KYIV —
Iran has admitted for the first time that it sent drones to
Russia but insisted
they were supplied to its ally before Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
اضافة اعلان
Kyiv and its
Western allies have accused Russia of using Iranian-made drones in recent weeks
to carry out attacks.
Tehran has repeatedly
denied the claims, but on Saturday Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian
was quoted as saying that drones had been sent to Russia before the invasion
began in late February.
“We supplied
Russia with a limited number of drones months before the war in Ukraine,”
Amir-Abdollahian said, according to Iran’s official news agency IRNA.
But he again
denied Iran had supplied missiles to Russia, calling the accusations
“completely false”.
For weeks,
Russian forces have rained missiles and explosive drones onto Ukraine’s
infrastructure, as a major Ukrainian ground offensive — propelled by Western
arms deliveries — has pushed Russian troops back in swathes of the country.
Kyiv claims
around 400 Iranian drones have already been used against the civilian population
of Ukraine and that Moscow has ordered around 2,000.
President
Volodymyr Zelensky on Saturday accused Iranian officials of lying about its
drone deliveries to Moscow.
“They decided to
admit that they did supply drones for Russian terror. But even in this
confession, they lie,” he said.
“We shoot down
at least 10 Iranian drones every day, and the Iranian regime claims that it
allegedly gave little and even before the start of a full-scale invasion.”
Earlier
Ukraine’s foreign ministry spokesman had warned Iran that “the consequences of
complicity” with Moscow would be “greater than the benefit from Russia’s
support.”
Britain and the
EU have imposed sanctions on three Iranian generals and an arms firm accused of
supplying Russia with drones.
‘Deportations’
Russian strikes over the past month have destroyed around a third of
Ukraine’s power stations and the government has urged Ukrainians to conserve
electricity as much as possible.
Ukraine’s state
energy company on Saturday announced additional power rationing in Kyiv and
several other regions of the country.
Ukrainian and
Russian forces appear to be gearing up for a fierce battle in Kherson, a
southern city with a population of around 288,000 people before the conflict.
It was the first
major Ukrainian city to fall to Russian forces following Moscow’s invasion.
Russia has been
pulling civilians out of the Kherson region, with President
Vladimir Putin saying residents must be “removed” from danger zones.
But Kyiv has
likened the departures to Soviet-style “deportations”.
Meanwhile,
soldiers in northern Ukraine are watching out for a fresh attack along the
border with Russia and Belarus.
Guards have been
scanning the horizon at a remote outpost near the Senkivka border crossing,
where Russia’s 90th armored division swept in when the war started, cutting
through Ukrainian territory.
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