Ukraine Officials have confirmed that Iranian military advisers have been killed in Crimea, a news report said. Ukraine’s top security officials have also stated that any other Iranians on occupied Ukrainian territory supported them from Moscow invasion would also be targeted.
Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, said Iranians were present in Crimea to help Russia pilot the armed Shahed-136 drones supplied by Tehran’s government, but did not say how many Ukraine had killed there.
In an interview in Kiev, Mr. Danilov said: “You shouldn’t be where you shouldn’t be.
“They were on our territory.
“We didn’t invite them here, and if they are collaborating with terrorists and participating in the destruction of our nation, we must kill them.”
According to reports published in the Israeli press in October, 10 were killed as a result of Ukrainian military attacks on occupied Crimea.
Mr. Danilov made it clear that any further Iranian military presence would be targeted.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov tried to blame Ukraine on Thursday, saying it could “end all possible suffering of the civilian population” if it met “the demands of the Russian side”.
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He added: “We are trying to answer this question and we will do everything we can to make sure it doesn’t happen.
“But if it does, it will teach us two things. First, that Russia is incapable of producing its own missiles, at least in the numbers that would allow it to continue a full-scale war.
“Second, if a country under sanctions since 1979 is capable of producing such weapons, what kind of sanctions are we talking about?
“So it raises a big question about enforcement.”