Based on his claims that Iran is sending drones to Russia to be used against Ukrainians, Ukraine’s President Vladimir Zelensky proposed heavy 50-year anti-Iran sanctions to the Kyiv Parliament this Sunday.
This Sunday evening, the office of Ukraine’s President Vladimir Zelensky said in a statement that the president has personally proposed a bill to Ukraine’s Parliament to impose sanctions on Iran for 50 years. The move, as the statement explained, is a response to what Ukraine believes to be Iran’s military support for Russia in the ongoing war between Kyiv and Moscow.
Along with its Western allies, Ukraine believes that Iran has been supplying Russians with arms, especially including hundreds of explosive drones, to be used against Ukrainians in its war with Russia, allegations that Tehran categorically denies.
In the statement, Zelensky’s office also claimed that Russia had staged the largest drone strike to date on Ukraine Saturday night, using 54 Iran-made explosive drones, 52 of which the Ukraine military could successfully shoot down.
Earlier on Wednesday, the Ukrainian president once again repeated his claims and urged Iran to reconsider the supply of drones to Russia and not support Moscow in the Ukraine war. In reaction, Iran’s Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Nasser Kanani dismissed Zelensky’s allegations and termed his anti-Iran remarks as a worthless political show containing baseless claims.
“The repetition of false claims by the Ukrainian president against the Islamic Republic is in line with the propaganda and media war of the anti-Iranian axis against Iran’s government and people with the aim of securing as many arms and financial aid as possible from Western countries,” Kanani said in a statement on Saturday.
Who put the idea first?
The idea that Iran is in fact helping Russia in its fight against Ukraine first emerged last July, when US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan announced in a news conference in Washington that he has received information from US intelligence agencies indicating that the Islamic Republic of Iran was preparing to provide Russia with “up to several hundred drones, including weapons-capable UAVs on an expedited timeline” for use in the Russian military operations against Ukraine.
Immediately after Sullivan’s remarks, Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian strongly rejected the claims and called it a media controversy over Iran’s alleged support for Russia in the war, adding, however, that Tehran had provided Moscow with a limited number of drones, but that it was months before the war in Ukraine began.
What does the anti-Iran bill contain?
Like many other sanctions imposed by the West against Iran, the bill proposed by Zelensky would stop Iranian goods transiting through Ukraine and use of its airspace if it is passed by Ukraine’s parliament. it will also impose trade, financial and technology sanctions against Iran and its citizens.
To read between the lines, the bill proposes a complete ban on trade operations with Iran, and transit of its resources via the Ukrainian territory as well as measures prohibiting Iranian citizens from withdrawing their capital from Ukraine. The draft decree also provides for a ban on the transfer of intellectual property rights to Iran and Iranians.
Under the proposed bill, the responsible bodies for the implementation of the 50-year-long sanctions against Iran would be Ukraine’s cabinet, central bank, foreign intelligence service, and security service. If passed, the legislation would also prohibit the National Bank of Ukraine from registering an international payment system operated by Iran. The Ukrainian parliament is expected to back the sanctions bill, which has already been approved by the National Security and Defense Council.
