Iraq–Russia relations (, ) are the
bilateral relations
Bilateralism is the conduct of political, economic, or cultural relations between two sovereign states. It is in contrast to unilateralism or multilateralism, which is activity by a single state or jointly by multiple states, respectively. When ...
between
Iraq
Iraq, officially the Republic of Iraq, is a country in West Asia. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to Iraq–Saudi Arabia border, the south, Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq border, the east, the Persian Gulf and ...
and
Russia
Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...
and, prior to Russia's independence, between Iraq and the
Soviet Union
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
. The current Iraqi Ambassador to Russia is
Haidar Mansour Hadi Al-Athari who has been serving his second post in Moscow since June 2024.
History
Relations between Russians and the people of Iraq long predate the formation of the modern Iraqi and Russian states. In the Middle Ages, merchants and explorers travelled between the two countries using the
Volga trade route
In the Middle Ages, the Volga trade route connected Northern Europe and Northwestern Russia with the Caspian Sea and the Sasanian Empire, via the Volga River. The Rus' (people), Rus used this route to trade with Muslim history#The Umayyad Calipha ...
and
Caspian Sea
The Caspian Sea is the world's largest inland body of water, described as the List of lakes by area, world's largest lake and usually referred to as a full-fledged sea. An endorheic basin, it lies between Europe and Asia: east of the Caucasus, ...
, and then overland. According to
Ibn Khordadbeh
Abu'l-Qasim Ubaydallah ibn Abdallah ibn Khordadbeh (; 820/825–913), commonly known as Ibn Khordadbeh (also spelled Ibn Khurradadhbih; ), was a high-ranking bureaucrat and geographer of Persian descent in the Abbasid Caliphate. He is the aut ...
, already in the 9th century one could encounter
Rus merchants in the markets of
Baghdad
Baghdad ( or ; , ) is the capital and List of largest cities of Iraq, largest city of Iraq, located along the Tigris in the central part of the country. With a population exceeding 7 million, it ranks among the List of largest cities in the A ...
, to which they brought
beaver
Beavers (genus ''Castor'') are large, semiaquatic rodents of the Northern Hemisphere. There are two existing species: the North American beaver (''Castor canadensis'') and the Eurasian beaver (''C. fiber''). Beavers are the second-large ...
, fox pelts, and swords.
["Rus.", in '']Encyclopaedia of Islam
The ''Encyclopaedia of Islam'' (''EI'') is a reference work that facilitates the Islamic studies, academic study of Islam. It is published by Brill Publishers, Brill and provides information on various aspects of Islam and the Muslim world, Isl ...
'' (Brill Online). Eds.: P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel and W.P. Heinrichs. Brill.''Encyclopaedia of Islam''[ Brøndsted, Johannes (1965). ''The Vikings''. (transl. by Kalle Skov). Penguin Books. pp. 64–65]
Russia sent military personnel to help the
Persians
Persians ( ), or the Persian people (), are an Iranian ethnic group from West Asia that came from an earlier group called the Proto-Iranians, which likely split from the Indo-Iranians in 1800 BCE from either Afghanistan or Central Asia. They ...
during the
Siege of Baghdad
The siege of Baghdad took place in early 1258. A large army commanded by Hulegu, a prince of the Mongol Empire, attacked the historic capital of the Abbasid Caliphate after a series of provocations from its ruler, caliph al-Musta'sim. Within ...
in 1733.
In the modern era, Soviet-Iraqi and, later,
Russia
Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...
n-
Iraq
Iraq, officially the Republic of Iraq, is a country in West Asia. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to Iraq–Saudi Arabia border, the south, Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq border, the east, the Persian Gulf and ...
i relations have been generally part and parcel of their relations with the
Third World
The term Third World arose during the Cold War to define countries that remained non-aligned with either NATO or the Warsaw Pact. The United States, Canada, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, the Southern Cone, NATO, Western European countries and oth ...
countries and their national liberation movements, particularly
Arab nationalism
Arab nationalism () is a political ideology asserting that Arabs constitute a single nation. As a traditional nationalist ideology, it promotes Arab culture and civilization, celebrates Arab history, the Arabic language and Arabic literatur ...
, which for both historical and geostrategic reasons has been especially important for Moscow. However, at the same time, particularly between 1958 and 1990,
Soviet
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
-Iraqi relations were marked by some special features,
[ putting them in contrast with Soviet links with other Afro-Asian nations and even some states of the Arab Middle East.
* Iraq was, first of all, the closest of all the Arab nations to Soviet borders and, because of that proximity the threat of Soviet expansion, could have been seen as being much more realistic and likely by its leaders, as compared with the leaders of the other ]Arab states
The Arab world ( '), formally the Arab homeland ( '), also known as the Arab nation ( '), the Arabsphere, or the Arab states, comprises a large group of countries, mainly located in West Asia and North Africa. While the majority of people in ...
.
* Although different from the other Arab
Arabs (, , ; , , ) are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in West Asia and North Africa. A significant Arab diaspora is present in various parts of the world.
Arabs have been in the Fertile Crescent for thousands of years ...
states
State most commonly refers to:
* State (polity), a centralized political organization that regulates law and society within a territory
**Sovereign state, a sovereign polity in international law, commonly referred to as a country
**Nation state, a ...
of the Mashreq, Iraq, since its very beginning in the 1920s, contained a substantial (close to twenty-five percent) ethnic non-Arab Kurdish
Kurdish may refer to:
*Kurds or Kurdish people
*Kurdish language
** Northern Kurdish (Kurmanji)
**Central Kurdish (Sorani)
**Southern Kurdish
** Laki Kurdish
*Kurdish alphabets
*Kurdistan, the land of the Kurdish people which includes:
**Southern ...
minority with specific constitutional rights
A constitutional right can be a prerogative or a duty, a power or a restraint of power, recognized and established by a sovereign state or union of states. Constitutional rights may be expressly stipulated in a national constitution, or they may ...
, which were granted in 1925 as a condition for the incorporation of the largely Kurdish populated Mosul
Mosul ( ; , , ; ; ; ) is a major city in northern Iraq, serving as the capital of Nineveh Governorate. It is the second largest city in Iraq overall after the capital Baghdad. Situated on the banks of Tigris, the city encloses the ruins of the ...
region into its borders.[ The ]Kurdish people
Kurds (), or the Kurdish people, are an Iranian peoples, Iranic ethnic group from West Asia. They are indigenous to Kurdistan, which is a geographic region spanning southeastern Turkey, northwestern Iran, northern Iraq, and northeastern Syri ...
, other groups of which live in Turkey
Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...
, Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the nort ...
and Russia, have never completely submitted to their division and lack of national self-determination
Self-determination refers to a people's right to form its own political entity, and internal self-determination is the right to representative government with full suffrage.
Self-determination is a cardinal principle in modern international la ...
, and have constantly demanded territorial autonomy in Iraq since 1961. Their aspirations towards which the Soviet Union
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
could not remain indifferent, were, however, putting the nation in the awkward situation of having to make a choice between their recognition and general support of Arab nationalism and the friendly Iraqi government
The government of Iraq is defined under the current Constitution, approved in 2005, as a democratic, parliamentary republic with Islam as the official state religion. The government is composed of the executive, legislative, and judicial branche ...
.
* The Iraqi Communist Party
The Iraqi Communist Party ( '; ) is a communist party and the oldest active party in Iraq. Since its foundation in 1934, it has dominated the left in Iraqi politics. It played a prominent role in shaping the political history of Iraq between it ...
, which was formally founded in 1934, was one of the most effective and socially influential Marxist
Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflic ...
organization
An organization or organisation (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English; American and British English spelling differences#-ise, -ize (-isation, -ization), see spelling differences) is an legal entity, entity—such as ...
s in the region.[ Although it was never powerful enough to seize power by itself, it nevertheless represented a by-no-means negligible political force in the country, supporting Moscow after 1958, both a valuable asset and an embarrassment in its deals with the "progressive" but still often viciously anti-communist Iraqi government.
* Finally, Iraq's economic potential and relative wealth, especially after the 1973 October War and the subsequent and substantial rise of oil prices, made the state a financially attractive partner and customer for Moscow.][ These economic aspects, which had never been absent in the past, have acquired additional importance since the collapse of the USSR and the emergence of Russia as a separate and pro-capitalist nation.
*Within two years, Russian-Iraqi trade increased by 52 percent from $900 million to $1.4 billion as per September 2018.
Post-Soviet Russia, although having rejected Marxist ideology and the ideological support of the ]Communist
Communism () is a sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology within the socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered on common ownership of the means of production, di ...
parties and the national liberation movements of Third World
The term Third World arose during the Cold War to define countries that remained non-aligned with either NATO or the Warsaw Pact. The United States, Canada, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, the Southern Cone, NATO, Western European countries and oth ...
peoples, is nevertheless still interested in cooperation with Iraq, and has supported Baghdad
Baghdad ( or ; , ) is the capital and List of largest cities of Iraq, largest city of Iraq, located along the Tigris in the central part of the country. With a population exceeding 7 million, it ranks among the List of largest cities in the A ...
politically against the United States
since 1994, including the imposing of punitive
Punishment, commonly, is the imposition of an undesirable or unpleasant outcome upon an individual or group, meted out by an authority—in contexts ranging from child discipline to criminal law—as a deterrent to a particular action or beha ...
sanctions.[
]
Iraq–Soviet Union relations
The Soviet Union
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
officially established diplomatic relations
Diplomacy is the communication by representatives of state, intergovernmental, or non-governmental institutions intended to influence events in the international system.Ronald Peter Barston, ''Modern Diplomacy'', Pearson Education, 2006, p. ...
with the Kingdom of Iraq
The Hashemite Kingdom of Iraq was the Iraqi state located in the Middle East from 1932 to 1958. It was founded on 23 August 1921 as the Kingdom of Iraq, following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in the Mesopotamian campaign of the First World W ...
on 9 September 1944.[
] The regime of King
King is a royal title given to a male monarch. A king is an Absolute monarchy, absolute monarch if he holds unrestricted Government, governmental power or exercises full sovereignty over a nation. Conversely, he is a Constitutional monarchy, ...
Faisal II was anti-communist
Anti-communism is political and ideological opposition to communist beliefs, groups, and individuals. Organized anti-communism developed after the 1917 October Revolution in Russia, and it reached global dimensions during the Cold War, when th ...
, and established links with Moscow due its dependence on the United Kingdom and the Anglo–Soviet Treaty of 1942. In January 1955, the Soviet government
The Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was the executive and administrative organ of the highest body of state authority, the All-Union Supreme Soviet. It was formed on 30 December 1922 and abolished on 26 December 199 ...
criticised the Iraqi government
The government of Iraq is defined under the current Constitution, approved in 2005, as a democratic, parliamentary republic with Islam as the official state religion. The government is composed of the executive, legislative, and judicial branche ...
decision to join the Baghdad Pact
The Central Treaty Organization (CENTO), formerly known as the Middle East Treaty Organization (METO) and also known as the Baghdad Pact, was a military alliance of the Cold War. It was formed on 24 February 1955 by Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Turkey, ...
, which led to capitalist
Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their use for the purpose of obtaining profit. This socioeconomic system has developed historically through several stages and is defined by ...
Iraq cutting diplomatic relations with the Soviets. After Faisal II was overthrown in a military coup on 14 July 1958, the newly proclaimed Republic of Iraq led by General Abd al-Karim Qasim
Abdul-Karim Qasim Muhammad Bakr al-Fadhli Al-Qaraghuli al-Zubaidi ( ' ; 21 November 1914 – 9 February 1963) was an Iraqi military officer and statesman who served as the Prime Minister and de facto leader of Iraq from 1958 until his ...
re-established relations with the Soviet Union in March 1959, and the Soviet Union began selling arms to Baghdad
Baghdad ( or ; , ) is the capital and List of largest cities of Iraq, largest city of Iraq, located along the Tigris in the central part of the country. With a population exceeding 7 million, it ranks among the List of largest cities in the A ...
. In November 1958, Soviet Union sent a military mission to Iraq as well as MiG-17
The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-17 (; NATO reporting name: Fresco) is a high-subsonic fighter aircraft produced in the Soviet Union from 1952 and was operated by air forces internationally. The MiG-17 was license-built in China as the Shenyang J-5 an ...
and Il-38 aircraft. After the 1963 Iraqi coup d'état, the new government persecuted communists, and Soviet Union temporarily suspended arms exports till June 1964. The Soviet Union provided significant military hardware to Iraq, such as military aircraft (including MiG fighter jets), tanks, and a surface-to-air missile
A surface-to-air missile (SAM), also known as a ground-to-air missile (GTAM) or surface-to-air guided weapon (SAGW), is a missile designed to be launched from the ground or the sea to destroy aircraft or other missiles. It is one type of anti-ai ...
system), as well as aid in the form of Soviet military and civilian advisers who provided technical assistance.["Russia / Soviet Union" in Historical Dictionary of Iraq'' (eds. Beth K. Dougherty & Edmund A. Ghareeb: 2d ed: Scarecrow Press, 2013), pp. 508-09.] In 1967, Iraq signed an agreement with the USSR to supply the nation with oil in exchange for large-scale access to Eastern Bloc arms.
The Ba'athist regime drew even closer to the Soviet Union, with relations hitting their peak from 1969 to 1973." After 1972, Iraq
Iraq, officially the Republic of Iraq, is a country in West Asia. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to Iraq–Saudi Arabia border, the south, Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq border, the east, the Persian Gulf and ...
soon became one of the Soviet Union's closest allies in the Middle East. A fifteen-year Iraqi-Soviet "treaty of friendship and cooperation" was signed in April 1972. Iraq participated in the Yom Kippur War
The Yom Kippur War, also known as the Ramadan War, the October War, the 1973 Arab–Israeli War, or the Fourth Arab–Israeli War, was fought from 6 to 25 October 1973 between Israel and a coalition of Arab world, Arab states led by Egypt and S ...
against Israel, and received Soviet military aid during the war. Soviets assisted the Iraqis in the development of the Rumaila oil field, and Soviet premier Alexei Kosygin
Alexei Nikolayevich Kosygin (–18 December 1980) was a Soviet people, Soviet statesman during the Cold War. He served as the Premier of the Soviet Union from 1964 to 1980 and, alongside General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev, was one of its most ...
participated in the ribbon-cutting ceremony. Soviet arms were also used by the Iraqis to crush the Kurdish uprising led by Mustafa Barzani
Mustafa Barzani (14 March 1903 – 1 March 1979), also known as Mullah Mustafa, was a Kurdish nationalist leader and one of the most prominent political figures in modern Kurdish politics.
In 1946, he was chosen as the leader of the Kurdistan ...
, in 1975. Iraqi secret police received training from Soviet and East German agents. Ties between the two nations "weakened in the mid-1970s as Baghdad sought to mend fences with its Gulf neighbors and get access to Western technology." Moreover, Iraq's government did not share good relations with Syria, a close partner of Soviet Union and tried to improve relations with Egypt, which was moving out of the Soviet sphere of influence.
In the Iran–Iraq War
The Iran–Iraq War, also known as the First Gulf War, was an armed conflict between Iran and Iraq that lasted from September 1980 to August 1988. Active hostilities began with the Iraqi invasion of Iran and lasted for nearly eight years, unti ...
, Soviet Union accounted for 32% of the arms imports of Iraq, the greatest for any country. In absolute terms, this was more than 20 billion dollars. During the Iran-Iraq war, Iraq diversified its arms sales by purchasing arms from France, China, Brazil, South Africa and the United States. Iraq sought to ensure that it could fulfill its military needs while avoiding over-reliance on the Soviet Union.
This did not mean that during all that time their mutual relations had always been equally friendly and without serious political differences. Canadian scholar Andrej Kreutz explains because of their support of the national-liberation movements, a number of important Third World countries, including Iraq, "declared their friendship for and improved relations with the USSR and sided with it on a number of international problems". In no instance, however, did their leaders "compromise their own national interests or become Soviet stooges."[ Baghdad's interest in cooperation with Moscow "was based on the need for a powerful patron in its efforts to shed all the remnants of Western colonialism and to establish Iraq as an autonomous member of the world order of nation states."][ At the same time, however, the Iraqi "ruling elite had shown stubborn resistance towards anything which could be regarded as an intrusion into the country's internal affairs or as an infringement upon Iraq's sovereignty over its international policies."][
]
Iraqi occupation of Kuwait
The Soviet Union was critical of Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein (28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006) was an Iraqi politician and revolutionary who served as the fifth president of Iraq from 1979 until Saddam Hussein statue destruction, his overthrow in 2003 during the 2003 invasion of Ira ...
's 2 August 1990 occupation of Kuwait, and supported a United Nations
The United Nations (UN) is the Earth, global intergovernmental organization established by the signing of the Charter of the United Nations, UN Charter on 26 June 1945 with the stated purpose of maintaining international peace and internationa ...
resolution authorizing the use of military force, if necessary, to enforce an arms embargo against Iraq. But the Soviet Union's military support for Hussein also drew substantial criticism from the United States and other Western countries. In Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...
, Heritage Foundation foreign policy experts Jay P. Kosminsky and Michael Johns wrote on 30 August 1990 that, "While condemning the Iraqi invasion, Gorbachev continues to assist Saddam militarily. By Moscow's own admission, in a 22 August official press conference with Red Army Colonel Valentin Ogurtsov, 193 Soviet military advisors still are training and assisting Iraq's one million-man armed forces. Privately, Pentagon
In geometry, a pentagon () is any five-sided polygon or 5-gon. The sum of the internal angles in a simple polygon, simple pentagon is 540°.
A pentagon may be simple or list of self-intersecting polygons, self-intersecting. A self-intersecting ...
sources say that between 3,000 and 4,000 Soviet military advisors may be in Iraq."
Present
Before and during the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, the Russian government provided intelligence to Saddam Hussein about the location of US forces and their plans. In 2009, Russian energy companies Lukoil and Gazprom
PJSC Gazprom ( rus, Газпром, , ɡɐsˈprom) is a Russian State-owned enterprise, majority state-owned multinational Energy industry, energy corporation headquartered in the Lakhta Center in Saint Petersburg. The Gazprom name is a contract ...
signed major oil contracts with Iraq. In 2018, Iraq received T-90
The T-90 is a third-generation Russian main battle tank developed from, and designed to replace the T-72. It uses a 125mm 2A46 smoothbore main gun, the 1A45T fire-control system, an upgraded engine, and gunner's thermal sight. Standard p ...
tanks from Russia. In 2020, Iraq reportedly considered the purchase of S-400 missile system
The S-400 Triumf ( – Triumf; translation: Triumph; NATO reporting name: SA-21 Growler), previously known as the S-300 PMU-3, is a mobile surface-to-air missile (SAM) system developed in the 1990s by Russia's NPO Almaz as an upgrade to the S ...
from Russia but was discouraged from doing so by the prospect of incurring sanctions under CAATSA.
See also
* Ar-Rashid revolt
*Foreign relations of Iraq
Since 1980, the foreign relations of Iraq have been influenced by a number of controversial decisions by the Saddam Hussein administration. Saddam had good relations with the Soviet Union and a number of western countries such as France–Iraq ...
*Foreign relations of Russia
The foreign relations of the Russian Federation is the policy arm of the Russian government, government of Russia which guides its interactions with other nations, their citizens, and foreign organizations. This article covers the foreign polic ...
* Soviet Union and the Iran–Iraq War
* List of ambassadors of Russia to Iraq
*Scheherazade
Scheherazade () is a major character and the storyteller in the frame story, frame narrative of the Middle Eastern collection of tales known as the ''One Thousand and One Nights''.
Name
According to modern scholarship, the name ''Scheherazade ...
References
Further reading
* Kazem Sajjadpour: "Neutral Statements, Committed Practice: The USSR and the War" in Farhang Rajaee (ed.) ''Iranian Perspectives on the Iran–Iraq War'' (University Press of Florida, 1997).
External links
"Russian-Iraqi Relations: A Historical and Political Analysis"
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Iraq-Russia Relations
Russia
Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...
Bilateral relations of Russia