Biden administration officials said Thursday that the US has evidence about Iran sending troops to Crimea in Ukraine to assist Russia with drone attacks. The Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, was struck by kamikaze drones on Monday, deployed by Russia but reportedly Iran-made.
“Iran sent trainers and technical support to enable Russian forces to use Iranian-made drones with better lethality,” John Kirby, White House National Security Council spokesperson, told reporters in a teleconference.
“We assess that Iranian military personnel were on the ground in Crimea and assisted Russia in these operations.”
“Tehran is now directly engaged on the ground, and through the provision of weapons that are impacting civilians and civilian infrastructure in Ukraine,” Kirby said.
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Russian military was facing trouble operating these drones, which is why Iranian troops were sent to help them.
“The systems themselves were suffering failures and not performing to the standards that apparently the customers expected,” Kirby said. As a result, the Iranians decided to send in troops to assist the Russians, he said.
When asked about the number of Iranians in Crimea, Kirby said, “I don’t have a number … What we do know is there’s a relatively small number that are.”
Earlier, reports had said that Russian troops had initially gone to Iran to receive training on them.
Kirby and State Department spokesperson Ned Price informed that a number of such drones have been deployed by Moscow in Ukraine. “Russia has received dozens of these UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) so far. And will likely continue to receive additional shipments in the future,” Price told reporters.
The attacks have damaged a third of the country’s power stations, leaving people in the dark and restrictions on the usage of power.
Kirby also raised the administration’s concerns regarding Iran sending surface-to-surface missiles to Russia in view of the dwindling supply of ammunition.
“Furthermore, in light of Russia’s ongoing supply sort of shortages, we are concerned that Russia may also seek to acquire advanced conventional weapons from Iran such as surface-to-surface missiles that will almost certainly be used to support the war against Ukraine,” Kirby said.
(With inputs from agencies)
