Ukraine's Foreign Minister, Dmytro Kuleba, on Friday received a phone call from his Iranian counterpart, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, saying he demanded Tehran stop sending weapons to Russia, Reuters reported.
"I demanded Iran to immediately cease the flow of weapons to Russia used to kill civilians and destroy critical infrastructure in Ukraine," Kuleba said in a tweet following the conversation.
Amir-Abdollahian repeated Iran's denial of supplying weapons to Russia for the war in Ukraine, Iranian state media reported.
"We have good ties with Russia and have had defense cooperation since earlier, but our policy towards the war in Ukraine is to respect the territorial integrity of countries, not to send weapons to conflicting parties, stop the war and end the displacement of people," the Iranian minister was quoted as saying.
In July US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said the US had intelligence indicating that Russia is looking to Iran for UAVs.
He indicated at the time 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.
Last month, Ukraine reported the first Russian attacks carried out using Iranian-made drones, targeting the south of the country, including the strategic city of Odessa on the Black Sea.
At the start of October, Iranian-made drones were also reportedly used in an attack in the Ukrainian town of Bila Tserkva, southwest of the capital Kyiv.
Current and former US officials recently told The New York Times that Iran has sent trainers to Ukraine to help Russians overcome problems with the fleet of drones that they purchased from Tehran.
Ukraine announced last month it would downgrade diplomatic ties with Iran and strip the ambassador of his accreditation over Iran’s assistance to Russia.
(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.)