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UN: Western powers are set to sound the alarm at a UN Security Council meeting on Wednesday over Russia’s attack on Ukraine with an alleged Iranian drone, as the EU prepares for sanctions.
The U.S., France and the U.K. have requested discussions, which will take place behind closed doors at the Security Council, diplomats said.
Russia has veto power in the Security Council and will surely stifle any resolution. But the United States and France have warned that Iran violated Security Council resolutions by arming Russia in the Ukraine war.
For weeks, Ukraine has been reporting Russian attacks using Iran’s Shahed-136 drone — whose warheads exploded when kamikazes landed — and has moved to sever ties with Tehran.
Both Iran and Russia have denied using drones, and Tehran has said it wants to negotiate with Ukraine. But the European Union said on Wednesday it had confirmed that Iran had supplied the drones to Russia.
Ukraine’s military said on Wednesday it had shot down more than 220 Iranian-made drones over a period of more than a month, despite Monday’s drone bombing of the capital Kyiv that killed five people.
Nabila Massrali, a spokeswoman for EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, said the bloc had “collected our own evidence” and would prepare a “clear, swift and firm EU response”.
A list of Iranian individuals and entities linked to drones that will be blacklisted by EU sanctions is being drawn up on Wednesday, EU diplomats told AFP.

The United States has accused the drones, formally known as Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), of violating UN Security Council Resolution 2231 of 2015, which facilitated a now moribund nuclear deal.
The resolution’s ban on Iran’s conventional arms sales expired in 2020, despite attempts by then-US administration Donald Trump.
But the resolution still prohibits any transfer of nuclear ballistic missiles until October 2023, unless the Security Council gives permission.
“Iran’s supply of these specific types of drones to Russia violates UN Security Council Resolution 2231, which is a UN Security Council issue,” State Department spokeswoman Vedant Patel said Wednesday.
The alleged arms transfer comes as Iran faces mounting pressure to crack down on the largest protests in years by a 22-year-old horse detained by the clergy state’s notorious “morality police”. Inspired by the death of Mahsa Amini.
The unrest has led the West to impose new sanctions on human rights, and has led to a secondary effort by U.S. President Joe Biden to revive the 2015 nuclear deal from which Trump pulled the United States.
Western officials have highlighted evidence that Iran’s drones are among the largest arms exporters in Russia’s history, with its arsenal severely depleted by battlefield losses.
U.S. intelligence reports that Iranian drones have frequently malfunctioned and Russia has turned to North Korea, although China has reportedly rejected calls to send weapons.
Estonian Defense Minister Hanno Pevkull said during a visit to Washington that Russia is relying on drones both because of a lack of supply and because of Ukraine’s success in the air.
The Russians “understand that in the air they currently have no hegemony because the Ukrainian side has air defenses. They have lost a lot of planes,” Pevkul told reporters.