Ukrainian Official Claims Kyiv’s Forces Killed 10 Iranians Operating Alongside Russian Forces

Ukrainian Official Claims Kyiv’s Forces Killed 10 Iranians Operating Alongside Russian Forces

Iran 

Ukrainian Official Claims Kyiv’s Forces Killed 10 Iranians Operating Alongside Russian Forces 

A Ukrainian official told Israeli KAN News on Friday that, in the past week, 10 Iranians were killed in attacks carried out by Ukraine’s armed forces. The Iranians were on the ground training Russian soldiers in the use of Iranian-supplied drones and weaponry. 

The report in KAN News comes on the heels of statements from U.S. and Ukrainian officials warning about the presence of Iranian advisors and troops on the ground training Russians to use Iranian-supplied weaponry in Crimea. On Monday, the Ukrainian National Resistance Center (NRC) reported that 20 Iranian instructors were spotted in the Kherson region. According to the NRC, the Iranians were helping the Russians launch Iranian-supplied Shahed-136 loitering munitions, commonly known as “suicide drones,” from Crimea, and the instructors were primarily based “at the Chauda training ground, the Kirovskyi military airfield, and near Cape Tarkhankut,” the report stated. It concluded with recalling an earlier NRC report that “Iranians are based in the settlements of Zaliznii Port, Gladivtsi (Kherson Oblast), and Dzhankoi (Crimea). They teach Russians how to use kamikaze drones, and directly monitor the launch of drones on Ukrainian civilian targets, including strikes on Mykolaiv and Odesa.”  

On Thursday, U.S. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby also confirmed that Iran had sent a “relatively small number” of personnel to Crimea to assist Russian troops in launching Iranian-made drones against Ukraine. Kirby’s statement coincided with the British government and the European Union issuing sanctions against Iranian military personnel and a drone manufacturing company for supplying Russia with these suicide drones, with the United Kingdom stating in its declaration that “the IRGC are reported to have been in the temporarily controlled territories of Ukraine advising Russian forces on how to use the drones.”  

Israel and Palestinian Territories 

3 Arab Israelis Convicted of Aiding Hamas in Plot to Sabotage Telecom Networks Used by IDF During War 

Three Arab Israelis from northern Israel, identified only by their initials in Israeli media, were charged on Thursday with sending a large volume of sensitive information to the Hamas terror group in Turkey, and for plans to sabotage Israel’s cellular network in a future war. According to the charge sheet, the trio were accused of committing “grave security offenses” and rendering the infrastructure of one of the country’s largest telecommunications companies vulnerable to a potential cyberattack. One of the accused had worked for Israeli mobile network giant Cellcom since 2004 as a software engineer, according to the indictment.

He met with Hamas officials in 2017 in Turkey and handed them sensitive information on Israel’s communications infrastructure, which he had obtained during the course of his work at Cellcom. He met again with Hamas officials in 2020 and 2021, asking one of his co-conspirators to give him information on the telecommunication infrastructure’s weak points, while noting this was for use by Hamas. These two had also been conspiring since 2015 to paralyze Cellcom’s networks in wartime, being aware of the network’s use by the IDF and police forces during wartime. These two were indicted alongside the first defendant’s brother, who also met with Hamas officials three times.

Malaysia Allegedly Thwarts Mossad Operation Against Hamas 

Malaysia on Tuesday published footage of suspects who were reportedly arrested for kidnapping a Hamas operative on behalf of Israel’s Mossad spy agency for interrogation. The local Malaysian agents reportedly bungled the operation, enabling the police to free the captive who was a member of Hamas’ military wing and a computer programming expert.  

Lebanon 

Hezbollah Scrutinized Lebanon-Israel Maritime Border Deal “Line By Line”  

Before Lebanon's government approved a U.S.-brokered deal settling a decades-long maritime boundary dispute with Israel, the powerful Hezbollah had scrutinized the final draft line by line and given a crucial nod of acceptance. According to a report in Reuters, Hezbollah was nowhere near the negotiating room during U.S. shuttle diplomacy which clinched the landmark deal last week. But behind the scenes, the heavily armed group was being briefed on the details and expressing its views even as it threatened military action were Lebanon's interests not secured, according to sources familiar with Hezbollah's thinking, a Lebanese official, and a Western source familiar with the process. “The Hezbollah leadership scrutinized the understanding line by line before agreeing to it,” said one of the sources familiar with the group’s thinking.  

Hezbollah gave the greenlight to controversial details within the agreement as well. These included a tacit nod to arrangements that will lead to Israel getting a slice of revenues from the Qana prospect - which Lebanon deemed to be entirely in its waters, but which Israel said was partly in its. The diplomatic workaround requires France’s TotalEnergies - set to carry out exploration on behalf of Lebanon - to make a separate deal with Israel by which it gets a portion of royalties, bypassing any Lebanese involvement, politician Gebran Bassil, who closely followed the talks, told Reuters.  

French officials met Hezbollah representatives about the overall agreement, three French diplomatic sources said. The French foreign ministry said France actively contributed to the agreement, “in particular by passing messages between the different parties, in conjunction with the American mediator.” 

Syria 

Hamas Leaders Meet Assad in Damascus 

Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad met a delegation from Hamas on Wednesday, with the Sunni Palestinian Islamist faction saying the meeting could help “turn the page” after shunning Damascus for a decade. Normalizing ties with Assad could strengthen Hamas's central position in the so-called “axis of resistance” against Israel, which is led by Iran and includes Lebanon's Hezbollah, natural allies of Assad.  

A small delegation visited Assad in Damascus on Wednesday “to turn all the pages of the past,” according to the head of delegation and Hamas politburo member Khalil Al-Hayya. “We consider it a historic meeting and a new start for joint Syrian-Palestinian action,” Hayya told a press conference. “We agreed with the president to move beyond the past.” He said several factors had encouraged the rapprochement now, including Israel's development of ties with other Arab countries. “The Palestinian cause today needs an Arab supporter,” he said. The secretary-general of the Iran-backed Palestinian Islamic Jihad Ziyad al-Nakhalah also took part in the conversations between Hamas and Assad.  

###