The United States has announced it will tighten sanctions on Iran after Tehran decided to supply ballistic missiles to Russia, while Germany, France and the United Kingdom have also announced they will take action.
“The United States will announce further sanctions against Iran at a later date, including additional measures against Iran Air. We hope that allies and partners will also announce their own measures regarding Iran,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced on Tuesday after meeting his British colleague David Lammy to launch the so-called UK-US Strategic Dialogue, an annual event with which they aim to strengthen bilateral cooperation.
The United States has warned the Iranian regime that supplying ballistic missiles to Moscow for use in Ukraine “would constitute a dramatic escalation” of the Ukraine crisis. “Russia has received deliveries of these ballistic missiles and will likely use them within weeks in Ukraine against the Ukrainians,” Blinken said at the joint press conference with Lammy held in a room at the State Department.
Iran’s ballistic missile system, with a maximum range of 120 kilometers, would allow Russia to target its arsenal further from the front line.
Blinken added that “this is a critical moment” for Ukraine, “in the midst of a season of intense fighting this fall, with Russia escalating.” “We’re seeing (Moscow) ramp up its attacks on cities, on populations, particularly targeting energy infrastructure, electricity infrastructure, all of this ahead of the colder months,” he said.
Berlin, London and Paris announce sanctions
The German, French and British governments have condemned Iran’s supply of ballistic missiles to Russia and have also announced measures against Tehran, such as revoking bilateral air transport agreements.
“This is a new escalation of Iran’s support for Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, through which Iranian missiles will reach European territory and further increase the suffering of Ukrainians,” the foreign ministers of the three countries stressed in a joint statement. “This is an escalation on both the Iranian and Russian sides and constitutes a direct threat to European security,” added German Annalena Baerbock, British David Lammy and French Stephane Sejourné.
The three countries recalled that they had declared publicly and privately that they would adopt new measures against Iran if the transfer of missiles to Russia was carried out, something which London, Berlin and Paris claim to “now have confirmation of”.
In this context, they announced the revocation of bilateral air transport agreements with Iran. Likewise, Germany, France and the United Kingdom will promote measures to sanction the national airline Iran Air. In addition, they promised to work to identify individuals and entities involved in Iran’s ballistic missile program and the transfer of these and other weapons to Russia.
“We call on Iran to immediately cease its support for Russia in its war of aggression against Ukraine and to stop the development and transfer of ballistic missiles,” the three foreign ministers said.
Peter Stano, spokesman for Josep Borrell, confirmed that the head of European diplomacy has “received credible information on the sending of Iranian ballistic missiles to Russia” and stressed that the high representative, in his bilateral contacts, “has constantly warned Iran against such a decision.
“The delivery of ballistic missiles will likely contribute to the escalation of Russian bombings against the Ukrainian civilian population, cities and civilian infrastructure, further increasing civilian casualties and destruction,” Borrell’s spokesperson added. “This represents a new military escalation by Russia and an intensification of Iran’s support for Russian aggression against Ukraine,” he stressed, before pointing out that “this support” by Iran to Russia “will be met with a strong response from the EU” and that Borrell has already presented to the Member States “a substantial set of decisive and specific measures as part of the EU response.”
Ukrainian drone attack in Russia
Meanwhile, Ukraine has launched one of the largest attacks on Russian territory in the entire war. Last night, Russian air defense systems shot down 144 Ukrainian drones in various regions of Russia, including 20 in the Moscow suburbs, where a woman died and three other people were injured in the attack, according to local authorities.
“A 46-year-old woman has died,” Moscow Region Governor Andrei Voroviov wrote on his Telegram channel, adding that three injured people had to be hospitalized. In Ramenskoye, a suburb of Moscow, drones hit two multi-storey residential buildings and started fires, the same source said.
According to the Russian Defense Ministry, anti-aircraft defenses shot down 20 drones over the Moscow region, an attack that forced the suspension of operations at three airports in the Russian capital.
Rosaviatsia, Russia’s federal civil aviation agency, lifted the suspension, which was implemented shortly after midnight and forced 48 flights to be diverted to other airports, at 07:58 local time.
According to the Defense Ministry’s report published on Telegram, half of the drones shot down in recent hours, 72, were intercepted over the Bryansk region, which borders Ukraine. Russian air defenses destroyed 52 Ukrainian drones over seven other regions of the country.
In Ukraine, the country’s air defenses shot down 38 of the 46 Shahed kamikaze drones launched by Russia early Tuesday, according to the Ukrainian Air Force. In recent hours, Russia also launched an Iskander-M missile and another Kh-31P missile against Ukraine that could not be intercepted by Ukrainian defenses, according to the air force report.
Air defenses were activated during the attack in the Ukrainian regions of kyiv and Chernihiv (north), Kirovograd, Cherkasy, Dnipropetrovsk and Poltava (center), Sumi and Kharkiv (northeast), Mikolayiv, Odessa and Kherson (south) and Zaporizhzhia (southeast).
