Ukrainian drones have hit military-supply lines connecting Russia and Iran through the Caspian Sea, exploiting a new front in two increasingly intertwined wars. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy claimed responsibility for the strikes, saying in a tweet 7/25/2026, “We also achieved very strong results with long‑range strikes in the Caspian Sea—including vessels used in military cargo shipments involving Iran, as well as a warship.”
The Security Service of Ukraine, an intelligence agency, said that it had launched drone strikes in the Caspian against a Russian oil field, a Russian missile boat, and ships used to transport Iranian drones to Russia. The strikes, part of a long-range drone campaign that has also reached deep into Russia, have brought Iran and Ukraine one step closer to a direct confrontation.
For years, Iran has supplied lethal drones that Russia has used against Ukraine, while the Kremlin has helped Tehran this year with intelligence to assist in its response to the U.S. and Israeli bombing campaigns. Iran’s Foreign Minister, Abbas Araghchi, blamed Zelensky on Sunday for a strike that he said killed a sailor on an Iranian commercial vessel.
Araghchi said in a social-media post that he phoned Russian and European Union leaders to say that Kyiv’s actions couldn’t go unanswered. Iran summoned the Ukrainian chargĂ© d’affaires in Tehran. The strikes come at a critical time in both the Iran and Ukraine wars.
Trump (R) paused strikes on Iran over the weekend while also deliberating over a possible escalation in attacks intended to break Iran’s grip on the Strait of Hormuz. The Caspian trade offers Iran one way to circumvent a U.S. military blockade of its ports along the Persian Gulf and the northern Arabian Sea. Iran’s southern, oil-exporting ports are more important for Iran’s economy, but the Caspian Sea is Iran’s most direct route to Russia, which has become an increasingly important military partner as both countries remain entrenched in war.
The sea allows Iran a route to Russia and onward to Central Asia “that is somewhat unfettered by any kind of interdiction by the United States or other partners,” said Nicole Grajewski, Assistant Professor at the Center for International Research at Sciences Po university in Paris and the author of a book on the Russia-Iran partnership. Meanwhile, Ukraine’s drone strikes inside Russia have given it a new advantage in the more than four-year-old war. Ukraine has used long-range drone strikes in recent months to attack oil refineries as far away as Siberia, contributing to an energy crisis inside a country that is one of the world’s largest petroleum producers.
Targeting the Caspian, more than 430 miles from Ukraine’s nearest border, gives Kyiv an opportunity to disrupt Moscow’s links with Tehran. The attacks could also help Ukraine generate support within the Trump administration, security analysts said. “For Ukraine, it is linking the theaters more closely in the European and perhaps American reading, and I think this is part of the intention here,” said Hanna Notte, the director of the Eurasia Nonproliferation Program at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Monterey, Calif. “The more that Zelensky can signal to Trump that he’s on Trump’s side against Iran, the better.”
Russia has used the Caspian route to import Iran’s one-way attack drones, called Shaheds. Starting in the fall of 2022, less than a year into its full-scale invasion, Russia has fired waves of the drones into Ukraine, straining Kyiv’s air defenses and targeting power and water infrastructure to try to wear down the Ukrainian public’s will to fight. Russia later began manufacturing its own version of the drones, called the Geran, at a factory in southern Russia, enabling it to produce thousands of the aircraft for its assault on Ukraine. Ukrainian forces targeted the facility as recently as last year.
Since the U.S. and Israeli war on Iran began in February, Tehran has used Shahed drones to attack commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz, civilian airports and seaports, Gulf oil infrastructure and American military bases throughout the region. Because they are cheap and often difficult to shoot down, the aircraft have challenged American and allied air defenses. Russia in recent years has used a network of shipping companies to move military equipment and other goods from Iran to the Russian mainland. Some ships linked to the Russian government also sail from the Caspian via rivers and canals to the Black Sea where they can transit onward to other ports elsewhere in the world.
Israel also targeted a naval outpost on Iran’s Caspian coastline in March in an effort to limit Russia and Iran’s ability to trade in weapons. Continued Ukrainian airstrikes in the Caspian could threaten an economic lifeline for a pair of economies targeted by sanctions.
“Iran sees this in the context of this bigger picture of being under blockades from both the south and the north,” said Hamidreza Azizi, a visiting fellow specializing in Iran at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs. Iran has vowed to respond to the attacks but didn’t say what form its response would take. Iran launched attacks on roughly a dozen countries across the region during the height of the U.S. and Israeli bombing campaign. Security analysts say that Ukraine is within range of some of Iran’s missiles.
“Ukraine, too, may soon come to understand that Iran doesn’t let actions go unanswered,” Ebrahim Azizi, Head of the National-Security Commission of the Iranian Parliament, said on Social Media.

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