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Iran has admitted for the first time to sending drones to Russia, but insists the drones were given to its allies before Moscow invaded Ukraine.
Kyiv and its Western allies have accused Russia of using Iranian-made drones for attacks in recent weeks.
Tehran has repeatedly denied the claim, but Foreign Minister Hussein Amir-Abdallahian was quoted on Saturday as saying the drones had been sent to Russia before the invasion began in late February.
“We provided Russia with a limited number of drones in the months before the Ukrainian war,” Amir Abdullahian said, according to Iran’s official news agency IRNA.
But he again denied Iran was supplying Russia with missiles, calling the allegations “completely false”.
For weeks, the Russian army Missiles and explosive drones hit Ukrainian infrastructure, A major ground offensive in Ukraine, fueled by Western arms deliveries, has pushed Russian troops back into large swathes of the country.
Kyiv claims about 400 Iranian drones have been used against civilians in Ukraine, and Moscow has ordered about 2,000.
On Saturday, President Vladimir Zelensky accused Iranian officials of lying about the delivery of drones to Moscow.
“They decided to admit that they did supply drones for Russian terror. But even in this confession, they lied,” he said.
“We shoot down at least 10 Iranian drones a day, and the Iranian regime claims it has allegedly contributed little or no, even before the full-scale invasion began.”
Earlier, a spokesman for Ukraine’s foreign ministry warned Iran that the “consequences” of a “collusion” with Moscow would “outweigh the benefits” of Russian support.
Britain and the European Union have imposed sanctions on three Iranian generals and an arms company accused of supplying drones to Russia.
deport
A strike in Russia has destroyed about a third of Ukraine’s power stations in the past month, and the government has urged Ukrainians to save as much electricity as possible.
Ukraine’s National Energy Corporation on Saturday announced the implementation of additional power rationing in Kyiv and several other regions of the country.
Ukrainian and Russian troops appear to be fighting fiercely over the southern city of Kherson, which had a population of about 288,000 before the conflict.
It was the first major Ukrainian city to fall into the hands of Russian troops after the Moscow invasion.
Russia has been evacuating civilians from the Kherson region, with President Vladimir Putin saying residents must be “evacuated” from the danger zone.
But Kyiv likened the departures to Soviet-style “deportations.”
Meanwhile, soldiers in northern Ukraine are keeping an eye out for new attacks on the border with Russia and Belarus.
Guards have been scanning the horizon at a remote outpost near the Senkivka border crossing, where the Russian 90th Panzer Division swept across Ukrainian territory when the war began.
A guard in his 30s, nicknamed “Lynx”, spoke to AFP in a fortified air-raid shelter built after Russia’s withdrawal in April.
“The enemy has become more active since the fall,” he said, a machine gun slung over his shoulder.
“Everything is more serious now … we have considered all possible options to avoid repeating the same mistakes.”
drive away from communism
In the southern Ukrainian city of Melitopol, Moscow’s occupation authorities said on Saturday they had brought back a statue of Lenin, seven years after it was removed following the pro-EU revolution in Kyiv.
Vladimir Rogov, the Moscow-appointed head of the Zaporozhye region, posted a photo of the city’s workers restoring tributes to the Bolshevik leader.
There are statues of the founders of the Soviet Union in the central squares of almost all cities in Russia.
But Ukraine removed Lenin statues across the country as part of its “decommunization campaign” after the 2014 revolution toppled the Moscow-backed regime.
It was seen as an effort to escape Russian and Soviet influence.
Meanwhile, tens of thousands of people marched in the Italian capital on Saturday, calling for peace in Ukraine and urging the government to stop sending arms to fight a Russian invasion.
“No war. No arms,” ​​read a banner held by protesters in Rome, as a large crowd erupted in chanting to “give peace a chance”.
Some politicians, including former Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, said Italy should step up negotiations.
But the new far-right prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, has vowed to continue supporting Ukraine, and the government has said it expects more arms shipments soon.
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