Let’s start with what we don’t know — we don’t know that Russia was aware that Hamas planned a massacre and mass hostage-taking in Southern Israel on October 7 and we don’t know that it directly arms the group.
But we do know many other things that indicate the Kremlin’s willingness to engage with Middle Eastern terrorist groups and to aid them. And its behavior since the massacre has hardly suggested it feels any qualms about that or sees events as anything beyond an opportunity to harm its enemies and further its own interests.
This affinity with terrorist groups reaches back at least until the 1960s when Palestinians formed terrorist groups. Russia’s KGB saw advantages in good relations with the emergent groups, as did its East European satellites. Carlos the Jackal, a notorious killer working for the Abu Nidal organization, used the Czechoslovak spa town of Karlovy Vary for rest and recuperation, and some 5,800kg of Czech Semtex explosives and Soviet weaponry were supplied by Libya to the IRA in Northern Ireland in the 1970s and 1980s, though it has not been proven that the Kremlin knew of this.
Soviet KGB documents from the Mitrokhin Archive revealed extensive collaboration between the KGB and Palestinian leaders like Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas, his successor, who has denied acting as a Russian agent codenamed “Mole.” Russia’s attempted recruitment of Middle Eastern militiamen for its all-out war of aggression in Ukraine in 2022 aligns with its history of supporting and using terrorist organizations. This is evidenced by its more recent supply of weapons to the Taliban and alleged 2020 payments for its gunmen to target US troops.
There is no question about its collaboration with the Lebanese-based terrorist group Hezbollah to assist President Bashar al-Assad’s bloody war to maintain power amid the Syrian conflict, which had caused the deaths of more than 500,000 Syrians.
Russia has no particular objection to terrorist methods since absolute ruthlessness is a hallmark of its own military and security strategies. A long series of poisonings at home and abroad, sometimes using radioactive and chemical weapons, simply underlines the point. On the battlefield, Russia employs approaches at or beyond the far edge of the laws of war. In particular, its air force had deliberately targeted hospitals in both Syria and (on more than 700 occasions) Ukraine. Its political leaders have signed off on the armed forces using tactics — like rape, torture, and summary executions — which if not terrorism, are designed to terrorize.
Take Russia’s decision to kidnap 700,000 children from Ukraine. Many, perhaps 20,000, have no parents or relatives accompanying them and have been put up for adoption, a policy that caused Putin and one of his senior officials to be indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC.)
It is tough to see videos of Israeli child hostages reunited with their families without recalling similar images from Ukraine. That is only reinforced by the fact that Qatar has acted as an intermediary in both cases.
The Kremlin’s relationship with Hamas has been reinforced by its dealings since the October 7 terrorist attack. It took almost no time for Russia to invite the top Hamas leadership to Moscow, despite Hamas murdering 16 Russian citizens. Subsequently, Russia publicly strengthened ties with the group.
And while Russia may have had no direct ties to the massacre, the Wall Street Journal reported that prior to the attack, Palestinian terrorists in Gaza were part-funded by multi-million dollar payments from the Moscow-based, US-sanctioned darknet crypto exchange Garantex.
For over a decade, Russia also has collaborated with Hezbollah forces in Syria. The joint operations included training to make Hezbollah more effective in future conflicts. Russia’s growing relationship with, and reliance on Iran — a long-established terrorism sponsor — as a strategic ally and arms provider following its full-scale invasion of Ukraine has been extensively detailed, and has included the stationing of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) personnel in annexed Crimea for drone training.
Joint operations facilities, such as the Baghdad Information Center, were established for coordination between Russia, Iran, Iraq, and Syria. Reports also indicated the establishment of joint Hezbollah-Russian operations rooms in Latakia and Damascus, potentially involving the sharing of battlefield intelligence.
Recently declassified intelligence from the White House confirmed that Russia’s Wagner Group has been preparing to provide Pantsir air defense systems to “either Hezbollah or Iran.” Wagner, now under the close control of the Kremlin, has its own long history with Hezbollah and has been working closely with it for the past decade.
And whatever else links the Kremlin to extra-governmental, paramilitary armed groups in the Middle East, the conflict between Israel and Hamas has evolved into a much more widespread global online battle, with Iran, Russia, and, to a lesser extent, China leveraging state media and major social platforms to support Hamas, push out mass disinformation, criticize Israel, and undermine the United States.
Russia’s security services have long carried out operations to fuel global antisemitism and anti-Jewish attacks. That trend exploded after Russia’s all-out war against Ukraine began and has been supercharged by the war in Israel.
An EU report revealed that antisemitism has surged globally and within Russia, with disinformation and hatred against Jews flourishing online.
Russia’s involvement extends beyond online influence to real-life violence and antisemitic attacks, as evidenced by the recent arrest of two Moldovan nationals in Paris for painting Stars of David on a wall. French authorities said they had been directed by an individual in Russia. This incident is part of a broader pattern, with reports of approximately 60 Stars of David being painted on walls in Paris’ 14th arrondissement alone.
As with the Putin regime, the intention has more often been to exploit the opportunities presented rather than initiate them. The question, “How do we benefit from this?” is often Russia’s response to events. It may also hope to demonstrate to its own Muslim population that it is backing Hamas, though that carries its own risks.
Right now, the Kremlin’s approach means poisoning the well of global public opinion with antisemitism, interfering in the free and fair elections of other countries, and strengthening the hand of Israel’s enemies (who are thus also enemies of the US) to distract Washington from efforts to repel its imperial quest in Ukraine, while once again seeking to portray itself as an anti-colonial force with warm inclinations to the developing world.
It is preposterous, of course, but it has too often worked in the past.
Olga Lautman is a non-resident senior fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA), the host of the Kremlin File podcast , and an analyst/researcher focusing on Russia, Ukraine, and Eastern Europe.
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
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