War in Ukraine has been ongoing for longer than World War I - yes, you heard it right. It would be difficult and irrelevant to find similarities between one and the other. However, maybe in terms of the 'staleness' of certain battles from time to time, and perhaps one of the other similarities of this war is how wars rarely stay within the boundaries assigned to them.

War in Ukraine has gradually spilt into energy markets, food supplies, cyberspace and even the Arctic. There is another frontier that emerged simultaneously on different occasions: the strategic relationship between Russia and Iran. For three years, Ukraine had seen the Iranian front through a single lens: Iran providing Russia with Shahed drones, which changed the face of Russia's attack on the cities of Ukraine. Recent events, however, suggest Kyiv may now see the relationship differently.

By extending military pressure toward the Caspian Sea, Ukraine appears to be signalling that Iranian support for Russia no longer comes without direct consequences. The Caspian Sea was not supposed to be a theatre of war. Landlocked, distant from both fronts, shared by five states, none of which is Ukraine, it appeared to offer something increasingly rare in the current global disorder: that is, the space outside the wars. And on July 25th, a Ukrainian drone ended that assumption. One sailor was killed, and three others wounded when the vessel was struck near Russia's Astrakhan port in the Volga Delta. Ukraine said the target was a ship carrying military cargo between Iran and Russia in breach of sanctions. Iran said it was a commercial vessel transporting iron.

President Zelenskyy stated through his account on X that there were "very strong results" obtained by the Ukrainian army through its long-range missile strike, which targeted "vessels used for transporting military cargo from Iran and the warship itself." The two stories do not really match. What cannot be contested, however, is that there was a Ukrainian weapon fired into the Caspian Sea that killed an Iranian citizen, forcing Iran to call the Ukrainian ambassador. Of course, this is not the first time we see this happening. Ever since December 2025, strikes on or near the Caspian Sea have been somewhat occasional. The........

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