Ukraine updates: EU says Iran likely sent missiles to Russia

Ukraine's Foreign Ministry summoned Iran's charge d'affaires, Shahriar Amouzegar, to warn him about the consequences for relations if US reports about Iran having transferred short-range ballistic missiles to Russia for its war in Ukraine were true. 

In a statement posted Monday on Telegram, the Ukrainian ministry said Amouzegar was warned of the “devastating and irreparable consequences” for bilateral relations.

The EU said on Monday it has "credible information" that Iran has been supplying Russia with ballistic missiles.

A senior Iranian official denied the reports earlier on Monday, describing them as "psychological warfare," according to Reuters news agency.

Poland has dismantled a group of Belarusian and Russian digital saboteurs that aimed to blackmail individuals and institutions by carrying out cyberattacks,  security officials said.

The group sought access to information from state-owned and private companies, including Poland's anti-doping agency, Polada.

“The aim was both to extort money and to force cooperation,” Minister of Diigital Affairs Krzysztof Gawkowski said on Monday in Warsaw.

According to Polish authorities, the attacks are linked to Poland's support for Ukraine in its conflict with Russia.

The number of cyberattacks in Poland has doubled over the past year, exceeding 400,000 in the first half of 2024. 

Gawkowski announced that the government is planning new laws to enhance cybersecurity and store data on national servers.

Russia does not believe peace talks with Ukraine are possible at this time, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Monday.

The top Kremlin official sees no basis for a peaceful resolution to the conflict, as suggested by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Sunday.

Peskov said Russia had heard comments from various European leaders regarding negotiations, but anything “from the country that is steering this process, that is directing the collective West," referring to the United States.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has so far said Russia will only end the war if Kyiv surrenders the entirety of four regions claimed by Moscow.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has in recent weeks emphasized the need to step up efforts to set the terms of a "just peace."

Russia says its forces have captured the Ukrainian village of Memryk, some 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the Kyiv-held city of Pokrovsk in the eastern Donetsk region.

Moscow's forces have been pushing towards Pokrovsk — a vital logistics hub — for weeks as it seeks to cut off Ukraine's supply routes.

The Ukrainian airforce says it downed six out of eight Russian-launched drones in overnight attacks on several Ukrainian regions.

Authorities in the capital, Kyiv, said an attack on the city, the fifth this month, had caused no damage or injuries there.

In the past weeks, Russia has launched hundreds of missiles and drones to attack Ukraine.

That has prompted Kyiv to urge Western allies to help bolster its air defense and approve long-range strike capacity for targets within Russia to repel the attacks.

Debris from drones shot down over the Kyiv region on Monday caused two fires in open areas which have since been put out, the regional authorities said.

Meanwhile, Serhiy Lysak, the governor of the central region of Dnipropetrovsk, said air defenses had intercepted two missiles and a reconnaissance drone.

However, Lysak said Russian shelling of the town of Nikopol, within the same region, had injured three people and killed a 16-year-old girl.

The governor of the central Cherkasy region said air defenses had destroyed one drone and started a fire that was later extinguished.

Ukraine's energy ministry on Monday morning said Russian forces also attacked energy facilities across seven regions in the past 24 hours.

Germany's domestic intelligence agency, the BfV, has warned that a cybercrime group belonging to Russia's GRU military intelligence agency carried out numerous online attacks against NATO and EU countries.

Together with US intelligence and other international partners, the BfV found that groups belonging to GRU Unit 29155 were "responsible for computer network operations against global targets for the purposes of espionage, sabotage, and reputational harm since at least 2020."

It cautioned that the unit, also known as Cadet Blizzard or Ember Bear, was behind the WhisperGate malware attacks against Ukrainian targets in January 2022, a month before Russia invaded the country.

Unit 29155 also "attacked networks in NATO member states in Europe and North America as well as countries in Latin America and Central Asia," the BfV said on Monday.

The warning comes after Berlin accused Moscow of a spate of cyberattacks against the ruling center-left Social Democrats and German companies in the IT, logistics, and aerospace sectors. The attacks involved stealing and publishing sensitive data.

A leading figure in the German opposition Christian Democrats (CDU) has condemned Chancellor Olaf Scholz over his comments about pushing harder for a negotiated end to the war in Ukraine.

CDU foreign policy spokesman Roderich Kiesewetter told the Bild newspaper that Scholz was falling for Russian propaganda.

The German chancellor on Sunday told a German broadcaster that he believed it was "the time to discuss how we can get out of this war and achieve peace more quickly than it currently seems."

Previous peace conferences have excluded Russia, instead backing demands from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that Putin has ruled out as absolutely unacceptable.

Kieswetter said the chancellor appeared to be clinging to old "self-serving" German delusions about Russian President Vladimir Putin.

He also said Scholz's position was a "farce" and that it made a mockery of his prominent declaration that Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 represented a turning point for German security policy.

Scholz "is making the situation in Ukraine worse and thus weakening European and German security," by seeking to represent himself as a "peace chancellor," Kieswetter said.

Zelensky's peace plan demands a complete withdrawal of Russian troops from all parts of Ukraine, including the Crimean peninsula. Moscow would also be required to agree to reparations payments.

The European Union says it has evidence that Iran has supplied Russia with ballistic missiles and has warned of new sanctions if the deliveries are confirmed.

Ballistic missiles are short-, medium-, and long-range rocket-propelled vehicles that deliver nuclear or conventional weapons.

"We are aware of the credible information provided by allies on the delivery of Iranian ballistic missiles to Russia," said EU spokesman Peter Stano.

"We are looking further into it with our member states and if confirmed, this delivery would represent a substantive material escalation in Iran's support for Russia's illegal war of aggression against Ukraine."

"The EU leaders' unanimous position has always been clear. The European Union will respond swiftly and in coordination with international partners, including with new and significant restrictive measures against Iran".

The Wall Street Journal on Friday reported that the United States had briefed European allies that Iran has delivered short-range ballistic missiles to Russia.

While the Kremlin did not issue a denial and said that Iran was partner, Tehran said the report was untrue.

"We strongly reject the claims on Iran's role in exporting arms to one side of the war," said foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani during a weekly press conference.

Tehran and Moscow have grown closer since Russia launched its war in Ukraine in February 2022, with Iran supplying its Shahed drones to Russia's military.

rc/rm (Reuters, AFP, AP, dpa)