Former Indian diplomat and Iran expert M.K. Bhadrakumar wrote an analysis of the shifting situation around Iran on his website Indian Punchline on July 29, titled “U.S. conjoins the wars in Eurasia, West Asia.” He quotes CGTN from July 25, which reported: “US missiles struck a Revolutionary Guards Navy headquarters in the Ziba Kenar area of the Caspian Sea province of Gilan, according to a security official in Gilan quoted by Iranian media. Provincial authorities said US projectiles had also struck the port city of Bandar Anzali, according to the Iranian Labor News Agency.”
This attack by the U.S. was one day prior to the July 25 Ukrainian attack on an Iranian ship in the Caspian Sea.
Bhadrakumar goes on to note that Bandar Anzali “is Iran’s biggest port on the Caspian coast and is a vital transportation hub linked to Iran’s national railway grid. The Caspian Sea makes a strategically vital supply route between Russia and Iran.” Therefore, the Ukrainian strike on the Iranian vessel “is anything but a stray incident,” he writes.
The strike was executed at a range of roughly 1,200 kilometers—a distance at which Moscow has consistently argued that targeting of such precision exceeds Ukraine’s independent capability and requires direct Western participation. This “could well be a calibrated move by Washington,” Bhadrakumar writes, noting that “Ukraine acted simultaneously with the US bombing of Gilan province, suggesting a degree of coordination.” If true, in concludes: “the Caspian Sea is no longer the conflict-free zone it was once believed to be. A new arena of geopolitical competition, fundamentally reshaping the security landscape of Eurasia and potentially marking the emergence of a new geographic theatre of conflict, has surfaced last weekend.”
