Iran’s UN envoy again dodges responsibility in Ukraine conflict

Iran’s Ambassador to the UN, Amir-Saeid Iravani, has once again dismissed international claims about Tehran’s supporting Russia's war on Ukraine as “baseless and misleading.”

Rejecting a statement by the United States, the United Kingdom, and France, the move is consistent with Iran’s long-standing strategy of denying responsibility for its provision of drones used on civilian populations in Russia's war on Ukraine.

In a letter to the President of the Security Council and the UN Secretary General, Iravani attempted to redirect the blame, accusing the US and its allies of "fueling the flame of war" by providing Ukraine with advanced weapons.

Iravani specifically stated that the representatives of France and the UK had invoked United Nations Security Council Resolution 2231 (2015) to back their accusations against Iran.

He also accused the US of spreading similar false claims and of labeling Iran as a supporter of terrorism, asserting that such remarks are "misleading and baseless", in spite of Iran's support of terror proxies around the Middle East.

The denials ring hollow given the growing body of evidence that suggests Tehran has been actively supplying military hardware to Moscow, including Iranian-made drones.

The drones, including the Shahed-136 and 131 kamikaze models, have been deployed to attack civilian infrastructure and overwhelm Ukrainian air defenses, with hundreds of such drones being used since October 2022. Most recently, a large-scale assault involved around 100 Iranian Shahed drones.

Reports from late 2023 indicate that Tehran has also supplied ballistic missiles to Russia. Despite initially denying that it had supplied drones to Russia, the Iranian government later admitted to the transfers but claimed the equipment had been sent before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Over the last 18 months, Iranian-backed plots across Europe have also been foiled as Tehran exports its terror beyond the Middle East to countries including the UK, Belgium, Greece and Sweden.

The head of the UK's MI5 intelligence agency also named Iran as one of the country's biggest domestic threats, while last year, the US named Iran as the world's number one state sponsor of terrorism.