(Kyiv) Iran admitted Saturday for the first time to having supplied drones to Russia, before the invasion of Ukraine at the end of February, confirming accusations of Kyiv against Moscow, suspected of using Iranian drones for its attacks against civilians and infrastructure.
Posted at 7:33 a.m.
Updated at 8:17 a.m.
“We provided Russia with a limited number of drones months before the war in Ukraine,” Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said on Saturday, quoted by the official Irna news agency.
This is the first time that Tehran has reported the delivery of drones to Moscow, Iran limiting itself in recent weeks, despite repeated accusations from Kyiv and its Western allies, to deny these claims.
The head of Iranian diplomacy said on Saturday that he was ready to examine any “evidence” from Kyiv of the use of Iranian drones in the conflict.
However, Kyiv already claimed 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 confessions about these drone deliveries to Moscow further mark the rapprochement between Russia and Iran that has begun in recent months, in the face of a Ukraine largely supported by the United States and the EU, and while the China stands clear of any direct involvement in the war.
Iran, however, denied on Saturday that its country had supplied missiles to Russia, deeming these accusations “completely false”.
News reports in recent days have reported potential deliveries of Iranian surface-to-surface missiles to Russia.
Despite Tehran’s denials in recent weeks, the EU and the UK had announced new sanctions targeting three Iranian generals and an arms company “responsible for supplying Russia with suicide drones” to bomb Ukraine.
In September, Kyiv, for its part, decided to considerably reduce its diplomatic relations with Tehran.
Kherson in the spotlight
On the ground, the Ukrainian and Russian armies still seem to be preparing for a fierce battle in Kherson, the main city taken by the Russians since the start of their invasion in late February.
According to the Ukrainian presidency, “the Russian occupiers are trying to identify the inhabitants who refuse to be evacuated” to the territories occupied by Moscow’s troops, further from the front line, or even to Russia itself.
On Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin justified these evacuations for the first time, saying that civilians “must be kept away” from “the most dangerous” combat zones.
Ukraine has once again denounced a policy of “deportation”.
The Russian Defense Ministry, for its part, said on Saturday that it had “destroyed a radar station (used) for the S-300 anti-aircraft missiles” and “intercepted 27 American Himars” in the Kherson region.
Shooting at a judge
Further east, a judge of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Donetsk was wounded by bullets on Friday and is “in serious condition”, the Russian occupation authorities announced on Saturday.
The Interior Ministry of this region annexed at the end of September by Moscow in eastern Ukraine, however, did not give more details on the modus operandi, nor the reasons for this attack.
According to Denis Pushilin, a senior official of the Russian occupation authority, Mr. Nikulin “convicted Nazi war criminals”, referring to the Kyiv regime with the terminology used by the Kremlin to justify the Russian invasion in Ukraine at the end of February.
In northern Ukraine, despite the retreat of the Russians from the region at the end of March-beginning of April, the Ukrainian border guards are preparing “to prevent a (new) Russian invasion” from Belarus, this ally of Moscow which has served as a rear base for the Russian army in the first days of fighting.
“The probability of an attack will always be high here, near the border”, estimates with AFP “Lynx”, of its code name, which evaluates at “50/50” the risk of a new Russian offensive In the region.
“The situation is completely different” today because “we are counting on our border guards, our armed forces and all the defense forces”, wants to believe for his part Andrïi Bogdan, the mayor of Gorodnia, a village located near the Belarusian borders. and Russians.