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Putin’s Post-Iran Paranoia

The Russian president has curtailed his schedule, and Moscow has virtually no cell service. The official explanation is about Ukrainian drones, but Putin is clearly spooked by the attacks on his old ally.

Vladimir Putin
Vladimir Putin is, according to the chatter, completely spooked by the U.S.-Israeli war against Russia’s old ally, particularly the reports that Israel targeted the ayatollah by hacking traffic cameras in Tehran. Photo: Gavril Grogorov/Pool/AFP/Getty Images
Julia Ioffe
March 24, 2026

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Trump’s war on Iran is having all kinds of unexpected ripple effects: In London, an Iran-linked group has taken responsibility for torching four Jewish charity ambulances, and two men were arrested for spying on the city’s Jewish community. The war has choked off the global supplies of helium, much of which is made in Qatar and is a critical component in manufacturing A.I. chips. Oil prices have gone haywire. (Okay, just kidding, all of that was totally predictable.) Meanwhile, in Russia, a different sort of political psychosis has taken hold.