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Among the nations condemning Israel’s war in Gaza, one has stood out — Russia had built a growing friendship with Israel, but that dalliance is over, analysts said, erased by the shifting sands of Middle East geopolitics.
Just under two years ago, the picture had been very different.
When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Israel didn’t join the West in sanctioning Moscow, a demonstration of the alliance of convenience between the two governments.
Now, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin is among Israel’s loudest critics and has refused to denounce Hamas’s bloody Oct. 7 attack.
Instead, his war against Ukraine has driven Russia into a different coupling, this time with Israel’s sworn enemy Iran.
Russia has officially backed calls for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza at the UN, while early in the war Putin accused Israel of contemplating tactics comparable to Nazi Germany’s brutal siege of what is now St. Petersburg during World War II.