Iran admitted this Saturday for the first time to have supplied drones to Russia, before the invasion of Ukraine at the end of February, confirming Kyiv’s accusations against Moscow, suspected of using Iranian drones for its attacks against civilians and infrastructure.
“We provided Russia with a limited number of drones months before the war in Ukraine,” Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian was quoted as saying by the official IRNA news agency on Saturday.
This is the first time that Tehran has reported delivering drones to Moscow, with Iran in recent weeks limiting itself, despite repeated accusations by Kyiv and its Western allies, to denying these claims.
Ukraine denounces Iran’s “complicity” in Russian crimes
“Tehran must realize that the consequences of complicity in the crimes … of Russia against Ukraine will be much greater than the benefit of Russia’s support,” Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Oleg said on Facebook. Nikolenko.
“Therefore, the Foreign Ministry, headed by Dmytro Kouleba, in close coordination with the relevant Ukrainian agencies, will continue to take the strictest measures to prevent Russia from using Iranian weapons to kill Ukrainians and destroy our infrastructure,” he continued. .
Iran’s top diplomat said on Saturday he was ready to examine any “evidence” from Kyiv about Iranian use of drones in the conflict.
However, Kyiv already stated several days ago that Iran had already used “about 400 drones” against the Ukrainian population and that Moscow had ordered about 2,000.
The sign of a rapprochement between Iran and Russia
Tehran’s confessions about these drone deliveries to Moscow further mark the rapprochement between Russia and Iran that has begun in recent months, in the face of a Ukraine largely supported by the US and the EU, and as China steers clear of any direct involvement. In the war.
Iran, however, denied on Saturday that its country had supplied missiles to Russia, calling these accusations “completely false.”
News reports in recent days have reported possible deliveries of Iranian surface-to-surface missiles to Russia.
Frequent strikes in Ukraine’s infrastructure
Despite Tehran’s denials in recent weeks, the EU and UK had announced new sanctions against three Iranian generals and an arms company “responsible for supplying Russia with suicide drones” to bomb Ukraine.
In September, Kyiv, for its part, decided to considerably reduce its diplomatic relations with Tehran.
Ukraine’s electricity system has been severely affected by multiple Russian attacks in recent weeks, raising fears of a winter without electricity and water for many civilians.
Given the excessive demand for electricity this Saturday, the Ukrainian operator Energo announced that it had launched “additional restrictions (…) in the form of emergency interruptions.”
Source: BFM TV
