New Delhi: The United States on Thursday alleged that Iranian personnel have been helping Moscow's forces on the ground in Russia-occupied Crimea to conduct attacks on Ukraine with Iran-made drones. "We can confirm that Russian military personnel based in Crimea have been piloting Iranian UAVs and using them to conduct kinetic strikes across Ukraine, including in strikes against Kyiv in recent days," said the US State Department spokesman Ned Price during a press conference on Thursday, reported Reuters.
"We assess that ... Iranian military personnel were on the ground in Crimea and assisted Russia in these operations," Price said. Though he did not provide any evidence he said "we do have credible information".
Iran did not immediately respond to the allegations made by US, but said that the drones were not Iranian-made. Moscow too has denied using Iranian drones in Ukraine, the news agency eported.
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White House national security spokesman John Kirby on Thursday claimed that the Iranians in Crimea were trainers and tech support workers while Russia was piloting the drones.
"Tehran is now directly engaged on the ground, and through the provision of weapons that are impacting civilians and civilian infrastructure in Ukraine," he was quoted by AFP as saying.
"The United States is going to pursue all means to expose, deter and confront Iran's provision of these munitions against the Ukrainian people", he said.
"We're going to continue to vigorously enforce all US sanctions on both the Russian and Iranian arms trade," Kirby added.
Members of the European Union have agreed on new measures against Iran. Britain has already imposed sanctions on senior military figures and a firm it said were involved in the supply of Iranian drones to Moscow.