Iran could be ‘contributing’ to war crimes in Ukraine, White House alleges
Mike Brest
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Iran’s willingness to provide Russia with drones to use against Ukraine could be “contributing to widespread war crimes,” national security adviser Jake Sullivan said.
While Sullivan’s comments do not signal a policy shift, it is some of the sharpest U.S. rhetoric toward Tehran since the war began.
Iran has decided “to go down a road where their weapons are being used to kill civilians in Ukraine and to try to plunge cities into cold and darkness, which from our point of view, puts Iran in a place where it could potentially be contributing to widespread war crimes,” Sullivan said on Monday while speaking to reporters who accompanied President Joe Biden on his trip to Mexico, according to the Associated Press.
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Biden’s national security adviser referenced the sanctions the United States and other Western countries have levied against the people and entities involved in the production and procurement of the Iranian “kamikaze” drones. He referenced the sanctions as an example of how they are trying to “make these transactions more difficult,” but he acknowledged that “the way that they are actually carrying them out physically makes physical interdiction a challenge.”
An Iranian drone that Russia launched in Ukraine contained parts made by more than a dozen U.S. and Western companies, according to a Ukrainian intelligence assessment obtained by CNN. The assessment found that 40 of the 52 components Ukrainian officials removed from the Iranian Shahed-136 drone appeared to be manufactured by 13 different American companies, while the other 12 were manufactured in Canada, Switzerland, Japan, Taiwan, and China.
“We are looking at ways to target Iranian UAV production through sanctions, export controls, and talking to private companies whose parts have been used in the production. We are assessing further steps we can take in terms of export controls to restrict Iran’s access to technologies used in drones,” Adrienne Watson, a national security council spokeswoman, said in a statement to the Washington Examiner when asked about the outlet’s report.
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In early December, John Kirby, the national security council coordinator, warned reporters that the relationship between Tehran and Moscow “is transforming … into a full-fledged defense partnership.”
U.S. officials have surmised that Russian forces have committed war crimes previously, though that has mainly come via the actions of soldiers in occupied territories. Ukrainian officials have often discovered horrific scenes in areas where Russian troops had occupied but retreated, and these instances have often included torture chambers, signs of civilian executions, and sexual violence.