Iran vows retaliation after Ukrainian strike on vessel it says was linked to Israel

Iran's foreign minister Abbas Araghdi said on Sunday that Ukraine's attack on an Iranian commercial vessel in the Caspian Sea was carried out "at Israel's behest" and vowed that the action would not go unanswered. The strike, which Iran described as "hostile and criminal," caused the ship to explode, killing one sailor and injuring several others, according to Tehran's foreign ministry.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had earlier stated that Kyiv had hit "vessels used in military cargo shipments involving Iran" in the same area. Ukrainian officials, including the ambassador to Israel, have suggested the ships were transporting Iranian weapons to Russia.

Iran summoned Ukraine's chargé d’affaires in Tehran to protest the incident and the foreign minister posted on X that Zelensky was a "freeloader" who violated the UN Charter. Araghdi said he raised the issue in calls with his EU counterpart Kaja Kallas and Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov, emphasizing that the attack could not go unanswered.

Russia's foreign minister Sergey Lavrov expressed condolences to Iran and noted that Araghdi thanked authorities in Russia's Astrakhan region for assisting the vessel's crew. A senior Iranian source told Reuters that Iran would pause its regional attacks if the United States also halted its strikes, which have been ongoing for two nights after a series of attacks following a joint US-Israel bombing campaign on Iran in late February.