Iran admitted on Saturday for the first time to having supplied drones to Russia, before the invasion of Ukraine at the end of February.
A confirmation for kyiv, which accuses Moscow of using Iranian drones for its attacks against civilians and infrastructure.
"We provided Russia with a limited number of drones, months before the war in Ukraine," said Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, quoted by the official Irna agency.
This is the first time that Tehran has reported the delivery of drones to Moscow, the country having limited itself in recent weeks to denying these claims.
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The head of Iranian diplomacy said on Saturday that he was ready to examine any "evidence" from kyiv of the use of Iranian drones in the conflict.
However, kyiv already claimed several days ago that Iranian "about 400 drones" had already been used against the Ukrainian population and that Moscow had ordered about 2,000.
An undeniable Russia-Iran rapprochement
Tehran's confessions on these deliveries of drones to Moscow further mark the rapprochement between Russia and Iran that has begun in recent months, in the face of a Ukraine largely supported by the United States and the European Union, and while China stands aside from any direct involvement in the war.
Iran, however, denied on Saturday that its country supplied missiles to Russia, deeming these accusations "completely false".
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War in Ukraine: these Iranian “kamikaze drones” falling on kyiv
Despite Tehran's denials in recent weeks, the EU and the UK announced new sanctions targeting three Iranian generals and an arms company "responsible for supplying Russia with suicide drones" to bomb Ukraine.
In September, kyiv, for its part, decided to considerably reduce its diplomatic relations with Tehran.