Iran Furious After Its Ship Is Blown Up by Ukraine

Iran has reacted with fury after one of its commercial vessels was attacked by the Ukrainian military in the Caspian Sea, resulting in the death of one crew member. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi asserted that the Ukrainian military strike ‘cannot be left unanswered’ and alleged Israeli involvement in the attack. ‘Zelensky has attacked an Iranian commercial ship and killed a sailor,’ Araghchi said in a statement via social media platform X. He claimed the Ukrainian attack violated the United Nations Charter and was carried out ‘on the orders of Israel’. ‘This is a blatant violation of the UN Charter, carried out on Israel’s orders to drag Europe into its war,’ the Iranian foreign minister stated. Araghchi also said he had conveyed Iran’s position in separate telephone conversations with European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. On Saturday, Iran summoned Ukraine’s charge d’affaires in Tehran to protest the military strike against the Iranian commercial vessel in the Caspian Sea, which killed one sailor and injured another. On the same day, Zelensky said via social media platform X that Ukraine had achieved ‘very strong results’ through long-range strikes in the Caspian Sea, including against ‘vessels used for military cargo shipments involving Iran, as well as a warship’. Ukraine’s intelligence service said via Telegram that a drone strike had been carried out against ‘a cargo ship under international sanctions used to transport military cargo between Iran and Russia’. Iranian authorities, in their protest, stressed that Tehran ‘has never interfered in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine’.