Tehran threatens retaliation for Kyiv attack on Iranian ship ‘at the behest of Israel’

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on Sunday accused Ukraine of attacking an Iranian commercial vessel in the Caspian Sea and killing one of its sailors.

He called the act a “blatant U.N. Charter violation done at Israel’s behest to drag Europe into its war,” adding that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s actions “cannot go unanswered.”

Russia has long procured Iran’s Shahed drones in its war against Ukraine, importing arms from Tehran via the Caspian Sea.

Taking to X on Saturday, Zelenskyy apparently confirmed the Ukrainian strikes on Iran, saying that “Last night, the warriors of our Defense Forces hit targets across different regions of Russia that are fueling this war... We also achieved very strong results with long range strikes in the Caspian Sea—including vessels used in military cargo shipments involving Iran, as well as a warship.”

In a separate post, he noted that Moscow has been assisting the Iranian regime in its war against the United States and the Gulf states.

“Since the beginning of July, we have recorded active Russian satellite surveillance of the Gulf states and U.S. military facilities located there. These images subsequently appear in Iran. At the same time, there is a clear correlation between Russia’s satellite imagery of these sites and Iranian strikes—both before the attacks, in preparation for them, and afterward, to assess the damage inflicted,” the Ukrainian leader said.

“On July 19 and 20 alone, four air bases fell within the area of interest of Russian satellites—two in Bahrain, one in Jordan, and one in Kuwait,” he continued.

Zelenskyy went on to say that “evil always seeks ways to make things worse and spread further,” adding that the four-years-long war must come to an end and “Russia must be stopped.”