Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi met his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Thursday to discuss the war in Gaza and bilateral relations, IRNA reported. 

During the meeting, Raisi once again accused Israel of carrying out “war crimes and genocide” in Gaza, adding that the United States and other Western countries support Israel’s military campaign.

He criticized what he called “the unilateralism and unfairness of the global system,” saying they are now best reflected in the Gaza crisis.

The repeated allegations of Tehran officials against Israel come against the backdrop of Iran’s openly admitted assistance to Palestinian militant groups, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and its other proxies in the region, such as Hezbollah and Yemeni Houthis.

Their meeting came a day after the Russian president visited the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia to hold talks over the global oil market and the Israel-Hamas conflict.

Raisi praised Tehran-Moscow cooperation in the fields of energy and agriculture, further urging the expansion of ties between the two countries.

Putin told his Iranian counterpart that the volume of Tehran-Moscow trade has reached 5 billion dollars, adding that Russia is ready to expand its ties with Iran in different fields, especially in the field of energy.

In 2022, Iran proudly announced the signing of the “largest oil and gas agreements in the country's history worth $40 billion.” However, Russia has not converted any of these memoranda of understanding (MoUs) into contracts.

About a decade ago, Iran also signed dozens of oil and gas MoUs with various Russian companies, none of which were executed.

Speaking about Raisi-Putin meeting, US National Security spokesman John Kirby said on Wednesday that “it’s certainly not implausible” that Moscow and Tehran would improve their military relations.

Since mid-2022, Iran has reportedly supplied hundreds of kamikaze Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) to Russia, which have been extensively used to target civilian infrastructure and cities.