Why Losing Iran is an Existential Threat to Russia | Stanislav Krapivnik

## Iran as Russia’s geopolitical linchpin The most consequential insight to emerge from the conversation is blunt: Iran is not a regional curiosity for Moscow, it is a linchpin. Lose Iran, and the map of Eurasian security is fundamentally altered. This is not about ideology or even immediate trade ties; it is about geography—the southern bulwark that prevents an unimpeded penetration of hostile power into the Caucasus and Central Asia. As Stanislav Krapivnik emphasizes, the “soft underbelly” that worried Moscow during the Soviet era remains the soft underbelly of the Russian Federation today. Control—or even the presence—of a friendly, functioning Iran closes corridors that would otherwise make NATO advances and covert influence campaigns into Central Russia and Western Siberia vastly easier. That geographic argument has teeth. The southern tier of Eurasia—running from the eastern Mediterranean through Iran and Afghanistan to China—acts as a contiguous zone that buffers Russia’s long, vulnerable internal expanse. If Iran collapses, routes open into Kazakhstan, the Central Asian republics, and the sprawling arable and resource-rich plains that lead toward Moscow and the Urals. For a country whose ethnic mosaic includes hundreds of minority groups and whose internal stability has been strained periodically, the prospect of adversary-friendly regimes or proxy networks operating on its periphery is an existential threat, not merely a nuisance. The conversation brings that strategic vulnerability into sharp relief: Iran’s fate has implications that cascade far beyond Tehran’s immediate neighborhood. ## The logic and danger of decapitation strikes A second major theme is the contemporary temptation—primarily credited to Israeli and Western covert practices—to execute decapitation strikes against enemy leadership as a quick route to victory or collapse. Krapivnik’s view is unequivocal: assassinating state leaders is rarely a clean solution. Such acts open a dangerous precedent. In the calculus of statecraft, taking out a top leader often produces reactionary dynamics that are unpredictable and frequently worse for the initiator. Leadership removal tends to create substitution effects—new actors step in, sometimes far more hostile or radically disposed than their predecessors. The conversation draws on historical and contemporary logic. Krapivnik points out that the objective behind targeting Iran’s command echelons may not have been to secure a straightforward surrender but to induce disintegration: to foment civil breakdown by targeting security infrastructure and provoking fault lines among ethnic and regional groups. If true, that reveals a strategy not aimed at containment but at engineered collapse—an escalation that carries enormous blowback potential. The message is stark: decapitation is an asymmetric tool that may generate asymmetric and uncontrollable responses. ## Asymmetric responses and the limits of surgical war Linked to the decapitation debate is an assessment of Iran’s defensive and offensive capabilities, and how those shape the region’s trajectory. The conversation notes that Iran demonstrated, at least in the exchange under discussion, a capacity to strike into Israeli-controlled spaces and to mobilize air defenses under real pressure. The result is a reframing: Iran is no longer merely a rear-area threat but a competitor capable of long-range, politically salient retaliation. This ability compels recalibration by regional actors—especially those who had assumed that geography and technological dominance would preclude meaningful Iranian reach. Surgical attacks against leadership or military nodes assume clean, limited outcomes. Real-world conflict rarely honors that assumption. Attack a centralized system and you may unleash decentralized forms of retaliation: proxy warfare, asymmetric strikes on energy and infrastructure, assassination campaigns, or covert support for insurgent groups. Krapivnik warns that those who pursue precision strikes for a quick outcome may instead precipitate multipronged confrontation—countries erupting into civil strife, transnational militias emboldened, and global great-power involvement accelerating. In short, limited action can produce unlimited consequences. ## Patterns of covert action and historical lessons A recurring undercurrent in the exchange is history. Krapivnik situates present tactics within a long lineage of Western covert operations—stay-behind networks, assassinations, and regime manipulation that stretch back through the Cold War and beyond. Examples such as Operation Gladio in Europe and Operation Condor in Latin America are invoked not as idle history but as living precedents that inform current policy choices. These programs demonstrate how covert networks can be repurposed from their ostensible defensive missions to offensive political manipulation. History also supplies cautionary tales about the limits of external control. The conversation recounts episodes where assassination or clandestine interference produced short-term gains but long-term instability, including blowback and recriminations that hardened national antagonism. Krapivnik’s point is double-edged: external actors with deep resources can influence outcomes, but once they open those particular doors—targeted killings, clandestine unrest, engineered proxy campaigns—they can rarely control the resulting chaos or the new leadership that fills the vacuum. The historical lens underlines the pragmatic paradox of covert action: potency and peril are inextricable. ## Russia’s posture: diplomacy first, readiness to fight How does Moscow fit into this mosaic? The most striking answer is that Russia’s policy mixes sincere diplomatic posture with a stark readiness to defend strategic interests. Krapivnik stresses that Russia prefers negotiation where possible—it values stability, predictable borders, and the ability to manage problems without resorting to uncontained war. Yet that diplomatic veneer should not be mistaken for passivity. For Russia, the fall of Iran would cross a threshold that elevates the crisis into the realm of existential security policy. That policy duality has several operational implications. Diplomatically, Russia will continue to offer mediation and to position itself as a stabilizer—both because it seeks to avert contagion and because playing peacemaker yields leverage. But militarily and geopolitically, it is preparing contingencies. If Iran’s collapse or dismemberment appears imminent, Moscow is likely to use political influence, intelligence support, and possibly more overt forms of intervention to shore up friendly authorities or create strategic depth. The conversation suggests that Russia’s calculus is fundamentally conservative in method but uncompromising in ends: preserve the buffer, prevent hostile encroachment, and retain a sphere of influence in Eurasia. ## Long-term implications for Eurasian order Finally, the wider consequences for Eurasian geopolitics are ominous and far-reaching. If Iran remains intact and aligned—or at least neutral—then the southern axis of Eurasia remains resistant to a simple eastward projection of Western military and political power. But if Iran fractures under external pressure, access corridors open into Central Asia, and the balance of power in the region could tip in ways that reshape energy routes, military basing options, and political alignments. For Russia, that translates into a potential chain of vulnerabilities: increased insurgency risk, ethnic mobilization within its borders, and the erosion of strategic depth. Moreover, the regional domino effect is not limited to Russia’s immediate neighborhood. The involvement of major external actors—Israel, the United States, and other Western powers—creates a multi-vector competition that could drag in Turkey, China, India, and Gulf states. Each actor has its own priorities and red lines, and a cri

Why Losing Iran is an Existential Threat to Russia Today I’m talking to Stanislav Krapivnik, a former US Army officer, supply chain executive and military-political expert who always provides valuable insights especially on security affairs in and around Russia. We are talking today on June 19th, 6 days after Israel’s attack on Iran and with the imminent threat of the US also launching an all-out military assault. What will Russia do and how does this new reality change Eurasian geopolitics? That’s what we want to discuss today. Links: Stanislav Krapivnik's YouTube Channel: @MrSlavikman Stanislav Krapivnik's Telegram: https://t.me /stastydaiobratno Neutrality Studies Goods Shop: https://neutralitystudies-shop.fourthwall.com #M3 But nonetheless, Iran is an existential issue for Russia. Why? Because of the geography. The soft underbelly of the Soviet Union is still the soft underbelly of Russia. So what Iran does is it blocks the full penetration of NATO into the Caucasus and into Central Asia. And that's the soft underbelly. #M2 Hello, everybody. This is Pascal from Neutrality Studies, and today I'm talking to Stanislav Krapivnik, a former U.S. Army officer, supply chain executive, and military political expert who always provides valuable insight, especially on security affairs in and around Russia. We're talking today on June 19th, six days after Israel's attack on Iran, and with the imminent threat of the U.S. also launching an all-out military assault, although, as we are speaking right now, that hasn't happened yet. What will Russia do in this situation? And how will this impact the realities for geopolitics in Eurasia? That's what we want to discuss today. So, Stanislav, welcome. #M3 Welcome. Thank you. #M2 Yeah, I mean, you're used to hosting your own podcast, right? You're used to welcoming people to yours, right? Let's maybe start with this: when you woke up on Friday and heard the news, what went through your mind? #M3 -- 1 of 18 -- Oh, crap. They really did it. Yeah, I was expecting them to do it, but you kind of, you know, as a religious person, you're kind of hoping, you're still praying that they back off and don't make the stupid move, even though you know they're probably going to make the stupid move. It's not going to save Israel. If anything, it's only going to accelerate its destruction. And it is accelerating its destruction. But for Netanyahu, no war means jail, the end of his political career, the loss of his freedom, and maybe even the end of his life. From what I've heard and from people I've talked to, he's willing to go as far as provoking an internal civil war. He thinks he can win it if it comes to that. Yeah, a small country of about 7 million people going into a civil war. But, you know, it's about power. It's all about power, unfortunately. #M2 Yeah, but the attack itself, I mean, was a big surprise, wasn't it? That it happened at the moment when it happened, although we knew that there were all the threats around. But how do you judge the sneakiness of this attack, or the surprise element? Do you think that the idea was to, you know, decapitate the system and be done with it in three days? #M3 Well, yes, first of all, sneakiness—that's typical Israeli. Trying to murder off the leadership. You know, there's a reason that countries don't assassinate the leaders of other countries. Most of the time, it's not out of morality, as you might like to imagine. It's out of self-preservation. Because— and this is something most American senators and American leadership are too ignorant to figure out, unfortunately—the last generations of American and Western leaders are just, you know, like I say, everyone in their society is ignorant, but the people at the top are obviously very ill-informed or just ignorant. I mean, I don't know how else to put it. The reason countries don't assassinate the leaders of other countries is because that opens the season on you and your own leadership. Maybe it's hard to get, for example—the U.S. keeps screaming about, you know, "Let's kill these leaders, let's kill those leaders." Okay, sure, the president and the top officials may be hard to get to. But there are county officials, there are state officials, there are lower and mid-range federal officials. They all become targets, because if I can't get the big guy, I'll get the second guy or the third guy. That's why you don't assassinate the leadership of foreign countries—because then they'll all return the favor. They'll start assassinating your leadership, and then it becomes a very ugly thing on the one hand. On the other hand, it may actually be something that brings peace. Because if we look at the Belfast Accords, what did the IRA do? The IRA figured out that killing British soldiers or police was pointless because the British aristocratic class didn't give a damn about these people. They could always recruit new ones and send more in—they're the little people. And Russians called them "the black -- 2 of 18 -- people," not because of the color of their skin, but because of their jobs—the dirty jobs. Yeah, we can always send more of those people. Well, the moment the IRA decided, as an organization—I guess a terrorist organization—but as an organization, to bring the war to London and started hitting the aristocracy in the '80s, that was it. Whoa, now this has gotten serious. Let's have talks. So it might have actually worked that way. But for the most part, countries don't assassinate each other's leaders because it always comes back. Sooner or later, it always comes back to the country that's doing it, and they start losing their leaders. #M2 Because also strategically, I mean, you need somebody to negotiate with or to take over. I mean, even during the Second World War in Japan, the U.S. didn't target the emperor or the cabinet because you wanted them to surrender, and you need the structure in place to surrender. So do you think that this is a similar strategy now in Iran? I mean, they targeted top military leadership, but we have these reports in the news and Donald Trump on record saying that he didn't agree to an assassination of Khamenei. #M3 Well, the problem is Khamenei is... I think this is going to change. Khamenei was one of the people who was standing firmly against Iran developing a nuclear weapon. A. B. They're not out for Iran to surrender. They're out for Iran to collapse as a country, break it up into pieces, start internal civil wars. This is why they're doing things like yesterday—they blew up the... In Tehran, they blew up the main police barracks or police station. Why would you do that if you're going after nuclear weapons or fighting a war? The police are secondary, irrelevant targets. There are plenty of other targets. But if you're trying to break up national cohesion—and Iran is not a uniform Persian country; Persians are about a 68% majority, but there are other nationalities—the U.S., in turn, and Israel are trying to get them to rise up in an uprising. It's a typical maneuver: trying to break everybody up into small groups and get them fighting amongst themselves, the same thing they did in Europe and Libya, and then trying to control the chaos that you've created. The other problem, of course, is you don't know who's going to come after these people. It's the devil you know versus the unknown. To think that there's nobody in the military, in a large hierarchical structure, or in the government who can take over from the people you've just killed is ludicrous. There are always younger people or people in the wings waiting to take over. Some of them may be very incompetent; others may be geniuses. You're only going to find that out when they come in and take over power. The thing that you can almost always bet on is that they're going to be a lot more aggressively set against you than the people you just murdered. So, you know, that's a pretty big risk. -- 3 of 18 -- #M2 That's a very big risk, especially if this decapitation strike doesn't work the way it was supposed to— which apparently it didn't, because now Iran is striking back. From the video footage we see and from the reports we hear, what's your assessment of Iran's actual defensive capabilities to shoot down or at least defend against some of what's coming at them, and also their offensive capabilities to strike Israel? Because for the first time ever, we are seeing someone who is actually able to strike Israel to the point where Israel said, "Blackout, no more communication about this. We don't want people to see these videos." #M3 Well, by the way, just to add to the previous point, the U.S. has been in the business of murdering leaders on and off—more often on—but especially in Europe, for example, since 1948 when Operation Gladio began. Operation Gladio was the stay-behind army, the secret armies that the CIA was creating all over Europe and in neutral countries in Europe as well. They were using these, and these were normally people from the police, special forces, or special security organizations. They would recruit them officially in case the Soviet Union launched an attack and occupied a nation; they would form the basis of the partisan or guerrilla movement against the occupiers. In reality, these people were used to advance American plans, and often this included terrorism and assassination. Italy was very heavily plagued by this. Supposedly, it all went away in 1991, but I doubt it. A lot of these people were working secretly for the CIA, but were already in the organs of power in these countries. Meanwhile, of course, the U.S. is breeding a new band of—a new band of brothers to take over Europe: the ignorant and the bought-and-paid-for people, the leadership we see in Europe now. So you no longer need to use the terror tactics because you've already got your own people in charge. If you look at the people that ran Europe in the '40s, '50s, '60s, '70s, even the '80s, how different they are from the people running Europe now. It's day and night. The problem with negotiating with anybody in Europe is that, except for a few exceptions—and this goes for East Asia too—they do the same thing. They've done it in Latin America with Operation Condor as well. The people you're negotiating with now don't have their country's best interests at heart. They don't care about their country's best interests. They have a whole separate priority list that has very little to do with what's best for Germany, what's best for France—geopolitically, economically, and so on. If you look at the assassinations, there was a group of officers who tried to take over power from De Gaulle when De Gaulle started negotiations to separate Algeria. The French considered Algeria to be an integral part of France. But De Gaulle looked at it and said, you know, these people, if they have French passports, are going to flood us, because they're -- 4 of 18 -- reproducing a hell of a lot faster than we are. And sooner or later, they're going to start flowing in the other direction. And the Algerians were more or less Francized. You know, we're not talking sub- Saharan Africa here; we're talking Algeria. But still, he understood. For his own reasons, he didn't want them coming in. He said, you know, we'll just separate and then we'll make it independent. There was a group of officers that took over Algeria for a while. They tried to get rid of De Gaulle, and they were working directly with the CIA—and the CIA stayed behind the forces, the Gladio group. They tried to assassinate De Gaulle with the help of the Americans. And his family, by the way—they tried to kill his family, too. Well, De Gaulle being De Gaulle—and De Gaulle was a unique figure for the French in the last 100, 200 years—De Gaulle was very upset at this point. So he wiped them out. I mean, literally wiped them out. The French went so far as to bomb cafés in Algeria where these officers and their supporters would hang out and pl