Interesting, looks like a good research project. Thanks for the information.
Its just a factual sarcasm.
20 years back there was no Russian Federation, there was USSR.
Iran-USSR did not have any good relations. The moment Iran sensed USSR was going to fall apart it started its ambitious games in Central Asia - particularly in Azerbaijan and Tajikistan (There is a large Azari population in North-Western Iran, while Tajiks are sunni Persians). The ambition of Iran kept Russia & Iran relations at bey for a long time after the collapse of USSR. The relation between the two are rather recent and were developed by former President Khatami who took charge in 1997. Khatami made good friends with China & Russia & kept Europe and American divided on Iran (an old great game method developed by Afghanistan).
So ... the origins of Russia-Iran or even Iran-China friendship should date back to 1997 not 20 years back. And anyone coming up with such claims is perhaps being fooled by the CIA propaganda.
I don't think either China or Russian had a stronger enough alliance with Iran in general look at Iran's poorly equipped air force, Kuwait has a better AF. Sanctions have hurt there armed forces badly I think equipment wise Iran isn't in good shape. Aircraft wise there Su-24s might be there best platform. I don't share the same faith as others do in there 20+ year old F-14s. Ten years ago some how Iran should have got Su-30s or large numbers of Mig-29s from Russia now there far behind. A handful of Mig-29A Fulcrums don't cut it no matter how you look at or those F-5 paste ons.
Its very hard for Iranian airforce to shift to non-Western weapons. Before the revolution they were largest recipient of US weapons (I believe). Even today they prefer to reverse engineer F-5 than go for newer aircrafts. However, there has been a shift. There are signals of Iran going for either more MiG-29 or Su-30s. China might also offer J-10 to Iran once WS-10 is ready. Fingers crossed, lets see.