Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has arrived in Moscow for urgent consultations with Russian President Vladimir Putin, amid escalating tensions following U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

According to Iranian state media, Araghchi is leading a senior diplomatic delegation tasked with securing Russia’s political and strategic backing as the region teeters on the brink of a broader conflict.

The visit comes as Iran’s top leadership retreats from public view and braces for further Western military action.

Sources in Moscow say Araghchi will deliver a personal message from Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and brief the Kremlin on Tehran’s next steps. Talks are expected to focus on defense coordination, energy exports, and potential Russian mediation at the United Nations Security Council.

Reuters meanwhile reported that a senior source confirmed that Araghchi was due to deliver a letter from Khamenei to Putin.

Iran has not been impressed with Russia’s support so far, Iranian sources told Reuters, and the country wants Putin to do more to back it against Israel and the United States. The sources did not elaborate on what assistance Tehran wanted.

The visit underscores deepening ties between Tehran and Moscow as both countries face mounting Western pressure and seek to align their positions on regional security and global diplomacy.

U.S. President Donald Trump on Sunday raised the question of regime change in Iran following U.S. strikes against key military sites over the weekend, as senior officials in his administration warned Tehran against retaliation, Reuters reported.

“It’s not politically correct to use the term, “Regime Change,” but if the current Iranian Regime is unable to MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn’t there be a Regime change??? MIGA!!!” Trump wrote on his social media platform.

Trump’s post came after officials in his administration, including U.S. Vice President JD Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, stressed they were not working to overthrow Iran’s government.

“This mission was not and has not been about regime change,” Hegseth told reporters at the Pentagon, calling the mission “a precision operation” targeting Iran’s nuclear program.

Vance, in an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press with Kristen Welker,” said “our view has been very clear that we don’t want a regime change.”

“We do not want to protract this or build this out any more than it’s already been built out. We want to end their nuclear program, and then we want to talk to the Iranians about a long-term settlement here,” Vance said, adding the U.S. “had no interest in boots on the ground.”

“Operation Midnight Hammer” was known only to a small number of people in Washington and at the U.S. military’s headquarters for Middle East operations in Tampa, Florida.

Complete with deception, seven B-2 bombers flew for 18 hours from the United States into Iran to drop 14 bunker-buster bombs, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dan Caine, told reporters.

In total, the U.S. launched 75 precision-guided munitions, including more than two dozen Tomahawk missiles, and more than 125 military aircraft in the operation against three nuclear sites, Caine said.

The operation pushes the Middle East to the brink of a major new conflagration in a region already aflame for more than 20 months with wars in Gaza and Lebanon, and a toppled dictator in Syria, read the report.

With the damage visible from space after 30,000-pound U.S. bunker-buster bombs crashed into the mountain above Iran’s Fordow nuclear site, experts and officials are closely watching how far the strikes might have set back Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

Caine said initial battle damage assessments indicated all three sites sustained extremely severe damage and destruction, but he declined to speculate whether any Iranian nuclear capabilities might still be intact.

U.N. nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi was more cautious, saying while it was clear U.S. airstrikes hit Iran’s enrichment site at Fordow, it was not yet possible to assess the damage done underground.

A senior Iranian source told Reuters on Sunday that most of the highly enriched uranium at Fordow, the site producing the bulk of Iran’s uranium refined to up to 60%, had been moved to an undisclosed location before the U.S. attack.

Vance told NBC the U.S. was not at war with Iran but rather its nuclear program, and he thought the strikes “really pushed their program back by a very long time.”

Trump called the damage “monumental,” in a separate social media post on Sunday, a day after saying he had “obliterated” Iran’s main nuclear sites, but gave no details, Reuters reported.

Tehran has vowed to defend itself and responded with a volley of missiles at Israel that wounded scores of people and destroyed buildings in its commercial hub Tel Aviv.

But, perhaps in an effort to avert all-out war with the superpower, it had yet to carry out its main threats of retaliation, to target U.S. bases or choke off the quarter of the world’s oil shipments that pass through its waters.

Caine said the U.S. military had increased protection of troops in the region, including in Iraq and Syria.

The United States already has a sizeable force in the Middle East, with nearly 40,000 troops in the region, including air defense systems, fighter aircraft and warships that can detect and shoot down enemy missiles.

Reuters reported last week the Pentagon had started to move some aircraft and ships from bases in the Middle East that may be vulnerable to any potential Iranian attack.

With his unprecedented decision to bomb Iran’s nuclear sites, directly joining Israel’s air attack on its regional arch foe, Trump has done something he had long vowed to avoid – intervene militarily in a major foreign war.

There were sporadic anti-war demonstrations on Sunday afternoon in some U.S. cities, including New York City and Washington.

It was unclear why Trump chose to act on Saturday.

At the press conference, Hegseth said there was a moment in time when Trump “realized that it had to be a certain action taken in order to minimize the threat to us and our troops.”

After Trump disputed her original assessment, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard on Friday said the U.S. had intelligence that should Iran decide to do so, it could build a nuclear weapon in weeks or months, an assessment disputed by some lawmakers and independent experts. U.S. officials say they do not believe Iran had decided to make a bomb, read the report.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, asked on CBS’ “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” whether the U.S. saw intelligence that Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had ordered nuclear weaponization, said: “That’s irrelevant.”

Hegseth, who said the Pentagon notified lawmakers about the operation after U.S. aircraft were out of Iran, said the strikes against Iran were not open-ended.

Rubio also said no more strikes were planned, unless Iran responded, telling CBS: “We have other targets we can hit, but we achieved our objective. There are no planned military operations right now against Iran – unless they mess around.”

Iran’s Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi delivered a fiery address after an emergency meeting of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in Istanbul on Sunday, accusing the United States of launching what he described as a “brutal act of aggression by a nuclear superpower” against sovereign Iranian territory.

Speaking just hours after coordinated U.S. airstrikes hit multiple Iranian nuclear sites, including Natanz and Fordow, Araghchi said the assault marked a dangerous escalation and a direct threat to regional and global stability.

“We have been attacked not by a rogue state, not by a militia, but by a nuclear superpower,” Araghchi said. “This was not a warning—it was an act of war.”

The airstrikes, reportedly carried out using B-2 stealth bombers and precision-guided bunker-busting munitions, targeted Iran’s key nuclear enrichment facilities.

Washington claims the operations were aimed at halting Tehran’s “accelerated nuclear breakout capacity.”

However, Iranian officials insist the strikes were a clear violation of international law and a deliberate attempt to destroy diplomatic efforts.

Araghchi told delegates that Iran will not return to stalled nuclear talks under what he called “a campaign of military coercion.”

“These attacks did not stop Iran’s program. They only destroyed trust,” he added.

He also blamed Israel for initiating the current wave of escalation and accused the United States of acting in coordination with Tel Aviv to sabotage ongoing EU-led mediation efforts.

Iran’s top diplomat urged OIC member states to issue a united condemnation of the U.S. and Israeli actions and called on the international community to recognize the attack as a breach of Iranian sovereignty by a nuclear-armed power.

“Let us be clear,” Araghchi said. “If this precedent is allowed to stand, then no non-nuclear state is safe.”

The Iranian foreign minister’s remarks mark the first official Iranian statement since the joint U.S.-Israel military campaign began earlier this weekend. While Iran has launched limited retaliatory drone and missile strikes against regional targets, it has so far stopped short of declaring full-scale war.

Araghchi also stated that he will hold an urgent meeting with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Monday.

Meanwhile, international observers warn the situation could spiral further if Iran retaliates directly against U.S. military assets or allies in the region.

China and Russia have already called for an emergency United Nations Security Council session, while European leaders have urged restraint on all sides.

The United States has not formally responded to Araghchi’s remarks but reiterated that its operations were “limited, necessary, and in the interest of global security.”

Araghchi meanwhile stated that he feels “the doors of diplomacy should always remain open”. He said however that Iran has a variety of options available in terms of responding to Washington’s strikes.