According to Iranian authorities, the Ukrainian attack on vessels sailing between Russian and Iranian ports on the Caspian Sea killed one Iranian sailor and injured three others, prompting Tehran to summon Ukraine’s chargé d’affaires and condemn the strike as a “hostile and criminal act.”
It marked Ukraine’s first known attack on an Iranian vessel — it has previously hit Russian targets in and around the sea — and caused Iran’s foreign ministry to describe President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as “the head of the Ukraine regime”. It pledged the late July attacks would be answered. Zelenskyy subsequently confirmed Ukrainian strikes against vessels which he said were transporting Iran-linked military cargo, thus removing any ambiguity regarding Kyiv’s intent. One vessel was traveling from Russia’s Astrakhan to Iran’s port of Anzali.
Ukraine has had more than enough legal justification to attack Iran for several years. Putting aside the 2022 downing of a Ukrainian jet by Iranian air defenses in 2020, killing 176 people, Tehran has given very extensive military aid to Russia since 2022. The importance of Tehran’s assistance has declined from its peak, but the symbolism of a Ukrainian attack at a time when the US is engaged in hostilities with the Islamic Republic is clear.
Read the full article on the Center for European Policy Analysis.
Emil Avdaliani is a Research Fellow at the Turan Research Center.