Ukraine announced on Friday it would downgrade diplomatic ties with Iran and strip the ambassador of his accreditation over what it called Tehran's "unfriendly" decision to supply Russian forces with drones, Reuters reported.
The move comes hours after Ukraine said it had downed four Iranian-made "kamikaze" unmanned aerial vehicles.
Military authorities in southern Ukraine said in a statement they had shot down the Shahed-136 unmanned aerial vehicles over the sea near the port of Odesa.
"Supplying Russia with weapons to wage war against Ukraine is an unfriendly act that deals a serious blow to relations between Ukraine and Iran," said a statement on the foreign ministry's website quoted by Reuters.
"In response to such an unfriendly act the Ukrainian side has decided to deprive the ambassador of Iran of his accreditation and also to significantly reduce the number of diplomatic staff of the Iranian embassy in Kyiv," it added.
In July, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said the US had intelligence indicating that Russia is looking to Iran for UAVs.
He said that the Iranian government is preparing to provide Russia with several UAVs for use in Ukraine, and train Russian forces to use these UAVs.
A month later, it was reported that Iran had begun training Russians to use its drones, though it was also noted that Russia is experiencing “numerous failures” and technical glitches with the drones it purchased from Iran.
In early September, the US Treasury Department announced sanctions against four Iranian companies producing and selling drones to Russia.
Tehran has denied it is supplying Russia with drones.
(Israel National News' North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Israel National News articles, however, is Israeli time.)