Iran summons senior Ukraine diplomat over comments on drone strike

DUBAI, Jan 30 (Reuters) – Iran summoned Ukraine’s charge d’affaires in Tehran on Monday over his country’s comments on a drone strike on a military factory in the central Iranian province of Isfahan, according to the semi-official Tasnim news agency.

In Ukraine, which accuses Iran of supplying hundreds of drones to Russia to attack civilian targets in Ukrainian cities far from the front, a senior aide to President Volodymyr Zelenskiy linked the incident directly to the war there.

“Explosive night in Iran,” Mykhailo Podolyak tweeted on Sunday. “Did warn you.”

A U.S. official told Reuters that Israel appears to have been behind the attack.

Iran has acknowledged sending drones to Russia but says they were sent before Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine last year. Moscow denies its forces use Iranian drones in Ukraine, although many have been shot down and recovered there.

Reporting by Elwely Elwelly; Editing by Toby Chopra and Michael Georgy

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