Ukraine’s top security official has confirmed that Iranian military advisers have been killed in Crimea, and warned that any other Iranians on occupied Ukrainian territory in support of Moscow’s invasion would also be targeted.
Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of Ukraine’s national security and defence council, said Iranians were present in Crimea to help Russia pilot the Shahed-136 armed drones supplied by the Tehran government, but did not say how many Ukraine had killed.
Reports in the Israeli press in October said that 10 were killed because of Ukrainian military strikes in occupied Crimea. Danilov made it clear that any further Iranian military presence would be targeted.
“You shouldn’t be where you shouldn’t be,” Danilov said, in an interview in Kyiv. “They were on our territory. We didn’t invite them here, and if they collaborate with terrorists and participate in the destruction of our nation we must kill them.”
