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Ukraine gets more US aid as Russia-Iran ties worry West

Ukraine gets more US aid as Russia-Iran ties worry West
December 10, 2022 Reuters

KYIV (Reuters) - The United States announced new military aid for Ukraine and vowed to disrupt Russian ties with Iran, which a British envoy said involved Moscow seeking hundreds of ballistic missiles and offering unprecedented military support in return.

Tehran and Moscow have denied Western accusations that Russia is using Iranian drones to attack targets in Ukraine, where officials warned on Friday of a winter-long power deficit after repeated Russian attacks on its energy infrastructure.

Two senior Iranian officials and two Iranian diplomats told Reuters in October that Iran had promised to provide Russia with surface-to-surface missiles as well as more drones.

White House national security spokesman John Kirby told reporters Washington was very concerned about the "deepening and burgeoning defence partnership" between Iran and Russia, and would work to disrupt that relationship, including on drones.

Washington was sending a $275 million package of aid to Ukraine to strengthen air defences and defeat drones, he said.

Britain's U.N. Ambassador Barbara Woodward said Iran had sent hundreds of drones that Russia had used in Ukraine.

"Russia is now attempting to obtain more weapons, including hundreds of ballistic missiles," she told reporters. "In return, Russia is offering Iran an unprecedented level of military and technical support."

The Iranian and Russian missions to the United Nations did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier said Moscow would probably do a deal over Ukraine one day but that Russia's near-total loss of trust in the West would make an eventual settlement, which he did not elaborate on, much harder to reach.

Russia has clamped down on dissent since it invaded Ukraine in February, and a Moscow court on Friday sentenced opposition politician Ilya Yashin to eight and a half years in prison on charges of spreading "false information" about the army.

Yashin had discussed in a YouTube video evidence uncovered by Western journalists of Russian war crimes in Ukraine. Moscow denies committing war crimes. In a post on his Telegram channel, Yashin urged supporters to continue opposing the war.

On the ground in Ukraine, the entire front line in the east of the country was being shelled, said the governor of the Donetsk region, which is partly occupied by Russia. Five civilians were killed and two wounded in Ukrainian-controlled areas, the governor said.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Ukrainian forces were standing their ground in the Donbas, made up of Donetsk and Luhansk regions, despite huge difficulties, but that Russian forces had reduced the town of Bakhmut to ruins.