Ukraine’s top security official has confirmed that several Iranian military advisers have been killed during a Ukrainian military strike in Crimea last month, warning that his country will target more.
During an interview with The Guardian from Kyiv published on Thursday, the secretary of Ukraine’s national security and defense council, Oleksiy Danilov, said that the military personnel who were killed were in Crimea to help Russia pilot the Shahed-136 kamikaze drones supplied by the Islamic Republic.
He did not disclose the exact number of casualties but added that any other Iranians on occupied Ukrainian territory supporting the Russian invasion would also be targeted. In October, Israeli media said that 10 were killed in Ukrainian strikes in occupied Crimea.
“You shouldn’t be where you shouldn’t be. They were on our territory. We didn’t invite them here, and if they collaborate with terrorists and participate in the destruction of our nation, we must kill them,” Danilov said.
Russia has been using Iranian drones and missiles in its air attacks against the Ukrainians. In October, it targeted Ukraine’s civilian energy infrastructure, plunging it into blackouts as the winter cold has begun to fall across the country. Amid international outcry over the Islamic Republic’s supply of drones and ballistic missiles for the Russian invasion, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy told a meeting of UN security council late November 23, that the attacks are “an obvious crime against humanity” adding that Kyiv would put forward a resolution condemning “any forms of energy terror”.
On the same day, Ukranian intelligence agencies reported that the Islamic Republic is set to deliver more than 200 Shahed-136 and Arash-2 kamikaze drones, and Mohajer-6 reconnaissance and combat UAVs later in November.
The United States and its European allies have strongly objected to the Iranian move, which is one of the factors in keeping nuclear talks with Tehran dormant.
The United Kingdom defense ministry also said Wednesday that Russia had used hundreds of Iranian-made drones in Ukraine but none since around November 17, suggesting that supplies have run out and Moscow is looking for more Iranian drones. Although the use of Iranian-made drones had met with “limited success”, with most of those launched neutralized, the British ministry said Moscow would “probably seek resupply” as “Russia can probably procure UAVs from overseas more rapidly than it can manufacture new cruise missiles domestically.”
“It is known that the supply of these UAVs will be carried out over the Caspian Sea to the port of Astrakhan,” the Ukrainian intelligence agency said, adding that “The drones will arrive disassembled. Later, on the territory of Russia, they will be assembled, repainted and applied with Russian markings,” the report says. Russia applies its own markings to the Shahed-131 and the Shahed-136, dubbing them the Geran-1 and Geran-2 respectively – apparently to obscure their Iranian origins.
According to a report by CNN, Tehran is preparing to send approximately 1,000 additional weapons, including surface-to-surface short range ballistic missiles and more attack drones to Russia to use in its war against Ukraine.
Iranian foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said earlier in the week that Tehran had “sold very few Iranian drones in the framework of defense cooperation with Russia 11 months before the start of the Ukraine war.” Amir-Abdollahian said Iran and Ukrainian military officials had met in a third country to discuss the issue, and that “we are continuing our investigations.”
Israel’s Channel 11 reported Monday, November 21, that Mossad informed Britain’s spy agency about the threats facing two journalists working for the London-based channel.
According to further information obtained by Iran International, threats against its journalists, revealed by the Metropolitan Police earlier this month, came from the same team that sought to target Israel’s former consul general in Istanbul, Yosef Levi Sfari, who was rescued by authorities and sent back to Israel.
In June, Israeli and Turkish media reported that a terror cell sent to Turkey by the Islamic Republic was busted, and its eight members who had entered the country with fake Tajik and Italian passports were arrested.
The agents were staying at the same hotel in which Levi Sfari and his partner Roni Goldberg were staying for their vacation, with reports alleging that their other targets were Israeli tourists. "The Iranian squad was caught red-handed at the last minute," the reports added. According to Turkey's National Intelligence Organization (MIT), the eight were arrested in raids on three houses in Istanbul’s Beyoglu district.
The mastermind of the plot was Rouhollah Bazghandi, the deputy head of IRGC’s counterintelligence (Unit 1500). A former senior IRGC official had earlier told Iran International that by using amateur agents to carry out the attacks against Israeli targets in Istanbul, Bazghandi dealt a heavy blow to IRGC Intelligence Organization. He was also in charge of thwarting plots against Iran's security officials inside Iran; however, his involvement in the Turkey plot, and apparently his absence, among other reasons, turned Iran into a safe haven for Israeli Mossad agents who launched several sabotage operations and assassinations.
An intelligence source told Iran International that Bazghandi is the man who was in charge of the failed attack against its journalists.
London’s Metropolitan Police formally notified two of our journalists early in November of “imminent, credible and significant risk” to their lives and those of their families. Other staff members were informed directly by the police of separate threats.
The Scotland Yard has also placed armed police forces outside Iran International’s headquarters since mid-November, following further public threats by the Islamic Republic’s authorities – such as the intelligence minister and top Revolutionary Guard’s commanders against the channel.
Britain’s MI5 said on November 16 that UK authorities have discovered at least 10 “potential threats” since January to “kidnap or even kill British or UK-based individuals perceived as enemies of the regime.”
Faced with nationwide antigovernment protests since mid-September, the Islamic Republic has blamed foreign-based Persian broadcasters such as BBC Persian and Iran International of “fomenting unrest”, while all media in the country are under tight government control and present protesters as “rioters” and “terrorists”.
Iran’s Intelligence Minister Esmail Khatib on November 9 said the Islamic Republic regards Iran International as “a terrorist organization,” adding that its workers and anyone affiliated with the channel will be pursued by the Ministry of Intelligence.
Iran has a long record of targeting dissidents and independent journalists who found refuge in other countries. In the latest example of terror operations abroad, Iranian intelligence abducted dissident journalist Ruhollah Zam who was visiting Iraq in 2019 and took him back to Iran where he was executed in 2020.