Iranian Foreign Minister Hosein Amirabdolahian admitted Saturday that his country has delivered a «limited» number of drones to Russia but qualified that the consignments were sent before the outbreak of the Ukrainian war.
«We have limited ourselves to providing Russia with a limited number of drones, months before the war in Ukraine,» the Iranian minister explained Saturday after weeks of accusations by the United States and its allies about Russia’s use of Iranian drones with explosive charges during the conflict.
The United States has also accused Iran of providing missiles — the latter aspect denied by the Iranian minister as «completely wrong» — as well as of sending military personnel to Russian-occupied Crimea to teach Russians how to use the aircraft and provide technical assistance. The minister did not comment in this regard.
The Ukrainian military claims it has so far shot down hundreds of Iranian-made Shahed-136 «kamikaze» drones. Russia is believed to have ordered some 2,400 drones of this model.
Amirabdolahian went so far as to hold Kiev responsible for unwillingness to discuss this issue by absenting itself from a recent meeting scheduled in this regard.
«We were supposed to hold such a meeting two weeks ago in a European country. Our delegation attended, but unfortunately, after 90 minutes of waiting, the Ukrainian delegation did not show up,» the minister was quoted as saying by the semi-official Tasnim agency.
The Iranian minister, in this regard, asked the Ukrainian authorities to share with Tehran all evidence of attacks of this nature.
«If it is proven to us that Russia used Iranian drones in the war against Ukraine, we will not stand idly by,» he said at a press conference reported by the official Iranian news agency IRNA.
«Our position regarding the war in Ukraine is to stop the conflict, return the parties to negotiations and get the refugees back to their homes,» he added.
UKRAINE REGRETS «IRANIAN COMPLICITY IN RUSSIA’S CRIMENTS» The first Ukrainian response came from the spokesman of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, Oleg Nikolenko, who dismissed the statements of the Iranian minister, assured that the main intention is to stop such attacks from happening and denounced as false the alleged absence of the mentioned meeting «Ukraine has been taught to rely only on facts», the spokesman made known in comments made on his Facebook account.
«Therefore, the Foreign Ministry, headed by Dimitro Kuleba, as well as in close coordination with the relevant Ukrainian agencies, will continue to take the strictest measures to prevent Russia from using Iranian weapons to kill Ukrainians and destroy our critical infrastructure,» he has made known.
Nikolenko has also accused the Iranian foreign minister of «foolishly spreading insinuations about the alleged refusal of the Ukrainian side to meet with Iranian experts under pressure from Western partners.»
«Tehran should realize that the consequences of complicity in the Russian Federation’s crimes of aggression against Ukraine will be much more extensive than the benefit of Russia’s support,» he concluded.
Later Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has accused Tehran of «lying». «Even with this confession they are still lying,» Zelenski said in a video message published on Saturday.
The Ukrainian leader has pointed out that the number of downed Iranian combat drones exceeds the figure cited by Iran. «And the more Tehran lies, the more the international community understands this terrorist collaboration between the regimes of Russia and Iran,» he said.
