"I consider fall of regime in Iran extremely beneficial for Ukraine. It is a serious blow to Russia," - Serhii Danylov
There is no getting around it: Middle East experts are in high demand these days. Everyone wants a professional, level-headed take on Iran, the Iranian regime, the war involving Iran, and the protests in Iran. And since the two leading experts serve, respectively, as the head and deputy head of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, a quiet life is, by definition, out of the question for Ihor Semivolos and Serhii Danylov.
Analytical briefs, Facebook posts on the latest developments, comments and interviews for the media, participation in roundtables and conferences, both men have to talk about Iran nonstop. Under such circumstances, coming up with a genuinely new question for an expert becomes an extremely difficult task.
Be that as it may, we gave it a try — and in some places, it seems, not without success.
- Serhii, hardly an hour goes by without us seeing yet another report about the Iranian army striking targets in one country or another that the ayatollah regime considers unfriendly in this war.
On your Facebook page, you wrote:"
After that, I recalled that a few days ago, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi described the logistics of how Iran has organized its defense and counterattack as follows: "Our military formations are now effectively independent and somewhat isolated; they are acting on the basis of the general instructions that were given in advance."
This raises the following question: Is Iran’s defense logistics indeed now built around insulating the military decision-making center from political structures? There is a certain logic to this, given that Israel, the United States, and their allies are known to have their own sources within Iran’s political institutions.
- To begin with, it is clear that competition among centers of influence exists not only between, so to speak, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the political leadership. It appears that the Corps does indeed see itself as the authority and, accordingly, no longer sees any need to report to or coordinate its actions with the military-political leadership. So what Araghchi is saying probably makes sense. They may explain it in different ways, of course.
It is true that they have many agents embedded there. The twelve-day war demonstrated this, when Israeli special forces operated directly on the ground in Tehran, as well as in areas under especially tight security, where it would have been impossible to operate without a guide.
"The situation has not improved for the regime. Clearly, such people are present within the Corps itself as well. What is more, the very head of the Corps is being accused of being an agent of the Israeli intelligence services, since he somehow manages to survive every successive strike. There is a fundamental issue here: the Corps wants to free itself from party control — from the control of what one might conditionally call the CPSU (Communist Party of the Soviet Union — Ed.) -style party...
- That is exactly what I was about to say: this desire on the part of the army and the security apparatus to weaken party control strongly reminds me of the Soviet Union.
- Yes, the KGB is slipping out of the party’s control. As is well known, after Stalin’s death, the party in the Soviet Union brought the KGB under its control so that it would no longer act independently. Now the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps wants to break free of that control. It was palpable: under Khamenei, a mullah was indeed assigned to every unit. They could be different. Some, on the contrary, might cooperate with the Corps. Others reported on them to the so-called party leadership. In other words, the situations varied. But the Corps still felt that some degree of oversight existed and was forced to coordinate key decisions, though not all of them. Because Khamenei built a very interesting system in which he still acted as the arbiter among different groups. And it was he who was responsible for the main, strategic decisions.
Now that the entire structure has fallen apart. And the Corps is far from monolithic either, according to people I trust and who know the situation from the inside far better than I do, sitting here in Kyiv. Within the Corps, there are different groups of influence, different clans with different visions. I was saying as far back as a year ago that after Khamenei’s death, the Corps would move to seize power. Because at a moment of disintegration, power goes to whoever has resources: coercive force, money, connections, social capital, and everything else. Who has such resources? The oligarchy is tied to the Corps or to the mullahs’ corporate structure. There are no longer any prominent figures like Rafsanjani, for example, a full-fledged oligarch whose clan was beaten down quite hard. Figures of that kind have either been eliminated or stepped aside. What remains are junior oligarchs operating under this gang.
That is why, once again, it seems to me that Araghchi’s words do make sense. Even though he himself is in the worst possible position, since he is forced to justify himself, to say something about matters he does not know and cannot coordinate. He is obviously not included in the narrow circle of people discussing the key issue: what exactly are we doing now, and how are we going to justify it externally?
- Again, to avoid leaks, that circle has to be very narrow.
- There is no collective body of the kind of the National Security and Defense Council or the Headquarters of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, bringing together the intelligence services, the army, the Corps, and some mullahs. Apparently, this trio, this temporary committee, whose sole constitutional task is to convene the Assembly of Experts to elect a new rahbar (Iran’s supreme leader. — Ye.K.), is what we have. What we are dealing with is a kind of dysfunctional system of governance, where the right hand does not know what the left is doing, yet is forced to answer for it.
- In one of your Facebook posts, you rightly noted that by carrying out mass strikes, Iran is now uniting its neighbors against itself. While agreeing with you, I would like to understand the logic of the Iranian regime. On the one hand, after spending many years under harsh sanctions and in semi-isolation, Iran now risks ending up in complete isolation, while also facing strong military pressure from many countries from the outside. So what is the logic of the Iranian regime in its current state? Are they trying to disrupt their enemies’ logistics and therefore attacking NATO military bases and infrastructure facilities on the territory of neighboring and not-so-neighboring countries? Or is this a brazen attempt to pressure the populations of the countries under attack, as if to say: if only your leadership would stop attacking Iran sooner, then we would stop our attacks as well. What is the essence of this approach?
It is a major failure of strategic culture. Ihor Semivolos had a good article on Iranian strategic culture. You see, within their vision of security, this appears logical. But that vision did not withstand the test of practice. In other words, the decision turned out to be irrational and illogical.
- Please elaborate.
- They believe that even if they take such brutal and horrifying steps, once things settle down (and they are convinced they will), people will still treat them the same way they were treated before. In other words, they believe they will return to square one anyway, and that nothing will really change for them. This is one of their fundamental mistakes, a massive blow to relations with neighboring countries that made extraordinary efforts to prevent this from happening. What is more, some of those countries incurred substantial losses by acting as lobbyists, like the Sultanate of Oman, or as sincere friends, like Qatar. For decades, Qatar reduced gas production on its part of South Pars, the giant and largest gas field in the world, so as not to irritate Iran, which lacked the money and technology to develop its own section of the field. That was unprecedented! Only after 2014 did Qatar decide that this could not go on. Before that, for nearly two decades, they had been taking losses upon themselves, foregoing profits... Oman, too, sacrificed a great deal; moreover, it was the Omani embassy that represented Iran’s interests in the United States. They were the platform through which the most sensitive matters were handled.
Everyone contributed. Over the past three years, Saudi Arabia agreed to restore diplomatic relations, sign an agreement, and fully normalize ties with Iran, while withstanding considerable pressure from the United States in the process... The UAE opened its financial doors as well; the Iranian oligarchy conducted its dealings through the Emirates.
And now that Iran has done this, it has shown that all those efforts were in vain. By doing it once, this regime (not Iran, we are talking about the regime, although if it changes, the aftertaste will remain) crossed the line at which, for other countries, choosing between pressuring the United States to stop the war and helping finish off the current regime in Tehran, the more rational choice becomes the latter. Because after it happens once, you know it will happen again. Besides, there is a widespread belief among Arabs that Iranians cannot be trusted. And now every stereotype has been confirmed. A wounded beast will lash out if it is left battered but not finished off. Sooner or later, it will do something like this again. They have fundamentally undermined trust in themselves and made the choice between bad and very bad a simple one. The bad option is to finish it off. The very bad option is to work toward stopping the war. In this way, the Iranian regime has produced the exact opposite effect.
Moreover, this is undoubtedly also a manifestation of Persian xenophobia, of a condescending attitude toward Arabs. Persians do not regard Arabs as people equal to themselves.
- That is despite the fact that Khomeini and Khamenei, at the state level, denied 7,000 years of Persian history... It reminds me of Mao Zedong with his ban on Confucius and Confucianism.
But let us return to the present. Watching how Israel and the United States are eliminating the top figures of the Iranian regime, then their successors, and then the successors of those successors, you imagine what the next successors feel when they are chosen/ appointed to one position or another. They must have a knot in their stomach, because under the current circumstances, stepping into office means, in effect, already having one foot in the grave. Which raises the question: Do you think these people might refuse to take such positions?
- Certainly not. Some of them would consider it a blessing to die that way, because they genuinely believe they are becoming shahids. There is a segment of ideologically motivated senior officers for whom this is a conscious choice; they would be happy to do it. Not all of them, of course.
- And that, too, is a kind of filter: to make it to the top, at certain stages you have to demonstrate your ideological purity.
- Yes. About a year ago, there was an interesting piece on how the generation within the Corps had changed. The older ones, who had gone through the Iran-Iraq war or taken part in the revolution, are far more rational, more pragmatic, more corrupt, and even more humane. But sometime in the 2000s, Khamenei began a new recruitment cycle. Since then, he has produced, so to speak, two and a half generations. And with each new generation, they ramped up the ideological indoctrination even further. That investigation said there was palpable internal tension within the Corps. Mid-level officers, roughly up to majors and lieutenant colonels, accused their superiors of being corrupt, ineffective, and of having lost the ideals of the great revolution. Which, incidentally, the Soviet system did not do. There, each successive generation in the security sector was more cynical than the previous one.
- There was a period under late Stalin when something similar to this tension in the IRGC existed within the organs. A typical story is that of the all-powerful Minister of State Security Viktor Abakumov promoting Dmitry Ryumin from the lower ranks, only for Ryumin to later betray him and even personally take part in Abakumov’s torture. True, Ryumin was in fact a cynic himself, a successful specialist in fabricating high-profile cases.
And even earlier, before World War II, Stalin was removing ‘witnesses to the revolution’ from the security organs and the party apparatus, pushing his own people upward.
- Back then, Stalin’s purge opened up social mobility and created a sense of social optimism. Those who came in believed. They were ideologically charged. Their children still carried that within them...
To return to the Iranians, yes, far from all of them will be happy to die. But they have no option to refuse. Because that would mean they are traitors. It is a conveyor belt that works without exceptions. As is known, a month ago, a plan was drawn up for four successors. All top officials in the security sector and commanders were assigned a line of succession so that, in the event of death, the system could be automated and simplified as much as possible, with a list of who would take over each post next. And all these people know perfectly well that they, too, are on those lists.
- Reports have suggested that Iran’s newly elected leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, is not exactly a hawkish fundamentalist with dictatorial instincts in terms of his ideology and personal qualities. Should we expect him to continue his father’s hardline course? Assuming, of course, that he and the current Iranian regime have a sufficiently long window of time to do so...
- I am not sure he has been elected. (This conversation took place before the official announcement that Mojtaba Khamenei had been chosen as Iran’s new Supreme Leader. — Ed.) There have been no official announcements. Information about this appeared on one outlet, but then, in effect, one ayatollah wrote something that can be read quite plainly as meaning that Mojtaba has not been elected.
Everything rests on Iran International. It was this London-based outlet that first reported on Mojtaba. That outlet had existed on Saudi money. A couple of years ago, when the Saudis restored diplomatic relations, they stopped funding it. Now, Iran International has been revived and once again has resources. Iran International has ties to the special services, to intelligence agencies. It is sometimes given genuine insider information. It is an influential instrument, but it also has its slips. At present, there is no confirmation that Khamenei’s son has been elected. There are two versions: the first is that no election took place, and that this was an external information operation. Or that the election did take place, but Mojtaba is being kept under wraps, and no announcement is being made, so that he is not killed immediately.
And the other day, Iran International wrote that the Assembly of Experts would convene to elect him. As far as I know, there are four names on the list. That is what I have seen. First, Mojtaba; second, Khomeini’s grandson; third, the head of the judiciary, who is now part of the ruling trio on the temporary committee; and a fourth person whose name I have forgotten. Accordingly, we have a situation in which the election is yet to take place.
As for Mojtaba, Iran specialists far more qualified than I am, who have followed his trajectory, say that he has been with the Corps all his life and tried to do business with them. As is well known, the Corps is a corporation that includes the equivalent of the NKVD, the army, finance, business, and manufacturing. In other words, it is a kind of monster. And Mojtaba did business with them (successfully, unsuccessfully – in different ways). He is associated with the part of the Corps that is ideologically motivated; supposedly, he is one of their own and is linked to the so-called hardline camp. What matters in his case is this: Iranians generally have a fairly strong idiosyncrasy toward monarchy, in the sense of hereditary power. And this kind of "the father was in power, now the son is" is perceived badly. In general, Mojtaba is very unpopular. And since I believe it would be very good for Ukraine if the regime were to fall, Mojtaba’s election is a positive signal, meaning that the system continues to move toward collapse. The worse, the better.
- So you are rooting for him?
- Yes, for him, not for Khomeini’s grandson. Because with the grandson, the reformists would come in, and then there would be no quick collapse.
- Let me ask about another prominent figure in this story. What do you make of Trump’s remark that the shah in exile, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, is, so to speak, a decent guy, but that Trump needs a leader who is popular inside Iran? To me, it sounds very much like the leaders of the Venezuelan opposition, who also failed Trump’s virtual casting.
- Yes, there was supposed to be a meeting a couple of months ago. Pahlavi had been offered a trip to Mar-a-Lago or to the White House. They had already started quietly previewing that meeting, and then it was canceled. It became clear that the plan had changed. Against the backdrop of the 2022–2023 protests after the killing of Mahsa Amini, Pahlavi tried to unite the entire opposition abroad. He failed. At the time, it was believed that he had lost for good and that nothing would come of it. And then suddenly, on December 27 last year, on the day the protests began, first, people started shouting in the streets, ‘The Shah will return.’ And second, he began addressing the people, that is, he somehow caught that intangible current in the air. He is like Stepan Andriiovych Bandera.
- Wow, please unpack that.
- I like Bandera not for what he did, but because the Russians hate him. Personally, I would have been a Melnykite supporter.
- So the principle that matters here is ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’?
- Yes. And so, the Iranians used Pahlavi as a symbol that is the most antagonistic to the regime. It was intuitive. In much the same way, Kyiv voted for the Svoboda party in 2010. Even Matvii Vaisberg, the artist, campaigned for it there.
- Absolutely. I remember that motivation: if only Svoboda could at least punch Yanukovych in the face.
- Exactly. Pahlavi occupies that kind of niche; he has become symbolically significant. No one knows how popular he really is, but he has already become a symbol. And if the regime changes, he will play some role in the new Iran. We do not know what that role will be — perhaps he will have a faction in parliament; I think he will head some sort of party. I do not think they will give him any official post there, but he will be one of the players in the political field after the regime changes.
But his problem is that symbol and reality are always two very different things. And then there is the fact that Azerbaijanis and Kurds view him very negatively. Azerbaijanis especially. For them, Pahlavi is associated with national humiliation and persecution (that is, with his father and grandfather). So there is very deep hostility there toward the Pahlavi dynasty and all its representatives. They have not forgotten it. For them, it is all still very much alive.
- You have already said that you are rooting for this regime to collapse because that would benefit Ukraine. Please explain your position. Would we really get nothing but upsides from such a collapse? Could there be any downsides? I would like to have a realistic picture.
- In my view, the upsides far outweigh anything else. I consider the fall of the republican regime extremely beneficial for Ukraine. Extremely. It would be a serious turning point and a serious blow to Russia. I have spoken with specialized military experts, and they say the idea that Russia has fully replaced everything, including all the engines used in the Shaheds, is false. No, they say, if the engines are jet-powered, they are Chinese. And if they are not jet-powered but piston engines, they are mostly Iranian. The same goes for all the other components. Iran is a major supplier of components to Russia. The only thing they did not supply was ballistic missiles. And now they definitely will not. Even if the regime survives, there will be no missiles left. They will either fire them off or the Americans and Israelis will destroy them. So there will be nothing left to transfer. And that is why the fall of this regime would bring us nothing but benefits.
Besides, they were also sharing intelligence. As I have already said, the Corps is a strange structure. It is an intelligence service, a corporation, and an army all at once. It is also a mafia-like structure that worked closely with Latin American drug cartels, laundered money on the darknet — Russian money as well. The Russians had their own channels too, but they often worked through Iran. Together, they searched for component bases for missiles and transferred technologies. The Russians, specifically Moscow Metro Construction, built underground cities and airfields. That is an enormous, staggering volume of work. And it was all done for them by the Russians. But the Iranians, too, provided a great many highly specific services for a long time. By now, they probably no longer do. In other words, Russia has lost many capabilities.
- And Russia spent many years selling itself to other countries as an intermediary in relations with Tehran.
- Exactly. Russia traded on its relations with Iran in dealing with Arab countries and with Israel. They also tried to bargain with the United States over Iran. And they are still trying now, but no one there is listening to them anymore. So what did the Russians do? They would go to Riyadh and say: Do this and that for us, and we will talk to the Iranians so that they do not touch you. (Roughly speaking, we have leverage over them.)
Syria and Iran were the platforms through which Russia confidently advanced its interests in Israel as well. I remember that in 2015, we were in Israel, meeting with Israel’s former ambassador to Ukraine, and later to Moscow, Zvi Magen, a general. He told us this: you know, guys, you are good people, but we do not coordinate access codes to the airspace over Syria and Lebanon with you, we coordinate them with the Russians. So we will be talking not to you, but to the Russians. That was said. And now all of that will be gone. I do not really believe that our relations with Israel will improve dramatically under Netanyahu’s government, but at least Moscow will no longer have that lever of influence.
All these years, the Russians were trading mostly in hot air, but at the same time, they were advancing their interests in the Middle East among Iran’s neighbors. These are all fairly serious matters. They shared technologies with each other, methods of use, preparations for war, and a great deal more.
- Such as?
- The Iranians have their own ties to the criminal underworld in Europe and across the post-Soviet space. They had Georgian gangsters, those vory v zakone, on call. The FSB supposedly controls them too, but when someone needed to be taken out, they could strike a deal, rather than the FSB having a monopoly on this sort of thing.
- Understood. What other advantages would Ukraine gain from the fall of this regime?
- It is Russia’s image. It is the perception that, once again, Russia failed to do anything to protect its ally. Russia is already increasingly being discussed in the context of a series of diplomatic defeats.
- And one hears more and more often: Syria, Venezuela, Iran. Will we be next?
- Yes. The impact of this chain of events on Russia’s mental and information space is very positive for us. Another factor is that Russia had placed major strategic hopes on Iran because it feared that, sooner or later, the Baltic would be closed off. They were genuinely investing in the development of a transport corridor there. They had plans for building a railway and a port on the Arabian Sea. This is very important for them. In this way, their entire view of the situation in the Baltic and the Black Sea changes completely. If they are cut off in the south, if they lose access to the Arabian Sea and the Persian Gulf, things begin to look rather alarming for them...
"Besides that, they have now been shown very clearly how Americans and Israelis wage war. That is a "wake-up call" — what they themselves can do, and what the Americans and Israelis can do. The demonstrative effect of this war on the Russian establishment is no less important than its other components. For them, it is a cold shower."
And one more plus: the Arab countries of the Persian Gulf were the first to experience what it is like themselves. They will not develop any more empathy toward us, but they will have a greater understanding of the situation Ukraine is in. Empathy is not something to expect there. A year ago, we were at a closed expert meeting with Arab experts. When I said that we might have a shared problem called Iran, they replied quite sharply: do not push your assumptions on us; Iran was, is, and will remain our partner, neighbor, friend, and brother; we will deal with it ourselves. You understand nothing, and do not stick your European paws into our regional affairs.
That was indeed a very sharp response, and somewhat condescending too. But now we see that cooperation may be possible. As far as I know, some oil companies operating in the Persian Gulf, as well as some states, are already looking to Ukraine’s experience.
- Now let us turn to the downsides of this regime’s fall for us — though it is clear that they are far fewer
- Obviously, one is the price of oil, although a catastrophic scenario is most likely not going to happen. But yes, there will be a temporary shock.
- Let us hope it will be short-lived.
- First, it will be short-lived. Second, a range of around 80, plus or minus, is not 150–200, as the Iranians wanted and the Muscovites were counting on.
The second downside is the depletion of missile stocks. On the one hand, yes, but on the other, I read on one of the more respectable accounts that Kuwait or Qatar has a thousand PAC-3 missiles. So they may have used around 300 by now, but to say that this is it, that it is a catastrophe, would be a stretch. Another matter is that after this war, the countries of the Persian Gulf will multiply all their threat perceptions by ten... In other words, if for us the probability is 5 percent, for them it will be 50 percent. And they will replenish their stocks. But I have a feeling that the arms business in the United States is already rubbing its hands, and that production will ramp up rapidly. On the other hand, experts should speak to that. I am simply saying that we do not really know how much weaponry Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, and even Bahrain have accumulated. The Saudis, in particular, were for a long time the world’s top arms buyer. Their stockpiles are enormous.
- How appropriately, in your view, are Ukrainian diplomacy and the Ukrainian authorities as a whole behaving in the context of this war? Let me note at once that we are not trying to lecture the Foreign Ministry, only to offer some additional suggestions.
- We are in a surprisingly good situation, as most of our ambassadors in the Middle East, particularly in the Arab countries of the Persian Gulf, are genuinely professionals. It is very fortunate that things turned out this way. I know that qualified Arabists work in the Foreign Ministry’s central office; Maksym Subkh is the ambassador to Kuwait; and we have a very competent ambassador in Egypt. All of them have extensive experience and a strong knowledge of the region. I am not offering advice, but it seems to me that the synergy of the work on regional policy by all the ambassadors, the Foreign Ministry’s central office, experts, and people from the security and defense sector should produce results. This is not advice, it is a hope that this is how it is working.
- By the way, did you read about the epistolary-style exchange that took place in South Africa between the embassies of Iran and Ukraine? Our ambassador Oleksandr Shcherba wrote about it.
- Yes, I know him.
- What struck me in that story was how aggressively the Iranians behaved, while pretending not to understand the situation. That was their foreign policy manner.
- Absolutely. An Iranian diplomat starts lying before he even opens his mouth. And in general, not everywhere, but their prevailing model of behavior is aggression and arrogance. They see themselves as representatives of a millennia-old civilization and display a sense of superiority. But that cultural code works. They lie and behave quite aggressively. They even opened a book of condolence in Kyiv so that locals could come and sign it. ...So there was nothing surprising about that. They have a huge tradition of conducting endless negotiations, where they can argue with you not for hours but for days over a comma in a document. It is a very specific diplomatic culture.
- We can see how differently European countries are behaving against the backdrop of the Iran war. Italy fully supports Israel and the United States. France seems to condemn it, yet at the same time sends a destroyer and fighter jets to the UAE. Spain flatly refused to help, recalling its bitter previous experience, even at the risk of a clash with Trump. In other words, every country faces a difficult choice, and Ukraine is the only one that does not really have to make that choice at all, because in our case, everything is already clear. First, we are already at war. And second, the Iranian regime is already our enemy, and its contribution to our war has been substantial and bloody. But here is my question: based on your observations, does Ukrainian society, which knows very well the sound made by Iranian-made Shaheds, distinguish between the Iranian regime and the Iranian people?
- That is an excellent question. First of all, I can see just how enormous the interest in this topic is — from the views, the friend requests, the comments. Some outlets are covering almost nothing but Iran one after another. That is editorial policy, because there is demand for it, because people are listening and watching. So I can confirm that the demand is huge. One reason is that people are hungry for positive news. I think they want to hear about some kind of victory.
- Even if it is over Iran, Russia’s ally.
- Yes. But unfortunately, I have to explain: the overwhelming majority of Iranians in this war are on Ukraine’s side
- Really? This requires some explanation.
- Back in the early stage of the war, in 2023, the Dutch were conducting surveys through indirect methods. They specialize in Iran and have their own well-developed methodology. Yes, it was not highly precise, and it cannot be treated like a poll measuring what percentage a party might get in an election. But it did provide a general picture. And nearly two-thirds believed that, yes, America had provoked the war, while at the same time viewing Ukraine as the victim and Russia as the aggressor. So there were three positions: Ukraine is good, but a victim. Russia and America are bad. In other words, America provoked the war. Russia is committing aggression. Ukraine is the victim of aggression.
- I think that many Ukrainians would find such an attitude among ordinary Iranians unexpected.
- In Shiite culture, the victim is an important concept. One is supposed to stand for justice and for the victim. And again, Russia is unpopular. Even among the Iranian establishment. If we are talking about the technocratic establishment in the ministries, their heads are all turned toward London. We are not talking about the Corps. But since the start of this year, there have definitely been publications by ultra-conservative members of parliament, the Majlis, who were extremely critical of Russia. They feel that Russia is trading on them. They accuse Russia of switching off its air defense systems in Syria under Assad so that the Israelis could strike Corps targets on the territory of Iran and Syria. Russia failed to honor the agreement, failed to deliver the aircraft, they have many grievances.
To return to your question. On average, as far as I understand, Ukrainians do not realize that there is a positive attitude toward Ukraine among Iranians, while the regime is hostile to us. Except perhaps in Europe, where the situation is somewhat better, because Iranians came out to Ukrainian rallies with their own flags in support of Ukraine. And our refugees in Europe saw that solidarity. There are also Ukrainians who, in turn, came out in support of a free Iran, joining Iranian opposition rallies in Europe. I know from acquaintances in the United States that the Iranian diaspora there is very pro-Ukrainian. Perhaps the most pro-Ukrainian part of the local social landscape. So through these contacts, an understanding may somehow be filtering through that the Iranians actually feel positively toward Ukraine.
Yevhen Kuzmenko, "Censor.NET"
PHOTO: Serhii Danylov’s Facebook page, Internet
