For Russia, the assassination of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was the latest blow to President Vladimir Putin’s network of anti-Western partners, and it exposed Moscow’s diminished influence on the world stage, from the Middle East to Latin America. Yet amid the dismay over Russia’s inability to challenge President Donald Trump’s global reach, there is hope in the Kremlin that the United States becoming ensnared in a prolonged Middle East campaign would work to Moscow’s favor — above all, in its war on Ukraine, Putin’s top priority.
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