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Putin makes rare international trip to Iran amid isolation from the West

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Updated July 19, 2022 at 5:19 p.m. EDT|Published July 19, 2022 at 10:30 a.m. EDT
Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, and Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi pose for a photo before talks in Tehran on July 19. (Sergei Savostyanov/Sputnik/Kremlin pool/AP)
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RIGA, Latvia — Russian President Vladimir Putin, shunned by much of the world after his invasion of Ukraine, traveled to Iran on Tuesday in a show of deepening ties between the two nations, united in their isolation from the West.

Putin met with Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, and Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi soon after arriving in Tehran, and then with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Later in the evening, he held talks with both Raisi and Erdogan, part of his first trip outside the former Soviet Union since the start of the Ukraine war in February.