One sailor was killed and another injured when an explosion hit an Iranian commercial vessel in the Caspian Sea on Saturday, Tehran says. It blames Ukraine.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry summoned Ukraine’s chargé d’affaires in Tehran to protest what it called a “hostile and criminal” attack, state news agency IRNA reported. The ministry claimed Ukrainian leaders had acknowledged the strike. It also said the incident violated Article 2(4) of the UN Charter and could inflame and widen the Russia-Ukraine war.
Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi took it up in a phone call with Kaja Kallas, the European Union’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs. His office said he condemned the attack and asked the UN Security Council, the EU and the wider international community for a firm response, so that those behind it are held accountable.
What Zelenskyy said
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy did not name the ship Iran described. But around the same time he announced on X that Kyiv had achieved “very strong results” with long-range strikes in the Caspian Sea, hitting “vessels used in military cargo shipments involving Iran, as well as a warship.”
He separately alleged that Russia had been passing satellite images of Gulf states and U.S. military sites to Iran. Surveillance on July 19 and 20, he said, covered airbases in Bahrain, Jordan and Kuwait.
Al Jazeera’s Tohid Asadi, reporting from Tehran, said the Iranians “are not really happy with” the attack while also dealing with a U.S. blockade on the southern coast. Strikes on the northern coast, he said, put extra pressure on Iran’s maritime trade. Iran’s ministry repeated that Tehran has never intervened in the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
Years of friction
The two countries have been at odds since 2022, when Iran sold Russia the Shahed drones that Moscow has since adapted and fired in their thousands at Ukrainian cities. Kyiv says it has shot down more than 44,000 of them.
Ukraine has also sent drone interceptors and anti-drone specialists to Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, which have come under Iranian attack during the U.S.-Iran war.
