Putin Breaks Silence on US Strikes on Iran

Vladimir Putin has called the U.S. strikes on Iran an "unprovoked aggression" in his first comments on the military action ordered by President Donald Trump.

The Russian president said Moscow was making efforts to help Tehran, as he sat down for talks on Monday with Abbas Araghchi, Iran's foreign minister.

"This is an absolutely unprovoked act of aggression against Iran; it has no basis or justification," Putin said, according to Russia's state TASS news agency.

He added that Russia was "making efforts to provide assistance to the Iranian people."

The U.S. struck Iran's nuclear sites on Saturday night using 30,000-pound 'bunker-buster' bombs. The strikes have brought the U.S. directly into Israel's ongoing conflict with Iran, and heightened fears of an all-out regional conflict.

Trump on Saturday evening said the U.S. had completed a "very successful attack" against three Iranian nuclear sites at Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan.

Iran, which maintains that its nuclear program is strictly for peaceful purposes, has escalated its nuclear activities in recent years. The regime increased uranium enrichment levels to 60 percent purity—a significant technical step toward the 90 percent threshold required for weapons-grade material—and curtailed international access to its nuclear facilities.

Iran appeals for Putin's help

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has written a letter to Putin to ask for more help, Reuters reports citing an unnamed senior source.

Araghchi said, ahead of his meeting with Putin, that Iran and Russia "have always had shared concerns, worries, and adversaries."

Russia details how it could support Iran

Dmitry Peskov, the Russian presidential spokesperson, said Moscow could provide various forms of help to Iran.

"It all depends on what Iran needs. We have offered our mediation efforts. This is concrete. We have stated our position, which is also a very important form of support for the Iranian side. Going forward, everything will depend on what Iran needs at this moment," he said, according to TASS.

When asked if Russia would supply weapons to Iran, Peskov said: "Everything depends on what the Iranian side, what our Iranian friends say."

Russia issues new warning to Trump: 'Pandora's box'

At a United Nations Security Council meeting on Sunday evening, Vassily Nebenzia, Russia's ambassador to the U.N. accused the U.S. of opening a Pandora's box with its strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities and gambling with the "safety and well-being of humanity as a whole."

"Washington reasserted that, to further the interests of its Israeli ally, it's prepared not only to turn a blind eye to the killings of tens of thousands of Palestinian women, children, and older persons but also to gamble with the safety and well-being of humanity as a whole," Nebenzia said, referring to the war in Gaza.

"Through their actions, the U.S. has opened a Pandora's box. No one knows what new catastrophes and suffering it will bring," he continued.

Medvedev: countries ready to supply Iran with nuclear weapons

Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy chairman of the Security Council of Russia, said Sunday that Trump "has pushed the US into another war" and that countries are "ready to directly supply Iran with their own nuclear warheads."

"The enrichment of nuclear material—and, now we can say it outright, the future production of nuclear weapons—will continue," Medvedev, a top ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, wrote in his Telegram post. "A number of countries are ready to directly supply Iran with their own nuclear warheads."