Iran is not likely to be able to lean heavily on its ally Russia for military help either, Mikser, a member of the European Parliament's Committee on Foreign Affairs and the Subcommittee on Security and Defense, went on.

"Iran's military capabilities and its ability to threaten American interests in the region have taken a serious battering in recent years, and Iran's traditional allies or groups in the region, above all Hamas and Hezbollah, which have been Iranian protégés and have enjoyed Iran's support – these too have significantly lost their military capabilities," Mikser said on Saturday in an interview with ERR given shortly after the strikes began.

"I believe that the capacity to carry out retaliatory strikes is certainly far from nonexistent, but it is primarily limited to countries in Iran's immediate neighborhood. So there is definitely reason for vigilance both for the Americans, who have highly significant military bases near Iran, and certainly for Israel. Possibly also for some Arab states – for example, Qatar, toward which Iran has previously planned countermeasures in similar escalations," Mikser noted.

Commenting on the role of Iran's ally Russia in the ongoing events, Mikser found that Moscow likely does not wish to get itself entangled in a large-scale military conflict in the region. "Without a doubt, Russia's rhetoric is an expression of support for Iran, for the Iranian regime, and a condemnation of the military actions of the U.S. and Israel. But beyond that, I believe, Russia is neither capable nor interested in going much further," Mikser, a former foreign and defense minister in Estonia, continued.

Conversely, as to the question of whether, and to what extent, what U.S. President Donald Trump has described as ongoing "major combat operations" against Iran will now reduce Tehran's capacity to support Russia, Mikser noted that compared with the beginning of the full-scale war of aggression against Ukraine, Iran's importance as a supporter of Russia has diminished.

This is partly because Russia has itself acquired the capacity to mass-produce attack drones, which it received in large quantities from Iran, notably the Shahed models, at the start of the war.

"So in that sense, I think the impact is not, let's say, nonexistent, but it is certainly not decisive," Mikser added.

Saturday morning's strikes, which hit several other Iranian cities in addition to the capital, followed weeks of talks and rhetoric over Iran and its nuclear weapons program in particular.

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