Ukraine said on Friday it would downgrade diplomatic ties with Iran and strip its ambassador of accreditation over what it called Tehran’s “unfriendly” decision to supply Russian forces with drones.
Earlier in the day, Ukraine said it had downed four Iranian-made “kamikaze” uncrewed aerial vehicles, prompting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to say that Tehran was harming Ukrainian sovereignty and its citizens.
Ukraine and the US have said that Iran has supplied drones to Russia, which Tehran has denied.
Photo: AP
“Supplying Russia with weapons to wage war against Ukraine is an unfriendly act that deals a serious blow to relations between Ukraine and Iran,” the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.
“In response to such an unfriendly act, the Ukrainian side has decided to deprive the ambassador of Iran of his accreditation and also to significantly reduce the number of diplomatic staff of the Iranian embassy in Kyiv.”
The message was handed to the acting ambassador, as the permanent envoy, Manouchehr Moradi, is not currently in Ukraine.
Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Nasser Kanaani “advised” Ukraine to “refrain from being influenced by third parties who seek to destroy relations between the two countries.”
Military authorities in southern Ukraine said in a statement they had shot down the Shahed-136 uncrewed aerial vehicles over the sea near the port of Odesa.
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