Could the path to US-Iran diplomacy run through Moscow?

During a meeting last week with U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff, Russian President Vladimir Putin offered to help broker a deal to end the U.S.-Iran war.The proposal — the latest in a series of recent Russian offers to act as an intermediary between Washington and Tehran — has a certain logic to it. While the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran has brought Russia some economic gains through rising energy prices, Moscow fears further escalation and spillover across the Persian Gulf and parts of the former Soviet space. Russia is also one of Iran’s closest partners and one of the world’s leading exporters of enri