During his speech at the UN General Debate in New York, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi accused the U.S. of “pouring oil on the fire” in the conflict in Ukraine.
Raisi claims at the United Nations that the U.S. is fueling tensions and violence “to weaken European countries,” as the German news website n-tv.de reports. This is part of a long-term plan, he adds. Although the West accuses Iran of supplying drones to its ally Russia for the war in Ukraine, Raisi disagrees. He stresses that Iran supports any initiative to end the fighting and any political action aimed at doing so. Raisi stresses that Iran does not support war in Europe or elsewhere.
According to a report by the Washington Post Russia has built an autonomous production facility for drones in the Alabuga Special Economic Zone in the Republic of Tatarstan, about 800 kilometers east of Moscow. The facility is expected to be operational early next year and will enable the production of about 6,000 drones by mid-2025. Engineers are working to improve Iran’s Shahed-136 drone to achieve large-scale production and improved aircraft performance. In addition, Russia is seeking to expand its resources for coordinated swarm attacks.
The Iranian-made Shahed drones acquired by Russia are loaded with explosives and programmed to hover in the air until they dive-bomb toward a target. This makes them sort of like unmanned versions of the kamikaze planes in World War II that piloted their explosives-laden machines into the Pacific to hit U.S. warships, such as the German news platform mena-watch reported.
Image: President Joe Biden and President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office of the White House 2.jpg, The White House, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (image size changed)
