The White House confirmed the deployment of Iranian military personnel in the temporarily occupied Crimea — they are helping the Russians attack the infrastructure of Ukraine with kamikaze drones.
This was reported by the representative of the National Security Council of the White House, John Kirby, the Associated Press reports.
In addition, according to the US, Iran sent a "fairly small number" of personnel to Crimea to assist Russian forces in launching Iranian-made drones.
"We have information that the Iranians have placed instructors and technical support in Crimea, but it is the Russians who are doing the piloting," Kirby said.
According to him, there were failures in the work of Iranian drones, and the drones did not meet the standards "the Russians expected." In this regard, Iran decided to transport some instructors and some technical support to help the Russian occupiers use drones with greater lethality.
- The official representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Iran, Nasser Kanani, publicly denied the supply of its military drones to the Russian army. Even despite the fact that the Ukrainian military has already shot down dozens of such drones.
- Due to the drone attacks, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine initiated the severing of diplomatic relations with Iran, and Britain and the EU imposed sanctions against the drone manufacturer and three high-ranking military personnel.