Washington Center for Yemeni Studies – Tawfik Al-Hamidi
The testimony of Yemeni American researcher Nadwa Al-Dawsari before the US House Foreign Affairs Committee on September 1, 2026, prompted me to revisit a subject I had long considered, while hesitating to draw its separate strands into a single interpretation: What is happening between Russia and the Houthis, and how far has their relationship moved beyond political contacts toward cooperation involving intelligence, weapons, personnel, and shared interests? Her testimony, which identified the Houthis’ deepening ties with Russia and China as part of the transformation in the group’s capabilities, followed a series of reports that made these questions increasingly pressing.
Since 2024, reports have emerged that Russian targeting data reached the Houthis and helped them attack ships in the Red Sea. According to The Wall Street Journal, the information was passed through Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Around the same time, Reuters revealed Iranian-mediated negotiations over the possible supply of advanced Russian Yakhont anti-ship missiles to the Houthis. There is no confirmation that the deal went through, nor has Moscow acknowledged providing targeting data. Taken together, however, these reports suggest a relationship extending beyond delegation visits and diplomatic positions.
Another channel subsequently emerged, connecting Sana’a to Russia’s own war. Journalistic investigations documented the recruitment and transfer of Yemenis to Russia through a network linked to Abdulwali Al-Jabri, a member of Yemen’s parliament and a military and political figure associated with the Houthis. Some of those recruited subsequently found themselves serving in Russian units fighting in Ukraine. The significance lies not simply in their numbers, but in the movement this reveals in the opposite direction: while reports describe intelligence and expertise flowing toward the Houthis, people are moving from Yemen into Russia’s war effort.
What prompted me to reconsider these developments, however, was a statement made on July 4 by Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council. Following a visit to Iran, he described the Strait of Hormuz as an Iranian weapon no less powerful, in his words, than a nuclear weapon. He then likened Tehran’s ability to disrupt navigation through Bab al-Mandab to a “thermonuclear weapon.” The significance of this language lies less in its exaggeration than in the strategic outlook it reveals. From this perspective, straits are not merely passages to be protected; they are sources of power, where the capacity to disrupt traffic can be converted into political and economic leverage.
More strikingly, Medvedev spoke of Bab al-Mandab as an Iranian strategic asset, even though Iran has no coastline on the strait. This is where the Houthis emerge as the link that gives Tehran such a capability in practice: a local force possessing missiles, drones, and maritime capabilities, positioned along Yemen’s Red Sea coast. The timing of the statement therefore matters. Was it simply a Russian assessment of the strategic value of Yemen’s geography, or did it reflect deeper knowledge of the military and strategic changes taking shape around Bab al-Mandab, particularly given Iran’s role in developing Houthi capabilities?
Raising this question does not mean assuming the existence of a joint Russian–Iranian–Houthi plan to close Bab al-Mandab. The available evidence does not support that conclusion. It does, however, warrant closer examination of the nature and extent of Russian involvement in Yemen, particularly since the Gaza war, the accompanying escalation of Houthi operations in the Red Sea, and the intensification of the group’s contacts with Moscow. The question is not whether Russia knew in advance when a particular battle would begin. It is what Moscow knew about the development and trajectory of Houthi capabilities, and whether it viewed them as part of a broader Iranian network of power around maritime chokepoints.
Three elements thus emerge that could complement one another without necessarily operating under a joint command: Russia’s reconnaissance assets, intelligence, and military technology; Iran’s regional networks and capacity to transfer expertise and weapons; and the Houthis’ geographic position and local military power near Bab al-Mandab. Seen in this light, the Houthis’ value to Moscow extends beyond the confines of Yemen’s war.
To understand that value, we must look to Ukraine. Russia’s war with the West is no longer confined to Ukrainian territory; it extends to sanctions, energy, technology, and information. The West can raise the cost of the war for Moscow by supporting Kyiv and putting pressure on the Russian economy and energy sector. Russia, in turn, can seek other arenas in which to increase the costs of confrontation for the United States and its allies without entering a direct war with them.
The Red Sea offers an arena for precisely this kind of pressure. Moscow does not need a military base in Yemen or a fleet capable of closing the strait. The presence of a local actor able to threaten shipping is enough to draw the United States and its allies into the costly work of protecting trade routes, deploying forces, and expending expensive interceptors. This is a form of asymmetric retaliation: if your adversary can raise the cost of your war in Ukraine, you can raise its costs elsewhere.
Energy adds another dimension. With its oil facilities and refineries under Ukrainian attack, Russia could benefit from greater tension in global markets. Disruptions to shipping or energy supplies in the Red Sea and the Gulf could push up prices, freight rates, and insurance premiums, potentially offsetting some of Moscow’s losses from reduced volumes or higher export costs. If these costs reach European energy markets, they would add to the economic and political pressures on Europe. They could also widen the debate over the costs of the war and attacks on Russian energy infrastructure, potentially increasing pressure on Kyiv to curb such operations. None of this is certain. It is nevertheless a possibility that gives Moscow an additional stake in a tense market: energy becomes another arena in which the costs of war are redistributed.
Yet Moscow’s interests do not necessarily lie in closing the straits. Russia itself depends on trade, markets, and maritime routes, and uncontrolled disruption could damage its interests. The value may lie in something more calibrated: managing the threat rather than closing the passage. The mere threat to shipping raises insurance and transport costs, changes vessels’ routes, strains the forces protecting them, and makes energy markets more sensitive to disruption. The waters linking Hormuz, Bab al-Mandab, and the Saudi coast encompass one of the most sensitive stretches of the global energy system.
The Houthis, however, are not passive instruments in this relationship. Moscow offers them an opportunity to diversify their external ties and gain access to intelligence, expertise, and technology—and, above all, to establish a channel to a permanent member of the UN Security Council. In return, the Houthis offer Moscow a local actor whose geographic position and military capabilities enable it to create insecurity along one of the world’s most important arteries of trade and energy. The relationship is therefore better understood as one of mutual use and converging interests than as the emergence of a new Russian proxy.
The available evidence does not establish that Russia directs Houthi military decisions or planned the latest attacks. Benefiting from an event does not prove responsibility for bringing it about, and converging interests do not imply unified decision-making. Yet the targeting data reportedly supplied by Russia, the missile negotiations, the network transferring Yemenis to Russia, the expanding political ties, and Medvedev’s description of Bab al-Mandab as a strategic weapon together make one question legitimate: What has Russia discovered in the Houthis?
Perhaps it has discovered a local actor capable of using geography and weapons to raise the costs borne by its adversaries far from Ukraine. The Houthis, meanwhile, may have found in Russia a partner with technology, intelligence, and political influence. If these interests converge, even without a joint operations room, Yemen becomes part of a wider strategic map stretching from Bab al-Mandab and Hormuz to Tehran, Moscow, and Ukraine.
Moscow may not have created the Yemeni front. But it may have discovered in Sana’a a distant front that can serve its purposes in a war far larger than Yemen.
*Translated from Arabic by AI
