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Ukraine warns Iran against providing ballistic missiles to Russia
by Martin Fornusek and The Kyiv Independent news desk September 7, 2024 2:43 PM 2 min read
Fath-360 firing during a military exercise in southern Iran in November 2022. (Fars Media Corporation/Wikipedia)
Ukraine's Foreign Ministry said on Sept. 7 that if Iran provides ballistic missiles to Russia, "it will have devastating consequences for Ukrainian-Iranian bilateral relations."
Kyiv made the statement in reaction to recent media reports that Iran has sent ballistic missiles to boost Russian forces amid their ongoing invasion of Ukraine.
"For more than two years now, Ukraine has been suffering daily Russian terror attacks with all types of deadly weapons, including Iranian-made drones," the Foreign Ministry said.
Moscow and Tehran have deepened military cooperation in recent years, with Russia receiving extensive supplies of Shahed kamikaze drones regularly used to target Ukrainian cities and infrastructure.
The Iranian government has denied providing weapons to Russia during the full-scale war.
"The deepening military-technical cooperation between Russia and Iran poses a serious security threat not only to Ukraine but also to the whole of Europe, the Middle East, and the world," the Foreign Ministry commented.
The British news outlet The Times wrote that according to an undisclosed Ukrainian military source, a shipment of 200 Iranian ballistic missiles already arrived at an unspecified port in the Caspian Sea on Sept. 4. The missiles in question were said to be Fath-360, with a range of 120 kilometers (over 70 miles).
Experts told the Kyiv Independent that these tactical missiles are most likely to be employed at the front line.
"It's more likely they'd be used on targets related to action on the front line, military targets, logistics centers, command posts, barracks, fuel depots – these are the kind of targets you'd strike with a tactical missile," Fabian Hinz, a research fellow for defense and military analysis at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, told the Kyiv Independent.
A White House spokesperson said that the U.S. is "alarmed" by the reports and that Iran supplying ballistic missiles to Russia would constitute a "dramatic escalation" in Tehran's support for Moscow's war.
Washington has not officially confirmed that the transfer had taken place, but the Wall Street Journal said that the U.S. had informed its allies about the move in the past few days.
Russia has its own ballistic missile arsenal that it employs in Ukraine, such as Kinzhal or Iskander-M missiles. Moscow has also received ballistic missiles from North Korea, which have been used to target Ukrainian cities.
