Tehran, which has denied supplies in recent months, now says it did so in “small numbers” even before the invasion of Ukraine. Volodymyr Zelensky refuses.
After adamantly denying in recent months that it has transferred drones to Russia — which, since September, it has used to attack energy infrastructure and civilians in Ukraine — Iran only this Saturday acknowledged the supply. The Iranian foreign minister, Hossein Amiraptollahian, however, said this happened before the Russian invasion of Ukraine and that a “small number” of the devices had been delivered to Moscow.
“This noise made by some Western countries that Iran has provided missiles and drones to Russia to help the war in Ukraine – the missile part is completely false,” the head of the Iranian embassy was quoted as saying by the official IRNA news agency. He then speculated: “The drone part is true and we delivered a small number of drones to Russia a few months before the war in Ukraine”, denying that the supply to Moscow continued.
Amiraptollahian said Iran had not noticed the use of Iranian drones in Ukraine and challenged Kiev to present documents proving it. “If it is proven to us that Russia used Iranian drones in the war against Ukraine, we will not be indifferent to this matter,” the Iranian minister said.
The Ukrainian president has accused Iran of lying, saying the deliveries took place before the war and talking about “terrorist cooperation” between Tehran and Moscow. “If Iran continues to lie about the obvious, the world will make even more efforts to investigate terrorist cooperation between Russia and the Iranian regime and find out what Russia is paying Iran for that cooperation,” Volodymyr Zelensky said.
Robert Malley, the US special envoy to Iran, refuted the Iranian diplomatic chief’s version via Twitter: “This is also not true – Iran did not provide a small number of drones before the war. This summer and they should help Russia use the military in occupied Ukraine against Ukrainian citizens. Faced with the evidence, they have a new Policy is needed, not a new story.”
In late October, the Ukrainian Armed Forces said they had shot down about 300 kamikaze drones fired by Russia since the discovery of a destroyed Shahed-136 in Khargou on September 13. Drones have been used by Russian forces to attack mainly critical infrastructure, energy and civilian targets.
Central energy resumes
The Zaporizhia nuclear power plant yesterday restored power to its safety systems, which it lost on Wednesday after the explosion. “The repeated blackouts show very clearly the very serious situation of safety and nuclear security facing this important nuclear power plant,” said Rafael Mariano Grassi, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
“So far,” Grassi noted, authorities have been able to keep all six reactors safe. “But it cannot go on like this,” he warned, referring to repeated power outages.