President Vladimir Putin left Russia for a rare international trip this week and received a handsome reward: a meeting with a prominent world leader who voiced a full-throated endorsement for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Travelling to Iran, Putin worked to solidify an Iranian-Russian alliance that has been emerging as a significant counterweight to US-led efforts to contain Western adversaries. He met Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, who issued a declaration of support for Putin’s war in Ukraine of the kind that even other countries close to Russia have so far stopped short of making.