On Friday, October 16, Donald Trump issued an executive order putting new US sanctions on Russia on hold, just before they were due to take effect, saying the decision was aimed at bringing down fuel prices ahead of the November 3 midterm elections. On Sunday, October 18, Trump posted on Truth Social that Russia was 'doing very little, if anything, to help' Iran. On Monday, October 19, Sergey Lavrov flew to Tehran. It was his first visit to Iran since the US-Israel war on Iran began in February. He condemned the American and Israeli strikes on Iran as illegal. None of these three facts, taken in sequence, helps the others make sense.

Lavrov met President Masoud Pezeshkian and Iran's Supreme National Security Council secretary Mohsen Rezaei. Rezaei called for deeper economic ties and joint infrastructure projects, including transportation corridors connecting the two countries. Pezeshkian told Lavrov that US military bases in neighbouring countries had 'only increased tensions and insecurity.' Lavrov said Moscow's efforts were 'aimed at preventing the return of a large-scale war.' He did not name those efforts beyond the visit. In early October, President Putin told Pezeshkian that Moscow was prepared to contribute to mediation. The contribution Putin described has not been made public. Lavrov's contribution, on Monday, was to arrive and call the strikes illegal.

Trump's Sunday post said he did not want to 'upset an apple cart where we're getting close to settling a war.' That formulation matters: it acknowledges that Russia has a role in the war's resolution, which directly contradicts his claim that Russia is doing nothing for Iran. The executive order on Friday was presented as domestic energy policy, not foreign policy, but its effect is the same: US sanctions pressure on Russia was reduced ten days before Trump's own midterm elections, by a president who simultaneously accuses Moscow of abandoning Tehran. The administration is running two arguments about Russia's role that cannot coexist, and no one in Washington appears to be reconciling them.

On Monday morning, three ballistic missiles hit the Al Alam military training camp in Shabwa province in Yemen, killing at least 53 soldiers and injuring about 200 recruits, according to provincial authorities cited by the Associated Press. The Houthis acknowledged targeting the camp, which had previously been used by a UAE-backed militia. The Yemeni government warned the toll could rise. The war in Yemen did not pause for Lavrov's trip to Tehran. The war in Iran did not pause either. Qatar and Pakistan are the designated mediators for the US-Iran channel, not Russia. Lavrov flew to Tehran regardless, condemned the strikes and said Moscow was trying to prevent a return to large-scale war. It is already large-scale. It has been large-scale since February. The question of what exactly Russia is doing in it remains unanswered.