Iran on Thursday criticized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for comments he made to Congress this week and denied accusations that Tehran has supplied drones to Russia.
“Mr. Zelenskyy had better know that Iran’s strategic patience in the face of such baseless accusations is not infinite,” Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani said in a threatening message posted on the ministry’s website.
Kanaani also advised Zelenskyy to “draw a lesson from the fate of some other political leaders who were content with US support.”
Volodymyr Zelenskyy, President of Ukraine, arrives to speak during a joint meeting of Congress at the United States Capitol on Wednesday, December 21, 2022.
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The spokesman’s comments came a day after Zelenskky addressed the US Congress for additional help, a plea addressed to Republican lawmakers who are divided on whether supporting Kyiv is a matter of national security.
“When Russia cannot reach our cities with its artillery, it tries to destroy them with missile strikes,” he said. “More than that, Russia found an ally in its genocidal policy: Iran.
“Iranian lethal drones, dispatched to Russia by the hundreds, have become a threat to our critical infrastructure,” he continued. “This is how one terrorist has found the other. It’s just a matter of time: when will they attack their other allies, if we don’t stop them now.”
The White House first revealed Tehran’s plans to “gift” Russia hundreds of Shahed-136 drones earlier this year, and as of August, 1,000 Iranian-supplied drones had been shipped to Russia.
Since then, Iranian drones have been widely used against civilian targets in Ukraine as Russia seeks to deprive the nation of its energy resources.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy arrives to speak during a joint meeting of Congress at the US Capitol on December 21, 2022.
(Nathan Howard/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
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Kyiv, the United States and international allies have accused and sanctioned Tehran for its arms support for Moscow.
But Iran has denied providing drones to Russia despite US State Department claims that there is “abundant evidence” that Russia is using Iranian drones in Ukraine.
Iran has repeatedly denied these claims.
Reports and comments made by senior defense officials suggest that Iran and Russia are also expanding their “defense partnership” by helping the Kremlin produce Iranian drones inside Russian borders.
The White House further accused Iran of being “directly engaged on the ground” in Crimea.
Iran calls these accusations media manipulation, saying it has “always respected the territorial integrity of all countries, including Ukraine.”
Firefighters help a local woman evacuate a residential building destroyed by a Russian drone strike in Kyiv, Ukraine, on October 17, 2022.
(Reuters/Vladyslav Musienko)
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In July, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei backed Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine and suggested that NATO would have started a war anyway over Russia’s occupation of Crimea, referring to it as an “entity dangerous”.
“If you had not taken the initiative, the other side would have done so and started a war,” he said, according to a statement from the Iranian leader’s office.
