Iran summons senior Ukraine diplomat over comments on drone strike

Iran summoned Ukraine's charge d'affaires in Tehran on Monday over his country's comments on a drone strike on a military factory in the central Iranian province of Isfahan, according to the semi-official Tasnim news agency.

In Ukraine, which accuses Iran of supplying hundreds of drones to Russia to attack civilian targets in Ukrainian cities far from the front, a senior aide to President Volodymyr Zelensky linked the incident directly to the war there.

The comment in question was made by senior adviser to Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky, Mykhailo Podolyak, who took to Twitter Sunday to mock Iran after the drone attack, saying that "Ukraine did warn you."

The Kremlin on Monday condemned Sunday's drone strike on a military factory in Iran and said it was analyzing what had happened.

"In any case, one can only condemn such actions against a sovereign state," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

A US official said on Sunday that Israel appeared to have been behind the overnight drone strike. Iran said it had intercepted the strike and that there were no casualties or serious damage.

Iran has acknowledged sending drones to Russia but says they were sent before Moscow's invasion of Ukraine last year. Moscow denies its forces use Iranian drones in Ukraine, although many have been shot down and recovered there.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said it strongly condemned the "provocative" drone attack on the defense facility in Iran, saying that such attacks may trigger uncontrolled escalation.

There were four large explosions at the military industry factory in Isfahan, Iran over the weekend against a facility developing advanced weapons. The damage goes far beyond the “minor roof damage” that the Islamic Republic claimed earlier Sunday and has falsely claimed in past incidents.

A US official told Reuters that Israel appears to have been behind the attack.

This is a developing story.