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.

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 hosted his Iranian counterpart Friday for the signing of a broad pact between Moscow and Tehran. The Kremlin says the “comprehensive strategic partnership” agreement between Putin and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian will take their cooperation to a new level.

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,

(Reuters) - Russia signed a strategic partnership treaty with Iran on Friday that follows similar pacts with China and North Korea. All three countries are adversaries of the United States, and Russia has used its ties with them to help blunt the impact of Western sanctions and boost its war effort in Ukraine.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Iranian counterpart, Masoud Pezeshkian, signed a broad cooperation pact Friday as their countries deepened their partnership in the face of stinging Western sanctions.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Iranian counterpart, Masoud Pezeshkian, signed a broad cooperation pact Friday as their countries deepened their partnership in the face of stinging Western sanctions.

Advisers to President-elect Donald Trump are crafting a wide-ranging sanctions strategy to facilitate a Russia-Ukraine diplomatic accord in the coming months while at the same time squeezing Iran and Venezuela,

Iran has already supplied Russia with self-detonating "Shahed" drones that Moscow fires on Ukraine in nightly barrages, according to Ukrainian and Western officials. Sitting next to Putin in the Kremlin after signing the treaty, Pezeshkian called for a political settlement to end the nearly three-year conflict.

According to the Ynet news portal, the list with the names of the first three hostages to be freed was to be handed over to Israel via Qatar by 4:00 p.m. local time (2:00 p.m. GMT) but this has not be

According to the Iranian president, the signing of the comprehensive strategic partnership treaty with Russia has demonstrated that the two countries "have this very approach."