Moscow on Wednesday sharply rebuked Washington, accusing the United States of using an "imaginary" Iranian threat as cover for a plan to topple Iran's constitutional system. The Foreign Ministry's spokeswoman told reporters that talks with Tehran, which she said had been ongoing as recently as last week, were exploited as a facade to mask intentions of regime change.
The spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, said there was "no doubt" that the repeatedly invoked Iranian threat had been fabricated over many years and had served as a pretext "for the implementation of a long-cherished plan to violently overthrow the constitutional order of a sovereign state" that, in her words, Washington and Tel Aviv disfavored.
Zakharova also condemned public statements urging Iranians to seize power from their clerical leadership. Without naming the U.S. president, she referenced calls for Iranians to take control and described such appeals as both cynical and inhumane. "It is even more cynical and inhumane to hear calls for the Iranians to seize power, as the West says, when the West is literally tearing ripping these hands from the Iranians," she said.
The remarks came against a backdrop of heightened confrontation after what Russian officials described as the killing of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. President Vladimir Putin, according to Moscow, condemned what he termed the cynical murder of Khamenei, who was killed on the first day of the war that the United States and Israel launched on Saturday.
Russia highlighted its formal ties with Tehran, noting the existence of a strategic partnership treaty between the two governments as it criticized what it called foreign meddling in Iran's internal affairs. Zakharova framed recent diplomatic activity as being used to camouflage a deeper objective: overturning a sovereign nation's constitutional order by force.
The Russian Foreign Ministry made its statements publicly, reiterating Moscow's position that external calls for regime change and exhortations for domestic actors to seize power are unacceptable steps that exacerbate tensions and undermine sovereignty.
Reporting note: Russian officials spoke to reporters during the ministry's public briefings. Quotations above reflect their statements as delivered at that time.