Russia sought to blackmail the United States by offering to stop sharing military intelligence with Iran if, in return, Washington would cut off Ukraine from its intelligence data, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said yesterday.
Zelenskiy, who said on Monday that Ukraine’s military intelligence has ‘irrefutable’ evidence that Russia is continuing to provide intelligence to Iran, told Reuters he had seen the data but provided no further details.
Speaking in his presidential compound in Kyiv, Zelenskiy said that some Iranian drones, used to attack US military assets and its allies during the war in the Middle East, contained Russian components.
“I have reports from our intelligence services showing that Russia is doing this and saying: ‘I will not pass on intelligence to Iran if America stops passing intelligence to Ukraine.’ Isn’t that blackmail? Absolutely,” Zelenskiy said.
He did not say who, according to the reports, Russia was addressing the comments to. Russia has denied assisting Iran in its month-old conflict with the United States and Israel – a denial that Washington said earlier this month that it had also received directly from Moscow when the issue was discussed.
The US is making its offer of security guarantees for a peace deal in Ukraine conditional on Kyiv ceding all of the country’s eastern region of Donbas to Russia, Zelenskiy separately said.
With the US focused on its own conflict with Iran, President Donald Trump is applying pressure to Ukraine in an effort to bring a quick end to the four-year war triggered by Russia’s 2022 invasion, he said.
“The Middle East definitely has an impact on President Trump, and I think on his next steps. President Trump, unfortunately, in my opinion, still chooses a strategy of putting more pressure on the Ukrainian side.”
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