Then the PM messed up and begged the Politburo for intervention, which took three months to decide.

While I think this is technically speaking correct, I would point out the long-standing Russian ambition to obtain reliable access to blue-water ports. In this case in the Indian Ocean. India was neutral-in-Soviet-favour during much of the Cold War, while revolutionary Iran was anti-US (or the US was anti-revolutionary Iran, take your pick) and therefore by the binary logic of the Cold War more or less pro-Soviet

If that is actually the case and has merit, then I cannot think of an act of aggression since Peter the Great.

Finland 1940/41. Baltics 1940. Arguably Hungary 1956. I don't remember off the top of my head who started the Crimean War, but IIRC Russia didn't come out of that looking particularly saintly.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.