Ukraine military claims downing Iran drone used by Russia
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine's military claimed Tuesday for the first time that it encountered an Iranian-supplied suicide drone used by Russia on the battlefield, showing the deepening ties between Moscow and Tehran as the Islamic Republic's tattered nuclear deal with world powers hangs in the balance.
U.S. intelligence publicly warned back in July that Tehran planned to send hundreds of the bomb-carrying drones to Russia to aid its war on Ukraine. While Iran initially denied it, the head of its paramilitary Revolutionary Guard has boasted in recent days about arming the world's top powers.
A Ukrainian military official, as well as a pro-Ukrainian army website closely associated with the military, published images of the wreckage of the drone. It resembled a triangle, or delta-shaped, drone flown by Iran known as the Shahed, or “Witness” in Farsi.
The military official and the website both said Ukrainian troops encountered the drone near Kupiansk amid Kyiv's offensive that has punched through Russian lines around Kharkiv on the eastern front.
The image suggested the Shahed drone had been shot down by Ukrainian forces and hadn't detonated on impact as designed, though little other information was immediately released by Kyiv. An inscription on the drone identified it as an "M214 Geran-2," which didn't immediately correspond to known Russian weaponry.
Iran's mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Iran has multiple version of the Shahed, which have overflown a U.S. aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf, been used by Iranian-backed rebels in Yemen, attacked oil depots in Saudi Arabia and allegedly killed two sailors aboard an oil tanker off Oman in 2021. The triangle-shaped Shahed is believed to have a range of around 2,000 kilometers (1,240 miles), though...
