Zelensky: Russia providing Iran with Shahed drones used against US bases

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky claimed that Russia provided Iran Shahed drones that were later used on U.S. bases.

“First of all, Russia gave drones already, these Shaheds. They are using Iranian licenses. You know that they built and produced a lot of drones, they gave them. I have 100 percent facts that they — that Iranian regime used against American bases and against our Middle East — in Middle East, I mean, and Middle East neighbors of Iran, they used these drones,” Zelensky said in a recent interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria.

Russia has extensively used Shahed drones against Ukraine since its full-scale invasion four years ago.

The U.S. recently temporarily removed sanctions against Russian oil stranded at sea, with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent saying in a post on the social platform X that the “narrowly tailored” sanctions action “will not provide significant financial benefit to the Russian government.”

President Trump, in an interview that aired Thursday, said Russian President Vladimir Putin “might” be helping Iran with its military operations against the U.S.

“I think he might be helping them a little bit, and he probably thinks we’re helping Ukraine, right?” Trump told Fox News’s Brian Kilmeade, stating later that “China would say the same thing.”

“It’s like, hey, they do it and we do it, in all fairness,” he added.

Trump’s comments came in the wake of a report that Russia gave Iran information that helped them in locating and striking U.S. bases in the Middle East.

At least 13 U.S. servicemembers have been killed and about 140 others wounded, including eight with severe injuries, since the start of the U.S.-Israeli military operation on Feb. 28, according to figures from the Pentagon.  

On Saturday, the Defense Department also identified six U.S. servicemembers killed in a KC-135 refueling aircraft crash in western Iraq on Thursday.

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