Russia is one of the few nations that has maintained a friendly relationship with Tehran. Moscow condemned the U.S. and Israel’s attack on Iran on February 28, calling it a “pre-planned and unprovoked act of armed aggression against a sovereign and independent U.N. member state,” in a statement from Russia's Foreign Affairs Ministry posted to Telegram. Vladimir Putin similarly criticized the killing of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as a “cynical murder.”