A long war between the United States and Iran would strengthen Russia, driving up energy prices that would swell its war budget and making peace in Ukraine less likely. This is according to Baron Arndt Freytag von Loringhoven, vice president of Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service from 2007 to 2010 and later nato’s first assistant secretary general for intelligence and security. He told Ukrinform in an interview published March 23:

For Russia, high energy prices are a real gift for its war budget. The war surrounding Iran clearly plays into Putin’s hands.

According to the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air, Russia earned $8.9 billion from oil, gas and coal exports in the first two weeks of March, nearly 9 percent higher than the February average, as disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz contributed to higher global oil prices and boosted demand for Russian energy.

• Loringhoven descends from a Baltic-German noble family that was forced to leave its ancestral estates in Estonia after the country proclaimed independence from the Russian Empire in 1918 and confiscated German-owned land titles and assets.
• His father, Lt. Gen. Bernd Freytag von Loringhoven, commanded a tank battalion that was encircled at the Battle of Stalingrad in 1942–43 (he was evacuated by air before the Germans surrendered).
• He later served as a staff officer in the Wehrmacht, preparing military intelligence reports and situation maps for Adolf Hitler in the Führerbunker during the final weeks of the war in 1945.

Today, the younger Baron Loringhoven warns that Russia is attempting to regain some of its waning influence in Europe through hybrid tactics, including election interference, cyberattacks, and propaganda. As the son of a Wehrmacht officer who fought at Stalingrad, a battle partly motivated by the drive to secure oil resources, he is acutely aware of Germany’s need for diversified and secure energy sources. This is why he is concerned about long-term disruptions to the Strait of Hormuz.

“Germany has virtually no oil and is waiting for an opportunity to take control of the Middle East,” Gerald Flurry writes in Germany and the Holy Roman Empire. “It has planned this for years. The need for oil was the trigger for Japan to attack Pearl Harbor and launch World War II in the Pacific. That same trigger could ignite the clash between the king of the north and the king of the south.”

Baron Loringhoven certainly understands this need for oil. So although he currently advises against war in Iran, expect Germany’s military establishment to deal with the Iranian threat decisively. For more information, read “How Germany Plans to Win World War III.”