“Despite Russian denials, multiple lines of credible Ukrainian intelligence and Zelenskyy’s statements indicate covert cooperation between Russia and Iran—particularly in sharing satellite imagery and cyber support—which escalates the likelihood of sophisticated attacks on Western and regional energy infrastructure. This resolves the divergence by weighting high-stability mechanistic evidence and corroborated intelligence assessments above official Russian rhetoric, concluding that the threat of coordinated Russia–Iran operations is real and growing.”