Iran asks nationals to leave Ukraine as clashes intensify

Iran has asked its nationals to leave Ukraine and scrap their travel plans to the country, citing intensified military confrontations there.

Iranian Foreign Ministry issued a statement on Friday, giving recommendations on their travel to or stay in Ukraine.

"Given the intensification of military conflicts and insecurity in Ukraine, all Iranian nationals are strongly recommended to refrain from traveling to this country," reads the short statement.

The statement also recommends that Iranian nationals residing in Ukraine leave the country, noting that they can keep contact with the Iranian embassy in Kyiv.

The announcement comes as the Ukrainian military is ramping up an offensive towards the city of Kherson.

According to reports, four people were killed when Ukrainian rocket artillery struck a ferry crossing in Kherson late on Thursday. This is according to Moscow-appointed deputy regional governor Kirill Stremousov.

Regional authorities have talked about plans to evacuate around 50,000-60,000 people over the next six days amid escalating pressure from a Ukrainian offensive.

Zelensky: Russian airstrikes destroyed 30% of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure in single week

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says Russian airstrikes have destroyed 30 percent of his country’s energy infrastructure in the past week and have caused “massive blackouts” across Ukraine.

Meanwhile, reports suggest that Ukrainian and Russian military forces are gearing up for heavy battles in the area.

Russian authorities in Kherson said on Thursday that they had relocated some 15,000 people.

Allegations against Iran

Amid the intense clashes, Western states are also accusing Iran of providing drones to Russia for the war in Ukraine.

Tehran has rejected the allegations as baseless. "The claim of Iran sending missiles to Russia for use against Ukraine is a baseless allegation. We have defense cooperation with Russia, but sending weapons and drones against Ukraine is not our policy," Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian wrote on his Twitter account on Thursday.

Using the unfounded allegations, the European Union and Britain imposed sanctions on Iran on Thursday over alleged drone delivery.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kan'ani called such allegations "unfounded," which had been made on the basis of "misinformation and ill-intentioned presumptions."

The anti-Iran claims first emerged in July, with US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan alleging that Washington had received “information” indicating that the Islamic Republic was preparing to provide Russia with “up to several hundred drones, including weapons-capable UAVs on an expedited timeline” for use in the war in Ukraine.

Iran dismisses accusations it provided Russia with weapons

Iran has once again dismissed accusations it provided weapons, including drones, to Russia for deployment against Ukraine.

This is while the United States and its European allies have since the onset of the conflict in Ukraine been providing Kyiv with an assortment of arms and weapons, fanning the flames of war in the ex-Soviet republic.

Russia launched a “special military operation” in Ukraine on February 24 with the aim of “demilitarizing” the eastern Ukrainian region of Donbas, which is made up of the Donetsk and Lugansk republics. Back in 2014, the two republics broke away from Ukraine, refusing to recognize a Western-backed Ukrainian government there that had overthrown a democratically-elected Russia-friendly administration.

In response to the military operation, the US and its European allies have imposed waves of economic sanctions on Moscow, which has spawned the worst energy crisis in the world.

At the same time, Western states have been supplying Ukraine with millions of dollars worth of advanced weapons and funds in a move that Moscow has repeatedly warned will only prolong the simmering conflict.

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