “SpaDex mission marks the beginning of a new era in space exploration, showcasing India’s technological prowess and ambition,” Minister for Space Jitendra Singh said on X at the time it launched.

In-docking technology is critical for future space endeavors, such as satellite servicing and when multiple rocket launches are required to achieve mission objectives.

Domestically developed docking technology will be crucial if India is to succeed in advancing its ambition of putting an Indian national on the moon, building a home-grown space station, and returning lunar samples, according to the ISRO.

The technology will allow India to transfer materials from one satellite or spacecraft to another, such as payloads, lunar samples or, eventually, humans in space, Singh told reporters at a press conference on December 31.

As part of the mission, the docked spacecraft will also demonstrate the transfer of electric power between them, once they are linked. This is essential for operating in-space robotics, spacecraft control, and payload operations during future missions.

Before the docking, India on Sunday conducted a “trial attempt” where the two satellites were brought progressively closer together in orbit until they reached 3 meters apart, before moving back to a “safe distance.”

The successful docking came after the experiment was twice postponed on January 7 and 9 due to technical issues, and the spacecraft drifting more than expected during a maneuver to bring them closer together.

A global space race

India’s space ambitions have accelerated under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was elected to a third term last June and who has tried to assert India’s place on the global stage.

In 2023, India joined an elite space club becoming the fourth country to land a spacecraft on the moon. The historic Chandrayaan-3 mission, the first to make a soft landing close to the moon’s unexplored South Pole, has collected samples that are helping scientists understand how the moon was formed and evolved over time.

As part of its ambitious plans, India aims to launch its first crewed mission to space in the next few years, and put an astronaut on the moon – a feat only ever achieved by the US – by 2040.

The country has also set its sights on building its own space station by 2035, which will be called the “Bharatiya Antariksha Station,” and launching its first orbital mission to Venus in 2028. It also plans to return moon samples as part of its ongoing lunar Chandarayaan program in 2027.

India has also made a major push to commercialize its space sector in recent years, allowing private enterprise and easing approvals for foreign investment, which has focused on building and launching small satellites into low-Earth orbit more cheaply.

For Sunday’s docking experiment, the rocket and spacecraft were integrated and tested at private company Ananth Technologies, in a first for the country.

Russia’s military on Tuesday said it would retaliate against Ukraine after Kyiv attacked Russian regions by firing six US-made ATACMS ballistic missiles, six UK-made Storm Shadow cruise missiles and launching one of the biggest drone attacks to date.

After Ukraine first launched ATACMS and British Storm Shadow missiles into Russia last year, Moscow responded on Nov. 21 by launching a new intermediate-range hypersonic ballistic missile known as “Oreshnik”, or Hazel Tree, at Ukraine.

Russia’s defence ministry said it had shot down all of the Western missiles fired by Ukraine at the Bryansk region, as well as 146 drones outside the war zone. It said two more Storm Shadows had been shot down over the Black Sea.

“The actions of the Kyiv regime, supported by its Western curators, will not go unanswered,” the defence ministry said.

The Ukrainian General Staff said it had struck as deep as 1,100 km (680 miles) inside Russia, targeting oil storage, refinery, chemical and ammunition plants in the Bryansk, Saratov, Tula and Tatarstan regions.

Kyiv did not say exactly how it struck the targets, but said that drone and missile forces were among the units involved in the attack.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said in November that the Ukraine war was escalating towards a global conflict after the United States and Britain allowed Ukraine for the first time to launch their missiles deep inside Russia.

President-elect Donald Trump has pushed for a ceasefire and negotiations to end the war quickly, leaving Washington’s long-term support for Ukraine in question.

Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine has left tens of thousands of dead, displaced millions and triggered the biggest crisis in relations between Moscow and the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.

Drone attack

The drone attack on Russia was one of the biggest to date.

Roman Busargin, governor of the Saratov region about 720 km (450 miles) southeast of Moscow, said the cities of Saratov and Engels, on opposite banks of the Volga River, had been subjected to a mass drone attack and there was damage to two industrial sites. Schools had shifted to remote learning, he said.

Ukraine attacked the same region last week and claimed to have struck an oil depot serving an airbase for Russian nuclear bomber planes, causing a huge fire that took five days to put out.

The Ukrainian General Staff said it had hit the Kristall Plant oil storage facility in Engels, part of an operation run by Ukrainian drone units and military intelligence.

The General Staff also said it had struck the Bryansk Chemical Plant, which it said produced ammunition for artillery, multiple launch rocket systems, aviation, engineering ammunition and components for cruise missiles.

The drone attack struck a munitions storage facility holding guided bombs and missiles at the Engels airbase in Russia’s Saratov region as well as other targets, a source in the Security Service of Ukraine said on Tuesday.

The General Staff said attacks on the Saratov Oil Refinery and the Kazanorgsintez plant triggered fires.