Ukraine: Ukraine\u2019s 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\u2019s tattered nuclear deal with world powers hangs in the balance.
\nUS 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\u2019s top powers.
\nA 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 \u201cWitness\u201d in Farsi.
\nThe military official and the website both said Ukrainian troops encountered the drone near Kupiansk amid Kyiv\u2019s offensive that has punched through Russian lines around Kharkiv on the eastern front.
\nThe image suggested the Shahed drone had been shot down by Ukrainian forces and hadn\u2019t detonated on impact as designed, though little other information was immediately released by Kyiv. An inscription on the drone identified it as an \u201cM214 Geran-2,\u201d which didn\u2019t immediately correspond to known Russian weaponry.
\nIran\u2019s mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
\nIran has multiple version of the Shahed, which have overflown a US aircraft carrier in the Arabian 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 Iran has offered few details.
\nExperts refer to such bomb-carrying drones as \u201cloitering munitions.\u201d The drone flies to a destination, likely programmed before its flight, and either explodes in the air over the target or on impact against it.
\nIran has drawn closer to Russia as it faces crushing sanctions over the collapse of the nuclear deal in 2018 after then-President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from the accord. Negotiations over the deal, which saw Iran limit its enrichment of uranium in exchange for sanctions being lifted, again appear deadlocked.
\nUkraine and Iran also have tense relations, stemming from Iran\u2019s Revolutionary Guard shooting down a Ukrainian passenger jet in 2020, killing all 176 people on board.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ukraine: Ukraine\u2019s 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\u2019s tattered nuclear deal with world powers hangs in the balance. US intelligence publicly warned back in July that Tehran planned to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":283204,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-283192","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n