Iran first admitted on Saturday that it sent drones to Russia, but stressed that it supplied them to its ally prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February, confirming Kiev’s allegations in Moscow of using drones. Iranian-made to launch attacks on civilians and infrastructure.
“Russia provided us with a limited number of drones months before the war in Ukraine,” said Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian, the official Iranian news agency (IRNA).
This is the first time that Tehran has talked about Moscow’s delivery of drones, while it has consistently denied these allegations made by Ukraine and its Western allies in recent weeks.
In the evening, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky replied: “They are also lying in their confession”, accusing Iranian leaders of revealing fewer drones actually delivered.
“We shoot down at least 10 Iranian drones a day and the Iranian regime claims it did very little, even before the global invasion of Ukraine began,” he added.
Kiev said around 400 Iranian drones have already been used against civilians in Ukraine and that Moscow has ordered around 2,000 additional aircraft.
The Ukrainian president considered: “If Iran continues to lie about obvious issues, this means that the world will make more efforts to investigate the terrorist cooperation between the Russian and Iranian regimes and what Russia pays Iran in exchange for this cooperation “.
“In order for one of the terrorists or their accomplices to go unpunished, this does not happen in the modern world,” he added.
“Tehran should realize that the consequences of complicity in the crimes of the Russian Federation’s aggression against Ukraine will outweigh the benefits (that Iran would gain) from its support for Russia,” the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman wrote on Facebook. Oleg Nkolenko.
Abdollahian on Saturday confirmed his readiness to study any “evidence” provided by Kiev that Russia used Iranian drones in the conflict.
Tehran’s confessions on Moscow’s delivery of drones indicate the rapprochement between Russia and Iran that began in recent months, in the face of Ukraine backed by the United States and the European Union, while China refuses to take sides directly with any warring party .
Tehran once again denied having supplied Russia with missiles, saying the allegations were “completely false”.
The Washington Post reported on Oct.16 that Iran was preparing to send missiles to Russia.
In response, the European Union and the United Kingdom imposed sanctions on three Iranian generals and an arms company accused of supplying Russia with drones.
In September, Kiev decided to significantly reduce diplomatic relations with Tehran on this issue
Additional electricity rationing
Faced with high electricity demand on Saturday, the operating company announced it had imposed “further rationing … in the form of emergency outages.”
The restrictions have affected several regions, including the capital, Kiev, and electricity has been cut off for days to reduce civilian electricity consumption.
Power plants have been severely damaged by several Russian strikes in recent weeks, increasing residents’ fears of spending the winter without electricity and water.
On the ground, in the north-east of the country, Ukrainian military commander Roman Grychenko told AFP that “the situation is stable”, referring to “intermittent attacks by Russian drones, artillery and commandos” in the area recaptured by the Ukrainians in September. .
“We are moving forward at full speed in all directions,” he said, from the reconquered village of Staritsya, three kilometers from the Russian border.
In the south, the Ukrainian presidency found that “the Russian occupiers are trying to identify the identity of residents who refuse to be evacuated” in the territories occupied by Moscow forces away from the front line and even in Russia itself.
For the first time, Russian President Vladimir Putin justified the evacuations on Friday, saying that “those currently living in Kherson should be removed from the most dangerous combat zones”.
Ukraine again denounced what it considered a “deportation” policy.
For its part, the Russian Defense Ministry announced on Saturday “the destruction of a radar station (used) for S-300 anti-aircraft missiles” and the interception of several American Hymars missiles in the Kherson region.
target a judge
In the east, Russian occupation authorities announced on Saturday that a judge of the Supreme Court of the Donetsk Republic was injured by a bullet on Friday and is “in serious condition”.
The Interior Ministry of this Moscow-annexed region in eastern Ukraine at the end of last September did not disclose further details on how or why this attack was taking place.
The leader of pro-Russian separatists in the Donetsk (east) region Denis Pushlin said the judge “condemned Nazi war criminals”, a term used by the Kremlin to refer to the Kiev regime to justify its invasion of Ukraine.
In southeastern Ukraine, Russian occupation authorities in Melitopol announced on Saturday the restoration of the statue of the leader of the Bolshevik revolution, Vladimir Lenin, which was removed during the 2014 revolution.
