Washington believes that Moscow can supply Tehran with modern Russian fighters and drones. This was stated on February 18 by US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken in an interview CBS.
“We are working to expose it, to take action against it, to impose sanctions. Relations between Russia and Iran are becoming more and more pernicious, and it is actually a two-way street. Not only Iran supplies equipment to Russia, but Russia also supplies military equipment to Iran, including, it seems, modern fighter jets, ”Blinken quotes.
According to him, against this background, Iran can become a much more serious threat. He also noted that the United States is discussing cooperation between Russia and Iran with its allies.
Moscow and Tehran have repeatedly denied Western claims that Russia is supplying Iranian drones for use in Ukraine. Back on August 30, the press secretary of the President of Russia, Dmitry Peskov, called such reports a stuffing and stressed that the Russian army uses domestically produced drones.
Earlier, on February 5, The Wall Street Journal, citing sources, wrote that Russia and Iran were allegedly going to build a plant that could produce at least 6,000 Iranian-designed UAVs.
In turn, Peskov, commenting on the plans for the joint production of UAVs with Iran, said that Russia has a number of its own programs to create drones.
A senior EU official said on January 20 that there was no evidence of ballistic missile shipments from Iran to Russia.
On January 6, Washington imposed sanctions on several Iranian citizens who are allegedly associated with the supply of UAVs for the needs of the Russian army. In addition, the US authorities imposed sanctions on the director of Iran’s Aerospace Industries Organization, “responsible for overseeing Iran’s ballistic missile program.”
Prior to that, on December 29, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called unsubstantiated statements by the West that Russia allegedly has Iranian unmanned aerial vehicles that a friendly country supplied to it.
On December 19, UN Deputy Secretary General for Political Affairs Rosemary DiCarlo announced that a number of countries had allegedly transferred Tehran sub-sanctioned UAVs in circumvention of Security Council resolution 2231 of the international organization (on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action on the Iranian nuclear program).
On the same day, the permanent representative of the Russian Federation to the international organization, Vasily Nebenzya, said that the UN should not be led by provocateurs requesting an investigation into Russia’s alleged use of Iranian drones in Ukraine. Nebenzya called these suspicions far-fetched and unfounded.
The Washington Post also reported on October 16 that Iran would allegedly supply Russia with a shipment of weapons, which would include surface-to-ground ballistic missiles and a shipment of drones. According to the American media, the party should include dozens of Mohajer-6 and Shahed-136 devices, which are called kamikaze drones. Such UAVs are capable of hitting targets at a distance of over 2,000 km.
