(KYIV) Iran admitted for the first time on Saturday that it had supplied drones to Russia before its invasion of Ukraine in late February, confirming accusations in Kiev against Moscow that it suspected of using Iranian drones for attacks against civilians and infrastructure.
Posted at 7:33 am.
Updated at 8:17 am.
“We delivered a small number of drones to Russia a few months before the war in Ukraine,” Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian was quoted as saying by the official IRNA news agency on Saturday.
It is the first time Tehran has reported delivery of drones to Iran, a move that has restrained itself in recent weeks despite repeated accusations from Kiev and its Western allies to deny the claims.
Iran’s diplomatic chief said on Saturday that Kiev was ready to examine any “evidence” of the use of Iranian drones in the conflict.
However, Kyiv had already said several days ago that Iranian “about 400 drones” had already been used against the Ukrainian population and that Moscow had ordered about 2,000.
Tehran’s admissions of these drone deliveries to Moscow further signal a rapprochement between Russia and Iran, which has seen Ukraine heavily supported by the US and EU in recent months, with China clearly without any direct involvement. War.
Iran, however, denied on Saturday that its country had supplied missiles to Russia, calling the allegations “absolutely false”.
News reports in recent days have suggested a possible supply of Iranian surface-to-surface missiles to Russia.
Despite Tehran’s denials in recent weeks, the EU and UK announced new sanctions targeting three Iranian generals and a weapons company “responsible for supplying Russia with suicide drones” for bombing Ukraine.
In September, Kyiv, for its part, decided to significantly reduce its diplomatic ties with Tehran.
Attention Gerson
On the ground, Ukrainian and Russian forces still appear to be preparing for heavy fighting in Kherson, the main city captured by the Russians since their invasion began in late February.
According to the Ukrainian president, “the Russian aggressors are trying to identify people who refuse to be evacuated”, to areas occupied by Moscow’s troops, and from the front line or even to Russia.
On Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin justified the evacuations for the first time, saying civilians “should be kept away” from “highly dangerous” war zones.
Ukraine has again condemned the policy of “deportation”.
The Russian Defense Ministry, for its part, said on Saturday that it had “destroyed a radar station (used) for S-300 anti-aircraft missiles” and “intercepted 27 American Himars in the Kherson region”.
Firing at the judge
Further east, a Supreme Court judge in the Donetsk republic was wounded by bullets on Friday and is in “critical condition,” Russian occupation officials announced Saturday.
The interior ministry of the region annexed by Moscow in eastern Ukraine in late September, however, did not provide further details on the modus operandi or the reasons for the attack.
According to Denis Bushilin, a senior official of the Russian occupation authority, Mr. Nikulin “punished Nazi war criminals,” referring to the Kiev regime, a term used by the Kremlin to justify the Russian invasion of Ukraine at the end of February.
In northern Ukraine, despite the Russian withdrawal from the region in late March-early April, Ukrainian border guards are preparing to “prevent a (new) Russian invasion” from Belarus, an ally of Moscow. The rear base of the Russian army in the first days of the war.
“The probability of an attack is always high here, near the border”, AFP estimated with “Lynx”, its code name, which assessed the risk of a new Russian attack in the region as “50/50”.
Today “the situation is completely different” because “we trust our border guards, our armed forces and all the security forces”, Andriy Bogdan, the mayor of Gorodnia, located near the Belarusian borders, wants to believe for his part. And the Russians.
