US, Britain accuse Iran of sending Russia missiles to use against Ukraine

LONDON (AP):

The United States and Britain formally accused Iran on Tuesday of supplying short-range ballistic missiles to Russia to use against Ukraine, announcing new sanctions on Moscow and Tehran before a joint visit to Kyiv by their top diplomats.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, speaking alongside British Foreign Secretary David Lammy during a visit to London, said Iran had ignored warnings that the transfer of such weapons would be a profound escalation of the conflict.

He told reporters that dozens of Russian military personnel had been trained in Iran to use the Fath-360 close-range ballistic missile system, which has a maximum range of 75 miles (120 kilometres).

“Russia has now received shipments of these ballistic missiles and will likely use them within weeks in Ukraine, against Ukrainians,” Blinken said. “The supply of Iranian missiles enables Russia to use more of its arsenal for targets that are further from the front line.”

The West’s allegations about the missile transfers come as the Kremlin is trying to repel Ukraine’s surprise offensive, which has claimed hundreds of square miles of territory in Russia’s Kursk region. The accusations could embolden Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to further ramp up pressure on the US and other allies to allow Ukraine to use Western-supplied missiles to strike deep inside Russia and hit sites from which Moscow launches aerial attacks.

Iran’s foreign ministry denies providing ballistic missiles to Russia, the semiofficial ISNA news agency reported.

“Publishing wrong and misleading reports about transferring Iranian weapons to some countries is merely an ugly propaganda and lie aimed at hiding illegal massive size weaponry support by the US and some Western nations for genocide in the Gaza Strip,” it quoted ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani as saying.

The US, UK and other Western allies are pressing for a ceasefire to end the devastating war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza and avoid attacks from Iranian proxies in the region escalating into a broader war.

Britain, France and Germany announced new sanctions Tuesday against Iran and Russia, calling the missile transfers “a direct threat to European security”. The penalties include the cancellation of air services agreements with Iran, which will restrict Iran Air’s ability to fly to the UK and Europe.

Britain also said it and the United States were sanctioning those involved in sending Iranian drones and missiles to Russia. The sanctions include travel bans and asset freezes on two senior officers in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and a senior defence ministry official, as well as several businesses and five Russian cargo ships alleged to have transported supplies from Iran to Russia. Three Russian military units involved with aviation and aerospace also were sanctioned.

The US Treasury and the State Department in the past few years have imposed economic sanctions on people and companies based in Iran, China, Russia, Turkey and other nations who officials allege are connected with the development of Iran’s drone programme.

The sanctions on Iranian drone production tied to Russia’s invasion, dating to November 2022, were issued despite Iranian leaders’ denials that the country had sent them.

Sanctions, among other things, bar people and businesses from accessing property or financial assets held in the US and prevent US companies and citizens from doing business with them.

The announcement precedes a Blinken and Lammy visit Wednesday to Kyiv, where they will meet Zelenskyy and other officials to discuss bolstering the country’s defences. The rare joint visit was unusually announced in advance – a public signal of US-UK support for Ukraine ahead of what’s likely to be a brutal winter of Russian attacks.

Asked whether the US would allow weapons it supplied to be used to strike targets deeper inside Russia, Blinken said all use of weapons needed to be allied to a strategy.

He said one goal of the visit this week “is to hear directly from the Ukrainian leadership, including … President Zelenskyy, about exactly how the Ukrainians see their needs in this moment, toward what objectives, and what we can do to support those needs.”