Within two months, the U.S. has captured Venezuela’s president and killed Iran’s supreme leader. Is Putin worried he could be next?
In the span of just two months, U.S. President Donald Trump has overseen the forcible removal of two sitting foreign leaders: Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Both men were long-standing autocrats who cultivated anti-Western agendas and opposed U.S. influe
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In the span of just two months, U.S. President Donald Trump has overseen the forcible removal of two sitting foreign leaders: Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Both men were long-standing autocrats who cultivated anti-Western agendas and opposed U.S. influence abroad. Vladimir Putin has at times employed similar tactics, raising obvious questions for the Russian leader: Is he at risk of the same fate? And what the new war mean for a Kremlin that’s invested heavily in its partnership with Tehran? Alexander Baunov, senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, examines these developments and their ramifications.
After the death of Iran’s Ali Khamenei in joint U.S.–Israeli strikes in late February, Vladimir Putin finds himself in a difficult position. It wasn’t long ago that he was praying for Donald Trump to make it to the U.S. presidency. It turns out, however, that Putin was praying for the man who would ultimately assassinate his ally, the head of a sovereign state and its official “spiritual leader” — even as Russia professes to oppose the West on the grounds of spirituality.
The arrest and removal of Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro in early January were hard for Moscow to stomach, but they put up with it. Public criticism was left to the Russian Foreign Ministry and its head Sergey Lavrov, who voiced the anti-American line in Russia after Trump’s arrival in the White House. Putin and Kremlin officials themselves avoided harsh judgments — partly because, in Trump’s thinking, the Western Hemisphere is effectively America’s sphere of influence. By acknowledging U.S. control there, Russia hoped to secure its own regional sphere of influence. And besides, arrest and removal are not the same as assassination.
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In contrast, the latest developments are unfolding in what Russia might call its “own hemisphere,” and to some extent its sphere of influence: a BRICS country. And this time, the Americans have killed a leader with whom they had just recently been negotiating.
Khamenei’s death is reminiscent of that of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, which became a turning point in Russian politics and the formal pretext for Putin’s decision to return to the Kremlin as president (though this decision had been developing for some time). It was also one of the key justifications for Moscow’s new anti-Western foreign policy. Putin has repeated his grievance many times: that Western governments invited Gaddafi to their capitals, shook his hand, recognized him as the country’s leader — and then easily allowed him to be killed. For a time, he brought up Gaddafi’s killing as often as he now brings up the “coup in Kyiv,” where the central grievance was the same Western duplicity: “They signed the agreement themselves, and then let him be driven out.”
But ousted Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, like deposed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, at least survived. Now, we have the first killing of a sitting head of state since Gaddafi. Twice in two months, Putin has failed to save allied dictators. And in the second case, the killer of this long-standing ideological and political ally turns out to be another would-be ideological ally: Donald Trump.
What Russia’s reaction to Khamenei’s killing reveals
Unlike when Maduro was captured, Putin issued strong comments on Khamenei’s killing. In a statement published on the Kremlin’s website, he expressed “deep condolences regarding the assassination of the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Sayyid Ali Khamenei, and members of his family, committed with cynical disregard for all norms of human morality and international law.”
A prepared statement is by nature a dry genre: unlike a Q&A session or a video address, it carries no intonation, conveying neither anger nor indignation. Yet the most important aspect of Putin’s message was what it didn’t say — who killed Khamenei. There are at least two parties he could have named: Israel and the United States. And Putin worded his message to avoid directly accusing President Trump.
Twice this year, Putin has found himself in a difficult position vis-à-vis his allies and the Global South, on whose behalf Russia purports to speak. He had bet that Trump would be a different kind of U.S. president, placing serious hopes in rapprochement. Now, he can’t simply abandon this “special relationship” without jeopardizing Trump’s friendly neutrality in the Russia–Ukraine war and in ongoing negotiations.
For delicate situation like these, Russia has long taken what might be a called a polyphonic approach to its political messaging. For example, when Myanmar’s ruling junta targeted the country’s Rohingya Muslim minority, Moscow generally supported the regime, but Chechnya Governor Ramzan Kadyrov spoke out in defense of the Rohingya and accused the Myanmar army of genocide. Kadyrov’s position, like that of some other official Muslim voices within Russia, is often far harsher than the official Kremlin line, including towards Israel. Similarly, after Maduro’s arrest, Russia’s Foreign Ministry issued a classic anti-imperialist, anti-American statement, while the Kremlin itself remained silent. In the current arrangement, it’s largely the Foreign Ministry that has been delegated the role of criticizing the United States, while the Kremlin cultivates special relations with it.
Following a closed Security Council meeting on February 27, the Foreign Ministry issued a strong statement. But this time Putin also spoke. His remarks avoided directly naming Trump or the United States, and came across even milder than his comments following the U.S. killing of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani on January 2, 2020. That earlier statement was informal, along the lines of: “They just killed an Iranian general — completely outrageous.” Yet even then, Putin did not mention the outgoing president or the United States in general.
These silences perfectly capture Putin’s position as a weak strongman — a leader who prides himself on strength and on having no constraints, but who in reality cannot afford to confront, even verbally, the U.S. president who is destroying his allies.
Why Putin still doesn’t feel threatened
The Kremlin understands perfectly well that Trump attacked Iran not as Russia’s ally, but as a separate target. Nor does he see Russia as part of the same “axis of evil” as Iran. Trump’s hostility towards Iran, and towards Khamenei personally, goes back a long way — and stands on its own.
When it comes to Russia, and especially to Putin specifically, Trump has no such ire. He doesn’t see Iran and Russia as a single entity, nor does he view Khamenei as an extension of Putin. This means the U.S. strike on Iran is not a projection of Trump’s animosity toward Putin, Russia, or even toward dictatorships in general.
Washington’s new official posture is more focused on “democratizing” its European allies — especially when they block the rise of the Trump administration’s ideological partners — than on hostile autocracies, toward which it has long shown indifference. For Trump, figures like Maduro, Khamenei, and Putin don’t form a single lineup of targets, and the attack on Iran cannot, at this stage, be read as a proxy strike against Russia.
To support Iran too vigorously would mean openly siding with Trump’s enemies — entering the sphere of his personal animosity and becoming a party to the conflict. It would undermine the valuable U.S. neutrality in the Russia–Ukraine war and jeopardize the prospect of sanctions relief. This is clearly not the strategy the Kremlin has chosen in its relationship with Trump. Putin has no interest in driving the U.S. president towards the many American politicians who would lump him in with Khamenei.
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Why Trump’s methods resemble Putin’s
For Trump, the war against Iran has little to do with putting pressure on Russia — but that doesn’t mean Moscow is a passive observer. In Russia, the head of state is surrounded by an aura of sacredness and untouchability. The assassination of a sitting leader is an unpleasant reminder that such things are even possible.
In Putin’s worldview, it’s acceptable to eliminate traitors and opposition members (whom the regime equates with traitors). But even the leader of a hostile state — like the boss of a rival mafia clan — is still, to some degree, shielded by written and unwritten rules. The mere fact that leaders stay in contact with one another provides a perceived layer of protection.
Though Putin often resorts to street-level insults against Zelensky, Russian officials cite the very fact that negotiations with Ukraine are taking place as evidence of Moscow’s alleged restraint.
The Russian Foreign Ministry’s statement on the attacks in Iran — harsher than Putin’s own words — focuses specifically on the claim that the strikes were “carried out under the cover of renewed negotiations” and “contrary to signals conveyed to the Russian side.” The word “renewed” alluded to Venezuela, where the attempted seizure of Maduro was also preceded by direct negotiations between him and Trump, as well as between their administrations.
When Gaddafi died, Putin was particularly stung by the fact that the same people who had engaged with the Libyan leader as a head of state, brought him out of isolation, and “shook his hand,” were the ones who allowed and approved his death. That experience taught the Kremlin that high-level talks do not prevent elimination — they can even set the stage for it. The shift from diplomacy to death can be rapid.
Russia, too, conducts negotiations whose outcome may not satisfy Trump. And for the U.S. president, as it turns out, negotiations without an official cessation can end with the arrest, or even the physical elimination, of the other side’s leader, and then continue under bombardment.
Russia’s UN ambassador, Vasily Nebenzya, noted that Moscow had received no signals that Israel was interested in war. This sounded almost like a complaint about being deceived: the troops were supposedly gathered as a warning, not for an attack — and yet they attacked. In short: “We were fooled again.” And if Moscow had passed these signals on to Tehran, it would represent yet another failure of Russia’s mediation.
And yet Russia itself demands that Ukraine negotiate while under fire and denied any intention to invade even as it amassed troops on Ukraine’s borders (in 2021–2022). Hypocrisy, as always, is easier to spot in others.
The method to Trump’s madness
The West has once again demonstrated its duplicity. Yet that doesn’t mean the Kremlin is projecting the Iranian scenario onto itself or feeling powerless. Critics may lump anti-Western dictators together, but the dictators themselves do not necessarily see themselves as part of the same club.
The so-called “axis of evil” is more complicated than it appears. The military commitments Russia has maintained with North Korea since 2023 do not exist with Iran. Russia identifies far more closely with China — a major nuclear power — than with Iran, a regional state that has never crossed the nuclear threshold. Putin, still searching for evidence that launching the “special military operation” was justified, may even see Iran’s fate as confirmation. In his view, Iran failed to keep threats away from its borders and allowed itself to be surrounded by U.S. bases and hostile governments.
At the same time, the Russian regime has built much of its strategy on the assumption that Trump is fundamentally different from previous U.S. presidents, Democrats and Republicans alike. Yet despite proclaiming a foreign policy focused on American economic and security interests rather than global democracy promotion, Trump ultimately acts within a familiar tradition of U.S. global activism.
A brutal strike against another sovereign dictatorship undermines Moscow’s hopes for a political revolution in Washington under Trump. It strengthens skeptics within the Russian leadership — those who believe that conflict with the West, especially the United States, is structural and unavoidable, and that hostile policies toward Russia are predetermined regardless of who occupies the White House.
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Even if the Kremlin does not see itself as directly comparable to Iran, the elimination of Iran’s leadership raises sensitive questions at home: succession in the event the regime’s central figure is suddenly removed. Uneasy glances circulate within the elite. While the leader himself has shown no intention of managing a transition, senior officials and factions may quietly weigh their options.
All the more so because in Iran — as in Venezuela — Trump appears to be betting not only on opposition movements but also on parts of the ruling establishment when seeking regime change. The formula is simple: remove the top leader, eliminate the most uncompromising figures if necessary, then negotiate with those who remain under the shadow of force. They are pressured to accept the required conditions, while the public is simultaneously encouraged to “take power into its own hands.”
Globally, Trump’s joint attack on Iran with Netanyahu is widely seen as another sign that the international order is unraveling and that raw power is once again taking precedence over rules. Back in the aughts, the Bush administration was ridiculed for its attempts to persuade allies to support its invasion of Iraq. Trump, by contrast, did not even try. He sought no approval from Congress and certainly none from the U.N.
He also made no effort to present evidence — or even to maintain a consistent narrative. Six months ago, he claimed that Iran’s nuclear and missile programs had been set back by earlier strikes. Now, the justification is that Iran is closer than ever to developing a nuclear bomb. Meanwhile, unlike the 2025 campaign, the current strikes appear aimed less at weapons programs than at the regime’s political structure itself.
The abrupt shift from theatrical peacemaking — “I ended eight wars” — to launching a new conflict is left entirely unexplained. Trump does not appear to see the contradiction as a problem. He behaves like someone largely indifferent to war or peace, but deeply invested in the appearance of success — measured in approval ratings and social media engagement.
War and peace become interchangeable tools serving the same goal — just as how for Putin, everything from liberalization to practices reminiscent of Stalin can serve the single purpose of maintaining power. Similarly, the MAGA faction’s professed pragmatism and realism — its rejection of democracy promotion and nation-building abroad — coexists with a very traditional American pattern: efforts t remove authoritarian regimes, sometimes by military means, accompanied by rhetoric about liberating nations from dictatorship.
The global institutional order may appear dead. Yet one foundation remains: Trump refuses to frame his goals as exporting democracy, instead speaking of American interests and eliminating threats. But in practice, the targets of military force remain the same: authoritarian regimes. Not necessarily the longest-standing or most repressive, but the most objectionable, isolated, and least protected — particularly those without nuclear weapons. They are vulnerable precisely because of the internal weaknesses typical of autocracies: fragile institutions and questionable legitimacy.
Unlike previous administrations, the new U.S. leadership has issued threats not only toward autocracies but also toward democratic states, such as Denmark, Mexico, and Canada. The justification is always the same: U.S. security and national interests.
Yet in reality there is no institutional, legal, or conceptual pathway for using force against democratic governments. First, because such states do not threaten the U.S. or its allies (rare exceptions might include Israel’s threats to authoritarian U.S. partners in the Middle East, or its actions against largely democratic Lebanon). Second, because even Trump cannot plausibly justify an attack on democratic countries like Denmark or Canada.
Authoritarian regimes, by contrast, often resemble weak strongmen — powerful in appearance but deeply fragile internally. The weakened legitimacy of authoritarian systems becomes a central vulnerability when confronted with unpredictable actors like Trump. By that measure, Russia does belong in the same category as Iran, Syria, and Venezuela. And that is why Putin likely experiences the fates of Assad, Gaddafi, and now Khamenei, as personal political tragedies.
