Tehran, Iran – Iran for the first time confirmed it sold drones to Russia, but said this happened "months" before the start of the war in Ukraine. Speaking to reporters after an event in Tehran on Saturday, Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian addressed claims by Western officials that Iranian drones were supplied to Moscow for its invasion, and that surface-to-surface missiles may also be on the way. "Their comments on the missiles part are completely wrong, and the drones part is correct. We gave a limited number of drones to Russia months and before the war in Ukraine," Amirabdollahian said. Iranian officials had previously said on numerous occasions that Tehran had "defence" cooperation with Russia, but had not supplied the Kremlin with arms "for the purpose of being used in the war in Ukraine".

'Putin's Playbook' author Rebekah Koffler and former U.S. State Department Deputy Special Envoy Ellie Cohanim react to reports that Russia is seeking Iranian missiles. Two weeks ago, the co-founder of a think tank affiliated with the Russian Ministry of Defense, Ruslan Pukhov, accidentally admitted on Russian TV what Moscow has been denying for several weeks – Russian forces are using Iranian drones to bombard Ukrainian cities, killing civilians. Implicitly criticizing the Russian authorities for being secretive about the deal, Pukhov compared the topic of Iranian drones with a body part. "There's an a** but you can't use the word," he said, adding "we all know they are Iranian, but the powers that be don't acknowledge it." Drones, in fact, are not the only type of military assistance that the Ayatollahs are handing to Putin as Iran emerges as the principal backer of Putin's savage war on Ukraine.

Fox News national security correspondent Jennifer Griffin provides insight on responding to drone attacks in Ukraine on "America Reports." The Paris-based dissident organization National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) accused the Iranian regime of furnishing Russian strongman Vladimir Putin's army with more than 3,500 drones for his scorched-earth war against Ukraine. According to reports from the social network of the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) inside the Islamic Republic, "Iran's UAV [unmanned aerial vehicle] sale contract to Russia includes various offensive drones, including Shahed-129, Mohajer-6 and suicide drones Shahed-136 and Shahed-131." MEK is part of the National Council of Resistance of Iran umbrella organization. The NCRI dossier states, "Tehran has sold more than 3,500 UAVs to Russia. Most of these were made at the factories of the Ministry of Defense, with others produced by the factories of the Iranian Aviation and Space Industries Association (IASIA)."

Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba has said he demanded Tehran stop providing Russia with weapons in a phone call with his Iranian counterpart Hossein Amirabdollahian. Ukrainian officials and their Western allies have accused Iran of providing so-called "kamikaze" drones to Russia, which have recently been used to devastating effect by Moscow's forces in strikes aimed at Ukrainian infrastructure. Iran has strenuously denied that it has sent any weaponry, including drones, to Russia. "Today, I received a call from Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian," Kuleba wrote in a tweet late on Friday. "I demanded Iran to immediately cease the flow of weapons to Russia used to kill civilians and destroy critical infrastructure in Ukraine," he wrote.

Tehran, Iran – Iran and the West are clashing over Tehran's alleged drone sales to Russia for the war in Ukraine, an issue now being linked to a UN resolution backing the country's nuclear deal with world powers. UN Security Council Resolution 2231 was unanimously adopted in 2015 to endorse the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) – the accord that Iran signed with China, Russia, United States, United Kingdom, France and Germany to get sanctions relief in exchange for curbs on its nuclear programme. The US unilaterally abandoned the accord in 2018 and imposed harsh sanctions that remain in place today. Efforts since April 2021 to restore the deal have stalled. European powers are now trying to use a periodic reporting mechanism in the resolution.

Fox News' Trey Yingst reports on Ukraine's efforts to conserve electricity after Russian forces target Ukrainian power grid. The Iranian military has personnel in Crimea to train Russian troops on how to pilot drones that have been decimating civilian infrastructure in Ukraine, the White House said Thursday. "They can lie to the world, but they certainly can't hide the facts, and the fact is this -- Tehran is now directly engaged on the ground," National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told reporters. Russia started purchasing Shahed-136, or "kamikaze drones," from Iran this summer and have used them to strike Kyiv and other parts of Ukraine, according to U.S. and Ukrainian officials. A Russian drone is seen during a Russian drone strike, which local authorities consider to be Iranian made unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) Shahed-136, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine Oct. 17, 2022.

Waging brutal repression at home and allegedly helping Russia in its war against Ukraine, Iran is becoming an unsolvable challenge for Western powers eager to avoid a new nuclear power in the Middle East. "We're in a delicate situation and an obvious impasse," a French diplomat admitted before Wednesday's UN Security Council meeting on suspected Iranian drone use by Russian forces. Despite Tehran's new support for an increasingly isolated Moscow, the United States and the European Union still hope to revive the 2015 deal aimed at curtailing Iran's nuclear programme -- even though the prospect is dimming. "Iran's repression at home and aggression in Ukraine have increased the political cost for and decreased the appetite of the West to grant Tehran sanctions relief," said analyst Ali Vaez of the International Crisis Group. "But the West has no good options, as the only thing worse than a repressive regime that kills its own people is a nuclear armed one that does so."

Iran has sent trainers to occupied Ukraine to help Russians overcome problems with the fleet of drones that they purchased from Tehran, according to current and former U.S. officials briefed on the classified intelligence, a further signal of the growing closeness between Iran and Russia since Moscow's invasion of Ukraine. The Iranian trainers are operating from a Russian military base in Crimea where many of the drones have been based since being delivered from Iran. The trainers are from the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, a branch of the Iranian military designated as a terrorist organization by the United States. In recent days, the Iranian drones have become an important weapon for Russia, which has used them as part of the broad strikes across Ukraine against electrical infrastructure and other civilian targets. The deployment of the Iranian trainers appears to coincide with the stepped-up use of the drones in Ukraine and indicates a deeper involvement by Iran in the war.

Petrochemical workers strike as demonstrations continue across Iran in defiance of the regime. The European Union sanctioned Iran on Monday for the death of a 22-year-old woman while in custody of the regime's so-called morality police and the subsequent violent crackdown on protests. Numerous Iranian law enforcement officials were added to the sanctions list, including two leaders of the morality police, Mohammad Rostami and Hajahmad Mirzaei. Iran's Minister of Information and Communications Technology, Issa Zarepour, was also sanctioned for his role in censoring the internet and social media during widespread protests over the death of Mahsa Amini. Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian woman, was reportedly murdered by Iran's morality police.

Three Iranians have been charged with trying to extort hundreds of thousands of dollars from organizations in the United States, Europe, Iran and Israel, including a domestic violence shelter, by hacking in to their computer systems, US officials said on Wednesday. Other targets included local US governments, regional utilities in Mississippi and Indiana, accounting firms and a state lawyers' association, according to charges filed by the justice department. While the criminal charges do not say whether the alleged hackers worked for the Iranian government, a separate US treasury department statement said the hackers were affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, an Iranian intelligence and security force. And just last week, the US imposed sanctions on Iran's ministry of intelligence and its minister, accusing them of being tied to a disruptive July cyber-attack on Albania and engaging in other cyber activities against the US and its allies. A senior official said on Wednesday that Iran's government does not discourage residents from engaging in hacking, as long as it is directed outside the country.