Ukraine’s foreign ministry spokesman warned Iran Saturday in a post on Facebook that “the consequences of complicity” with Moscow would be “greater than the benefit from Russia’s support.”
The warning came after Iran admitted for the first time on Saturday that it had sent drones to Russia but insisted they were supplied to its ally before Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
Kyiv and its Western allies have accused Russia of using Iranian-made drones in recent weeks to carry out attacks in Ukraine.
Tehran 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,” the official news agency IRNA quoted Amir-Abdollahian as saying.
President Volodymyr Zelensky on Saturday accused Iranian officials of lying about the 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.”
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.
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.
Kyiv claims around 400 Iranian drones have already been used against the civilian population of Ukraine and that Moscow has ordered around 2,000.
Britain and the European Union have imposed sanctions on three Iranian generals and an arms firm accused of supplying Russia with drones.
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.
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