Russian President Vladimir Putin visits Tehran on Tuesday for a meeting with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the first trip by the Kremlin chief outside the former Soviet Union since the invasion of Ukraine.
Putin casts the West's attempt to cripple Russia's economy with the most severe sanctions in recent history as a declaration of economic war and says Russia is turning away from the West to China, India and Iran.
Just three days after U.S. President Joe Biden finished a visit to Saudi Arabia, Russia's paramount leader arrives in Tehran to hold his fifth meeting with Khamenei, Iran's second supreme leader who came to power in 1989.