Iran admits it shipped drones to Russia before the war

Iran admits it shipped drones to Russia before the war in Ukraine began

This is the first time Tehran has reported supplying drones to Moscow, and Iran has limited itself to denying these claims in recent weeks. Tehran on Saturday, November 5, admitted to supplying drones to Russia before invading Ukraine in late February, confirming Kiev’s allegations against Moscow, which is suspected of using Iranian drones in its attacks on civilians and infrastructure .

“We provided a limited number of drones to Russia months before the war in Ukraine,” Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said on Saturday, as quoted by the official IRNA agency.

“They lied even about this confession,” said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the evening, accusing the Iranian leadership of minimizing the number of drones delivered. “We shoot down at least ten Iranian drones every day, and the Iranian regime says there were few, even before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began,” Mr Zelenskyy denounced.

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“Yesterday, in just one day, 11 Shaheds were destroyed. We know for sure that Iranian trainers taught Russian terrorists how to use drones, and Tehran is generally silent about it,” he added. A few days ago, Kyiv claimed that Iranian “about four hundred drones” had already been used against the Ukrainian population and that Moscow had ordered about two thousand.

Reconciliation between Russia and Iran

For the President of Ukraine, “If Iran continues in obvious lies to things”. “One of the terrorists or their accomplices will not go unpunished in the modern world,” concluded Mr. Zelensky on the subject.

“Tehran must realize that the consequences of Russia’s complicity in crimes (…) against Ukraine will far outweigh the benefits of Russia’s support,” Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Oleg Nikolenko said earlier.

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The head of Iran’s diplomacy said Saturday he was ready to examine any “evidence” from Kyiv that Iranian drones had been used in the conflict. Tehran’s admissions about these drone shipments to Moscow further mark the rapprochement between Russia and Iran that has begun in recent months, while Ukraine is largely backed by the United States and the European Union, and that China has shied away from any direct involvement War.

However, Iran denied supplying missiles to Russia, saying these allegations were “completely false”. News reports in recent days have reported possible deliveries of Iranian surface-to-surface missiles to Russia. Despite Tehran’s denials in recent weeks, the EU and the UK announced fresh sanctions against three Iranian generals and a weapons company “responsible for supplying suicide drones to Russia” to bomb Ukraine. For its part, Kyiv decided in September to severely limit its diplomatic relations with Tehran.

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The world with AFP