LAST week, Russia was the villain in the gas row with Ukraine; this week, it is the hero, in a small way, for its tough but sensible handling of Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

If the new hardline Iranian Government is open to compromise, then Russia’s tactics are the best chance of finding this out. If it isn’t (as seems all too likely) then Russia’s plan is also the best way to show that diplomacy has hit a wall.

Iran’s reluctance to reject outright the compromise which Russia has offered is a rare bit of good news. In all other respects, the new Government appears to be honing the art of provocation.

Yesterday Iran said that it was resuming research and that it would remove seals which United Nations inspectors had put on sites. “Iran will today resume nuclear fuel research as scheduled,” said Gholamhossein Elham, the government spokesman.

That sounds bad, but no one is sure how bad. For a start, yesterday evening, in the confusion typical of dealings with this regime, it was not clear whether Iranians had actually broken the seals.

IAEA inspectors in Tehran had returned to their hotels without any summons to inspect the newly-opened sites, a senior Western official said.

Nor is it clear exactly what work Iran intends to restart. Iranian officials were due to meet the IAEA in Vienna last Thursday to explain just that point.

But although they were in Vienna, they didn’t turn up. “They phoned first to say they were coming, and then they didn’t,” said an IAEA spokesman yesterday.

However, Western officials assume that the research would try to perfect the assembly of centrifuges to enrich uranium.

Iran voluntarily suspended the work two years ago in a deal with the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN’s nuclear watchdog. Restarting the work would break that accord, and a separate one with Britain, France and Germany on behalf of the European Union.

The US and the EU suspect that Iran’s 20-year covert programme is a cover for military ambitions, something Iran denies.

Uranium enrichment is the most sensitive work because it can make both fuel for reactors and material for a weapon.

But even if Iran does go ahead, some branches of the work are more serious than others. The IAEA hopes that even if Iran assembles centrifuges, it does not actually test them with nuclear material.

That is why Ahmedinejad’s intentions are hard to interpret. His words are provocative, but the actions lag behind. They stop short — so far — of full-scale resumption. Western officials fear that Iran is trying, through a game of “Grandmother’s footsteps”, to regain the ground it surrendered.

“They seem to have misinterpreted our measured response since they restarted conversion,” one official said.

In August, Ahmedinejad restarted conversion of uranium into gas, a less controversial move than yesterday’s, but still a breach of the deal. The EU and the IAEA cautioned that Iran could bring down on itself a referral to the UN Security Council. But so far, they have held back from carrying that through.

However, the pressure is rising ahead of the next meeting of the IAEA board on March 6. Ahmedinejad seems to go out of his way to provoke confrontation. Last week, he said that he hoped Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon would die quickly.

The one source of hope is that Iran has not explicitly rejected a compromise offered by Russia: for the two countries to enrich uranium on Russian territory. That would give Iran nuclear fuel but withhold the crucial skills. If Ahmedinejad wants an instant fight, he could slam that door shut too.

In Russia’s toughest statement yet, Sergei Ivanov, the Defence Minister, said “I very much hope it will not come to this (war)”. but, he added: “The Iranian nuclear problem does exist, and it needs to be dealt with by diplomatic means.”

Even so, this week’s move may have gone too far for the US and EU. If Iran does break the seals, it would make it impossible to carry on with talks, said one Western official.

Iranian and Western officials are due to meet in Vienna on Wednesday, but he was doubtful that would happen.

• Twelve Iranian military officers, including the commander of land forces in the Revolutionary Guards, were killed yesterday when their private jet crashed during an emergency landing near the Turkish border.

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