Tehran has slammed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for regurgitating baseless claims about Iran supplying Russia with drones for the sake of fueling “anti-Iranian propaganda.”
“Delusional claims made by the Ukrainian president against the Islamic Republic of Iran are in line with the anti-Iranian propaganda and media war aimed at attracting as many arms and financial aid from Western countries as possible,” Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani said in a statement carried by Iranian media on Saturday.
Kanaani emphasized that the Islamic Republic of Iran has repeatedly called for finding a political solution to the Ukraine crisis. However, according to the spokesman, Ukraine, had "specific political goals and motives behind such accusations" and was "avoiding expert negotiations with the Iranian side to investigate the claims."
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who recently made a surprise visit to the G7 summit venue to plead with Western leaders for more weapons, went on a tirade against Iran in a video address on Wednesday. He urged the Iranian people, everyone “able to influence government decisions in Iran,” against siding with Russia.
“Why are you on the side of the evil state?” asked the Ukrainian leader, who has been using NATO-made weapons to target hundreds of innocent civilians.
Zelensky has been repeating these claims with fervor. He echoed the very same statements when he visited Saudi Arabia to attend an Arab League summit.
Last year, despite the lack of any concrete evidence, accusations of supplying Russia with drones for use in the Ukraine conflict brought Iran under a barrage of sanctions by the US, UK, and European Union. EU spokeswoman Nabila Massrali said at the time that the bloc had collected evidence of Iran's alleged deliveries of the unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). France, the United Kingdom and Germany had asked the UN to investigate the implementation of the UN Security Council Resolution 2231 endorsing the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action on Iran's nuclear program. The resolution, among other things, prohibits Tehran from selling certain types of items able to "contribute to the development of nuclear weapon delivery systems" without prior approval from the UN. France, the UK and Germany believe that Iranian drones fall under this rule, but Tehran insists that this is not the case.
Iranian and Russian officials have consistently dismissed all the allegations. The Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman denied US media reports late in 2022, reiterating his government's position that Iran was not exporting weapons to any party to the conflict.
"We categorically reject the unfounded and unsubstantiated claims that Iran has transferred UAVs for the use in the conflict in Ukraine," Iran's Ambassador to the United Nations Saeed Iravani said in October, adding that the political agenda and disinformation against Iran were disappointing.
Earlier this month, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian also rejected the drone supply allegations. Moscow, in turn, accused the US media of spreading baseless allegations about drone sales.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said that Moscow and Tehran gave "exhaustive explanations" to the UN Security Council on the alleged use of Iranian drones in Ukraine. Furthermore, Russia and Iran also maintained that the possible UN investigation into the case was "illegal" as the UN has no mandate to conduct it.
Russia also pointed to the flagrant delivery of tens of billions of dollars’ worth of NATO military hardware to Ukraine, turning the conflict into a Russia-NATO proxy war.