Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on Sunday said that Ukraine’s attack on an Iranian commercial ship in the Caspian Sea “cannot go unanswered,” comments that came after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky took credit for the strike, which killed an Iranian crew member.
Zelensky claimed that the ship that was struck was carrying military cargo. “We also achieved very strong results with long‑range strikes in the Caspian Sea – including vessels used in military cargo shipments involving Iran, as well as a warship,” he wrote on X on Saturday, the day of the attack.
In his statement on Sunday, Araghchi said that Zelensky “has attacked an Iranian commercial vessel, killing a sailor. A blatant UN Charter violation done at Israel’s behest to drag Europe into its war.”
The Iranian diplomat added that in calls with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Kaja Kallas, the EU’s top foreign policy official, he “made clear that what the freeloader in Kyiv did CANNOT GO UNANSWERED.”
The attack on the Iranian ship comes as Ukraine continues escalating its long-range drone attacks against Russia, which are carried out using intelligence provided by the US, and have been targeting Russian oil tankers and refineries, and have also been killing a significant number of civilians.
