WSJ: Two wars converge in the Caspian Sea as Ukraine hits Iranian supply line to Russia

Pic.: publics

Ukrainian drones have hit military-supply lines connecting Russia and Iran through the Caspian Sea, exploiting a new front in two increasingly intertwined wars, Wall Street Journal writes.

Volodymyr Zelensky claimed responsibility for the strikes, saying in a tweet Saturday, “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 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.

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 chargé d’affaires in Tehran.

The strikes come at a critical time in both the Iran and Ukraine wars.

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 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.

“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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