Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said the country's armed forces struck a Russian warship and vessels used for transporting Iran-linked military cargo in the Caspian Sea.
Mr Zelenskyy made the claim in a post on X that listed Ukraine's “long-range sanctions in response to Russia's strikes”. He wrote that these included strikes on a weapons components factory in Kirov, about 1,200km from Ukraine, an oil refinery in Tyumen, a logistics facility in Yekaterinburg and a fuel and lubricants depot in Rostov-on-Don.
“We also achieved very strong results with long-range strikes in the Caspian Sea – including vessels used in military cargo shipments involving Iran,” he wrote, without providing details.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry on Sunday summoned Ukraine’s chargé d’affaires in Tehran to protest over “a military attack by Ukrainian forces on an Iranian commercial vessel in the Caspian Sea that killed one sailor and injured several others”, the state news agency Irna reported.
The Foreign Ministry said the attack reflected Ukraine’s continued “irrational and hostile approach” towards Iran.
Ukraine faces daily Russian attacks using Iranian-designed Shahed drones. It has been forced to develop counter-drone technology that it has offered to Gulf states facing similar attacks by Iran since the start of the Iran war.
In an earlier post on Saturday, Mr Zelenskyy accused Russia of providing Iran with satellite imagery of the Gulf region to assist its attacks.
“I will instruct our intelligence to share with our partners the information we have regarding Russia’s new assistance to the Iranian regime,” he wrote. “Since the beginning of July, we have recorded active Russian satellite surveillance of the Gulf states and US military facilities located there. These images subsequently appear in Iran.”
He said there was “a clear correlation between Russia’s satellite imagery of these sites and Iranian strikes – both before the attacks, in preparation for them, and afterwards, to assess the damage inflicted”.
“On July 19 and 20 alone, four airbases fell within the area of interest of Russian satellites – two in Bahrain, one in Jordan and one in Kuwait,” he wrote.
Iran has repeatedly launched drones and missiles at Bahrain, Kuwait and Jordan in response to a 13-day US bombing campaign that ended on Friday. Iran says it is attacking US bases and military assets in the region that are used to attack the country.
The US has acknowledged four deaths as well as injuries among its military personnel during the latest round of fighting, but not damage caused.
On Saturday, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps issued a long list of targets it claimed to have destroyed in its attacks, including fighter jets and helicopters, missile platforms, radar and communications systems, fuel tanks, hangars and warehouses.
