For the first time, the Iranian Foreign Minister assumed the delivery of military equipment to Russia.
Iran admitted Saturday for the first time to having supplied drones to Russia, before the invasion of Ukraine at the end of February, confirming accusations by kyiv 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“, announced on Saturday the Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, quoted by the official agency Irna.
This is the first time that Tehran has reported the delivery of drones to Moscow, Iran limiting itself in recent weeks, despite repeated accusations from kyiv and its Western allies, to deny these claims. “Even making this confession, they lied“Reacted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the evening, accusing Iranian leaders of minimizing the number of drones delivered.
“We shoot down at least 10 Iranian drones every day, and the Iranian regime says it would have given few, and even before the start of the full-scale invasionof Ukraine, denounced Volodymyr Zelensky. “In just one day yesterday, 11 Shaheds were destroyed. We know for certain that Iranian instructors have taught Russian terrorists how to use drones, and Tehran in general keeps quiet about it.“, he added. kyiv had already affirmed several days ago that “about 400 dronesIranian guns had already been used against the Ukrainian population and that Moscow had ordered about 2,000.
For the Ukrainian President,if iran continues to lie about obvious things, it means that the world will do even more to investigate the terrorist cooperation between the russian and iranian regimes and what russia is paying iran for a such cooperation“. “That only one of the terrorists or their accomplices goes unpunished will not exist in the modern world.“, concluded on this subject Volodymyr Zelensky.
“Tehran must realize that the consequences of complicity in … Russia’s crimes against Ukraine will be far greater than the benefit of Russia’s support“, had previously declared the spokesman of the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Oleg Nikolenko. The head of Iranian diplomacy said on Saturday that he was ready to examine any “evidencefrom kyiv about the use of Iranian drones in the conflict. Tehran’s confessions on these deliveries of drones 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 United States and the EU, and while the China stands clear of any direct involvement in the war.
Iran, however, denied on Saturday that its country supplied missiles to Russia, deeming these accusations “completely wrong“. News reports in recent days have reported potential deliveries of Iranian surface-to-surface missiles to Russia.
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Despite Tehran’s denials in recent weeks, the EU and the UK had announced new sanctions targeting three Iranian generals and an arms company “responsible for supplying kamikaze drones to Russiato bomb Ukraine. In September, kyiv, for its part, decided to considerably reduce its diplomatic relations with Tehran.
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