Putin hosts Iran's security council secretary Mohsen Rezaei at the Kremlin

Russian President Vladimir Putin held talks in Moscow with Mohsen Rezaei, the secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, on November 5, 2026. The Times of Israel reported that the Kremlin confirmed the meeting, and that a photograph released by the Kremlin showed two senior Russian officials at the table alongside Putin: Yuri Ushakov, the president's foreign policy aide, and Igor Kostyukov, the head of Russian military intelligence.

According to Iranian state media, as cited by The Times of Israel, Rezaei handed Putin a message from Iran's Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei. The Hebrew-language Telegram channel Abu Ali Express reported that Rezaei arrived in Moscow that same day, met the Russian president and passed on a letter from Iran's supreme leader. None of the reports describe what the message said.

Who took part

Rezaei attended in his capacity as secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, the body in Tehran that coordinates Iran's defence, foreign and intelligence policy. The secretary is the council's day-to-day head and frequently acts as an envoy on sensitive security matters, which is why the post often carries messages between Iran's leadership and foreign heads of state.

On the Russian side, the composition of the delegation is itself a detail worth noting. Ushakov advises Putin on foreign affairs and regularly sits in on the president's meetings with foreign visitors. The presence of Kostyukov, who runs Russia's military intelligence service, indicates that the agenda extended beyond diplomacy into security and defence questions, although neither government has said what was discussed. The images of the handshake were distributed through the Russian state agency Sputnik as a pool photograph, according to The Times of Israel.

The supreme leader's message

In Iran's system, the Supreme Leader holds final authority over the country's security and foreign policy, ranking above the elected president. A personal message from the Supreme Leader delivered by the head of the security council therefore signals that the communication comes from the top of the Iranian state rather than from its government ministries.

The account of the message comes from Iranian state media and was repeated by Abu Ali Express. The Kremlin's own statement, as described by The Times of Israel, confirmed the meeting and the participants but was not reported to have mentioned the letter.

A tense day in the region

The talks took place on the same day as a separate incident on Iran's western border. The Jerusalem Post, in its report on the Moscow meeting, said a Turkish soldier had been killed by fire from Iran. The material available does not give details of that incident or indicate whether it came up in the Kremlin talks, and no report links the two events beyond their timing.

For readers in Israel and abroad, contact at this level between Moscow and Tehran is closely watched. Russia and Iran have developed close political and security ties, and Israel follows any coordination between them because of Iran's role as Israel's principal regional adversary. The reports on this meeting, however, do not mention Israel, and nothing in them indicates that Israeli matters were on the agenda.

What the reports do not say

None of the reports discloses the contents of Khamenei's message or any outcome of the talks, and neither Moscow nor Tehran has been reported as issuing a readout of what was agreed. It is also not stated how long Rezaei is staying in Russia, whether he is meeting other Russian officials, or why the head of military intelligence joined the meeting. Whether the incident on the Turkish border was raised has not been reported.