Nicole Grajewski is a Fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and an Associate with the Project on Managing the Atom at the Harvard Kennedy School. She is the author of Russia and Iran: Partners in Defiance From Syria to Ukraine.

Just three days before US President-elect Donald Trump returns to the White House, Russia and Iran have finally signed a “comprehensive partnership agreement,” a deal that had been in the works for months.

The presidents of Russia and Iran have held talks in the Kremlin before the signing of a broad cooperation pact to deepen their partnership amid stinging Western sanctions.

Russia and Iran signed a mutual defense and security cooperation pact on Jan. 17 — just days before President Trump’s inauguration. Both nations are primary opponents of the U.S., demonstrated by Russia’s war against Ukraine and Iran’s attempts to assassinate Trump,

Russian President Vladimir Putin is hosting his Iranian counterpart President Masoud Pezeshkian for the signing of a broad partnership pact

For Moscow, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian's visit to Russia on Jan. 17 is a diplomatic victory. The trip's centerpiece will be the finalization of a long-heralded partnership deal between Russia and Iran,

A strategic cooperation agreement that Russia and Iran are poised to sign will not include a mutual defence clause like pacts that Moscow has signed with Pyongyang and Minsk, the state TASS news agency reported on Thursday,

The agreement is focused more on trade than military issues, but it will bring two countries with a shared desire to challenge the West closer together.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian will meet in Moscow to sign a partnership pact as the two nations brace for President-elect Trump's return.

European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio discussed the Ukraine war, Iran and China on Tuesday in their first phone call since the Trump administration took office on Jan.

But they warn that, if that fails, Iran is on a collision course with the west. European powers that opposed Trump’s maximum pressure during his first term have become more angry with Iran’s behaviour, including the continued expansion of its nuclear activity, its arms sales to Russia and its alleged targeting of citizens in the west.