Vladimir Putin will visit Iran next week, the Kremlin has said, just hours after the US warned he is trying to buy military drones from Tehran to use in Ukraine.
The Russian leader will visit the Iranian capital on Tuesday for a meeting with Iran’s leaders and Turkey’s President Erdogan, ostensibly to hold talks on Syria.
But the situation in Ukraine – which sits across the Black Sea from Turkey – is almost certain to feature in discussions.
Vladimir Putin (pictured Monday) will travel to Tehran next week for talks with the country’s leaders and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan
Dmitry Peskov, spokesman for the Kremlin, said Putin and Erdogan will have a separate meeting without Iran’s leaders at the summit.
However, he rubbished suggestions that talks could lead to more negotiations with Ukraine, which Erdogan helped facilitate in the early days of the war.
The trip marks on the second time Putin has been abroad since the war started almost five months ago
It was announced just hours after Jake Sullivan, US National Security Adviser, warned that Iran is preparing to sell drones to Russia to use in Ukraine.
Mr Sullivan – speaking before Joe Biden travels for talks with Iran’s biggest rival Saudi Arabia – said Tehran is planning to provide ‘hundreds’ of combat drones to Moscow.
In addition, Iranian soldiers will train their Russian counterparts in how to use the drones – with lessons beginning in just a few weeks.
‘Initial training sessions slated to begin as soon as early July,’ Mr Sullivan said.
Meeting was announced hours after US warned that Russia is looking to buy ‘hundreds’ of combat-ready drones from Iran (file image)
US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said Iran will train Russian soldiers how to use the drones, and lessons could begin this month
It is not clear whether any Iranian drones have already been sold to Russia, he added, saying it showed Russia’s war in Ukraine was imposing a heavy cost on its army.
Iran has a history of selling weaponised drones, including to Houthi rebels fighting a civil war against Saudi-backed government forces in Yemen.
Tehran claims those drones were used in an attack on Saudi oil facilities that crippled production for several days back in 2019.
Saudi said the attack had actually come from Iran itself, and displayed the wreckage of several of the drones as proof.
Russia is now into the fifth month of fighting in Ukraine, and is suffering heavy losses without much progress.
Putin’s men have captured two cities in the Donbas region in recent weeks, but are now taking an ‘operational pause’ after exhausting themselves in combat.
Meanwhile Ukraine is counter-attacking to the south near Kherson, and is using US-donated HIMARS rocket systems to target command posts and ammo dumps.
A strike two nights ago in Kherson killed 12 officers including a general, Kyiv says, while one last night in Nova Kakhova caused a huge explosion.
America’s decision to reveal the intelligence comes ahead of Biden’s visit to Saudi Arabia, where he will meet in-person with Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman.
Biden had previously threatened to turn Saudi Arabia into a ‘pariah state’ over its human rights record.
Russia is suffering heavy losses in Ukraine as Kyiv’s men target their ammunition dumps using American HIMARS systems, such as this one that blew up in Nova Kakhova overnight
MBS, as the kingdom’s de-facto ruler is known, was personally implicated in ordering the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi – a dissident Saudi journalist and American citizen killed inside the consulate in Istanbul in 2018.
Military analyst Samuel Bendett of the CNA think tank said Russia’s choice of Iran as a source for drones is logical because ‘for the last 20 years or more Iran has been refining its drone combat force.
‘Their drones have been in more combat than the Russians’.
He said the Iranian drones could be very effective at striking Ukrainian power stations, refineries and other critical infrastructure.
Bendett noted that before the Ukraine war, Russia had licensed drone technology for its Forpost UAV from a proven supplier: Israel. The Jewish state has remained neutral in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, so that source is no longer available to Moscow
Russia launched its unprovoked assault on Ukraine on February 24, and since then Kyiv’s forces have put up a defense that surpassed the international community’s expectations.
But months later and with likely tens of thousands of Ukrainian lives lost, Vladimir Putin’s apparent obsession with taking over the former Soviet state at whatever cost has put no end in sight for the conflict.
Two explosions have been reported in the Russian-occupied Ukrainian city of Kherson in the last four days, according to CNN.
And on Sunday, Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s Office reported that six people were killed and 31 injured in Kharkiv after Russians shelling hit a shopping center as well as homes and vehicles.
Last month Biden and other NATO leaders pledged to support Ukraine for ‘as long as it takes.’
