Iranian authorities have summoned Ukraine's chargé d'affaires in Tehran after a senior aide to President Volodymyr Zelenskiy appeared to link a recent drone attack in Iran to the war in Ukraine.
The envoy was called on January 30 to provide explanations for Mykhailo Podolyak’s “strange and biased” tweet a day earlier, the Iranian Foreign Ministry said.
“Explosive night in Iran - drone and missile production, oil refineries,” Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Zelenskiy, said in his tweet, adding, “Ukraine did warn you.”
Kyiv and its Western backers accuse Iran of supplying Russia with attack drones that are being used in the war in Ukraine. Tehran has acknowledged supplying drones to Moscow but said this was before Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Podolyak’s tweet came shortly after three bomb-carrying drones targeted an Iranian defense factory in the central city of Isfahan late on January 28, causing minor damage at the plant, Iran's Defense Ministry said.
The ministry described the site targeted by the drones as a “workshop,” without providing further details. Iran's official IRNA news agency said the drones had targeted "an ammunition manufacturing plant."