By Andrea Shalal
March 23 (Reuters) - Moscow's shipment of modernized drones to Iran made Russian drone production sites legitimate military targets, a top Ukrainian diplomat said on Monday, urging Western powers to equip Ukraine with weapons capable of hitting those sites.
Ukraine's permanent representative to the United Nations, Andriy Melnyk, said Russia's support of Tehran with modernized versions of its Iranian-designed Shahed drones and other military support, meant it was now Tehran's main accomplice
in the war. Moscow had used the Shahed drones against Ukraine since early in its full-scale invasion in February 2022.
"The recent conflict in Iran has revealed how intertwined this crisis is with Russia's military invasion and the Kremlin's malign, imperialistic goals," he told a special Security Council session on the Ukraine war.
Russia's shipments of modernized versions of Iran's Shahed drones, using licenses provided by Tehran, marked an unprecedented escalation that would allow Iran to attack Gulf countries and U.S. forces in the region for a long period, destabilizing the region and threatening the global economy, Melnyk said.
As a result, Russian drone production sites should be considered "legitimate targets for military strikes in the campaign against the mullah regime," he said.
Ukraine was already hitting Russian drone production facilities given the threats the weapons posed to its people and infrastructure, but could be more effective with new weapons and resources, he said.
"Providing Ukraine with the means for deep strikes and helping ramp up our domestic production of long-range missiles would support collective efforts to bring peace to the Middle East," Melnyk said. Ukraine had also sent hundreds of experts to the Gulf region to help countries there defend against the drones.
Russia had also transferred attack helicopters to Iran in an apparent violation of U.N. arms restrictions, he said.
He told the council that the Iran war offered a "new lifeline for the Russian war machine," citing sharp increases in the price of oil that were aiding Moscow's struggling economy.
(Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Stephen Coates)
