Iran has threatened retaliation against Ukraine, accusing Kyiv of carrying out an attack on an Iranian ship in the Caspian Sea that resulted in one sailor's death and another injured. Tehran condemned the incident as an act of aggression and a violation of the UN Charter, allegedly orchestrated by Israel.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi stated on X that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's acknowledgment of the attack, and his assertion that the vessel was transporting Russian "military cargo," would not go unanswered. The Iranian Foreign Ministry summoned Ukraine's chargé d'affaires in Tehran to formally protest what it termed a "hostile and criminal" act.
Shortly after Tehran's statement, President Zelensky suggested a correlation between Russian satellite surveillance in the Middle East and Iranian strikes. He claimed that Russia has been providing Iran with satellite imagery of Gulf states and U.S. military facilities since early July, assisting Iran in directing strikes and assessing damage.
Zelensky specifically noted that on July 19 and 20, Russian satellite observations included four air bases located in Bahrain, Jordan, and Kuwait. He asserted that there is a clear link between Russia's satellite imagery of these sites and subsequent Iranian strikes, both in preparation and for damage assessment.
Meanwhile, Ukraine faced a series of Russian attacks. Early Sunday, Kyiv was targeted with ballistic missiles, causing explosions in the city. Ukraine's air force reported that Russia launched seven ballistic missiles and 136 drones overnight. In Chernihiv, a Russian drone struck a supermarket, killing two people, including a child. Kharkiv experienced a daytime drone attack that killed one person and injured twelve. A glide bomb attack in Zaporizhzhia resulted in one fatality and six injuries.
In the Russian-occupied Ukrainian city of Horlivka, local authorities reported four civilians killed by a Ukrainian drone strike. On Saturday, Russian-installed officials accused Ukraine of deliberately targeting civilians after a drone attack on a holiday camp in the Zaporizhzhia region killed twelve people. Both Russia and Ukraine have denied intentionally targeting civilians amidst the ongoing conflict initiated by Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022, which has resulted in thousands of civilian casualties, predominantly Ukrainians.