Russia's Role in October 7 - Before and After
Russia is an early adopter in supporting Palestinian terror organizations, having done so since the 1970s. After October 7, Putin has doubled down on his support of Israel's enemies.
Israeli and American Jewish organizations were all over Ukraine in the opening days of the full-scale invasion, evacuating people from hotspots and offering medical care. I saw Israeli and Jewish groups providing humanitarian aid in places inside Ukraine the International Committee of the Red Cross would not think to go.
Jewish compassion is still flourishing in Ukraine. Israeli medical volunteers were already on the scene when I got to the Kyiv children’s hospital bombed by the Russians in July of this year.
On this day last year, Israeli flags flew all over Kyiv. I remember Ukrainians pouring out strong emotions in their support for Israel, as if they had lost one of their own. In part, it was in response to Israel supporting them in their time of need. In larger part, it was in recognition of a common enemy.
By October 7, 2023, Iranian drones had taken the lives of hundreds of Ukrainian civilians in thousands of drone strikes by the Russians.
The hundreds of drones that have hit hit Israel in recent months are the product of more than 8,000 attacks by Russia with Iranian made drones on Ukrainian civilians over the past two years. Iran is leading the world in drone warfare because of the advances it has made testing its drones in Ukraine. So intertwined is Russian-Iranian drone R&D that the Iranians have built a factory inside Russia to more effectively kill Ukrainians and advance its drone technology.
The lessons Russians have learned in Ukraine have enabled Iran to increase the range of its drones from 930 miles to about 2500 miles, enough to strike most of Europe (and key US military bases in Europe) from inside Iran’s borders. Russian-Iranian collaboration has also increased the explosive payload of drones headed to Israel by 25%, to 110 lbs.
Putin’s support for Israel’s enemies does not stop with Iran.
While nobody has given evidence of a specific role Russia played in the attacks of October 7, Moscow was the first place Hamas leadership traveled afterwards, and has been a favorite haunt of Palestinian terrorists for decades.
Media reports say Hamas leaders discussed the six Russian hostages they held. It must have been a short conversation given that the release of Russian hostages was still being discussed by Hamas in a June 2024 meeting in Moscow.
What did they discuss? The vodka that goes best with hummus? Or which Russian rockets would best evade Israel’s Iron Dome?
Much like Hamas, Putin has little regard for human life. Putin’s military strategy depends on sending poorly equipped, poorly trained conscripts en masse to the front. He uses rape as a weapon of war. Hamas uses Palestinian civilians as human shields and trains children to be suicide bombers. Putin’s priority is not the release of Russian hostages but how he can inflame the war in the Middle East to benefit his aims in Ukraine.
Putin held a summit of Islamic terror groups in Moscow in late February, including Fatah, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and several other Palestinian factions. While Arab media reported conciliatory and humanitarian blandishments coming out of the meeting, it is hard to believe military strategy was not a key topic, given the thousands of rockets fired into Israel following the meeting and lack of any type of conciliation.
Putin has regularly hosted Islamic terror groups in Russia. His public relationship with Hamas dates back to 2006. In the run up October 7, 2023 attacks on Israel, Hamas leaders met publicly with Russian leaders at least three times - May 2022, September 2022 and March 2023.
For a deeper dive, check out John Hardie’s prescient 2022 analysis of the Hamas/Russian relationship.
Russia and Hezbollah have been collaborating militarily for years in Syria. In 2018, their cooperation extended to sanctions evasion. The US Treasury Department exposed a complicated scheme diverting oil money to Syria that involved Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah and Russia.
A 2023 Treasury report exposed Hezbollah’s efforts to procure weapons from Russia. These efforts must of been successful, as Israeli local news stations reported last week finding Russian weapons at captured Hezbollah positions. A September 2024 article from Reuters details Hezbollah’s elaborate Russian armory.
Perhaps these arms shipments are what prompted Russian ambassador to Lebanon Alexander Rudakov to state openly, “Moscow will support Hezbollah in the event of a war in Lebanon."
Aurora Ortega and Dr Matthew Levitt explored Hezbollah’s relationship with Russia extensively in this piece.
Russia’s historical ties to Palestinian terrorists go back half a century. Arguably, the KGB birthed the Palestinian terror movement, having groomed and trained Yasser Arafat, the eventual leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), in the 1960s. While later in life, Arafat was a questionable recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, he also has the distinction of pioneering the use of suicide bombers and popularizing airline hijacking. A Romanian KGB officer claims to have given Arafat $200,000 per month (worth nearly $800k today) throughout the 1970s.
While we are on the subject of Eastern European leaders supporting Israel’s enemies, let’s not forget Viktor Orban. The rest of the world was trying to isolate Iran’s economy in the aftermath of October 7, but Orban’s government signed a trade agreement with Iran in February of this year.
Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade of Hungary Peter Szijjarto said the “…pretty extended framework of sanctions against Iran makes it really challenging to build effective economic and trade cooperation between the two countries. But challenging does not mean impossible…”
The idea of sanctions is to make it challenging to give money to aggressive and repressive regimes Pete. That’s the idea.
Not only does Orban support Iran’s economic ambitions, but their nuclear ambitions as well. In 2017, Hungary signed an agreement to collaborate with Iran on nuclear projects. Hungarian banks committed 85 million Euros to support the efforts. Hungary is training Iranian nuclear scientists.
Worth mentioning is that Hungarian Foreign Affairs and Trade Minister Szijjarto is the recipient of the Russian Order of Friendship, the highest honor a foreigner can receive from Russia. Heidi Pryzybla did a great job of detailing Orban’s ties to Russia. Szijjarto did a lot of work to get that medal.
Americans need to realize that Russia, Iran and Palestinian terror groups are all working together, with support from Russian allies like Hungary. The Ukraine war and the war in the Middle East are different fronts of the same war, a war being supported by both North Korea and China, that could spread soon to Asia.
Israelis realize peace is something that needs to be won. With 3 million Ukrainians living under Putin’s heel in occupied Ukraine, Ukrainians realize that freedom is something that needs to be won.
Eighty years have passed since the massive destruction of WWII. Americans think peace and prosperity is their birthright. As stability continues to decline in the world, Americans will soon recognize that peace and prosperity need to be won.
WE ARE NOT PREPARED!!