US warns of ‘dramatic’ escalation by Iran after Russia ‘receives ballistic missiles’

When Ukrainian forces crossed the Russian border on 6 August, Kyiv was tight-lipped about its objectives, both to keep Moscow guessing and also because it did not want to set itself up for a fall. It needed a victory for both foreign and domestic audiences.

Since then, though, the goals seem to have changed – and gaps opened between the military and political leadership.

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Funeral services were held Saturday for victims of one of the deadliest Russian airstrikes since the war in Ukraine began, as Ukraine’s president vowed to increase domestic military production by creating underground weapons factories.

The funerals took place in the eastern Ukrainian city of Poltava for the victims of a Russian missile attack on a military training facility that left over 50 dead and more than 300 injured.

Hundreds of mourners, including grieving families, local residents, and officials, gathered at the Cathedral of the Assumption in the city, some 350 kilometers (200 miles) southeast of Kyiv, for the solemn ceremony. Sobbing relatives, many holding red carnations, stood over caskets placed outside the church, draped in yellow-and-blue Ukrainian flags. An air raid siren sounded during the service.

Residents knelt in silent tribute as hearses carrying the victims passed by on their way to a military cemetery outside the city for burial.

Richard Moore, the head of MI6, has praised Kyiv’s surprise incursion into Russia’s Kursk region as “typically audacious and bold on the part of the Ukrainians, to try and change the game.”

Speaking alongside CIA director William Burns at an unprecedented joint public event in London, Sir Richard said the offensive had “brought the war home to ordinary Russians” and had raised “questions on the part of people we could see across the Russian elite about where is this all headed”.

Volodymyr Zelensky has met Dutch politician Geert Wilders, the leader of the largest Dutch parliamentary party, at the Ambrosetti forum in Italy.

The Ukrainian president “thanked the Netherlands and the entire Dutch people for their comprehensive support of Ukraine: defence, financial and humanitarian”, a statement on Mr Zelensky’s website said.

The two men discussed Ukraine’s peace plan for ending the war with Russia, the statement added.

Iran has appeared to deny reports carrying claims from senior Western officials that it has supplied hundreds of ballistic missiles to Russia.

Following reporting by CNN and the Wall Street Journal, Iran’s mission to the United Nations in New York said on Friday that Tehran’s position on the Ukraine conflict was unchanged.

“Iran considers the provision of military assistance to the parties engaged in the conflict – which leads to increased human casualties, destruction of infrastructure, and a distancing from ceasefire negotiations – to be inhumane,” it said.

“Thus, not only does Iran abstain from engaging in such actions itself, but it also calls upon other countries to cease the supply of weapons to the sides involved in the conflict.”

CIA director William Burns has warned of the growing and “troubling” defence relationship between Russia, China, Iran and North Korea

Speaking at an FT event following reports in the Wall Street Journal that Tehran had defied G7 threats of further sanctions by supplying Russia with hundreds of short-range ballistic missiles, Mr Burns warned that such a move would be a “dramatic escalation” of the relationship.

His comments echoed those of White House national security council spokesperson Sean Savett, who told reporters: “Any transfer of Iranian ballistic missiles to Russia would represent a dramatic escalation in Iran’s support for Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine.”

North Korea has sent ammunition and missiles to Russia to use against Ukraine, while Iran supplies Moscow with attack drones. Mr Burns said the CIA had yet to see evidence of China sending weapons to Russia, “but we see lot of things short of that.”

Italian premier Giorgia Meloni has pledged unwavering support for Ukraine after a meeting with president Volodymyr Zelensky, warning that the conflict cannot be resolved by abandoning Kyiv.

The hard-right prime minister met the Ukrainian leader on the sidelines of the annual TEHA business forum on Lake Como, as Italy prepares to host next year’s conference on Ukraine’s reconstruction.

Ms Meloni told the forum Italy would never backtrack on its support for Ukraine. “It’s a choice that won’t change,” she said, adding that China and India also had a “role to play” in resolving the conflict. “The only thing that cannot happen is to think that the conflict can be solved by abandoning Ukraine.”

She described the idea that the outcome of the war had already been decided as “Russian propaganda”, adding that Western support had made eventual peace talks a possibility.

“With an invasion, you don’t have peace talks, you don’t need a negotiating table. The need for it emerges, if anything, with a stalemate … the stalemate that we have contributed to creating,” she said.

Ukrainian drones hit a munitions depot in the Russian region of Voronezh overnight, a Ukrainian security source has told Reuters, adding that Kyiv believed the depot was being used to transfer munitions and equipment to Ukraine.

Alexander Gusev, the province’s Russian governor, said on Telegram that “explosive objects” had detonated after a fire in the region’s Ostorogozhsky district.

There had been no casualties, but a state of emergency had been declared locally, with several hundred people evacuated and a major road closed, he said.

The Ukrainian source, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters the operation was conducted by Ukraine’s internal security service, adding: “At this moment, there are still four pockets of a powerful fire observed at the site, as well as the unceasing detonation of munitions.”

The source said the facility was in the village of Soldatskoe, situated nearly 80 miles from the nearest Ukraine-controlled territory.

The city of Kostyantynivka in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk has become one of the main targets of relentless Russian attacks to capture the remaining strongholds held by Kyiv’s troops in the region.

Explosions are almost ever-present in and around the city, whether direct shelling attacks, or the sound of artillery batteries firing hundreds of rounds on the front line, reinforcing the sense that something catastrophic is approaching.

Kostyantynivka is one of the few remaining towns of any size still in Ukrainian hands in the region. And it is now perilously close to the front lines. Outgoing Ukrainian fire could also be heard south of the city with a distinctive rapid whoosh-whoosh-whoosh signifying, says one civilian, one of the highly accurate US-provided multiple rocket launchers at work.

Russian attacks are being ramped up across the area – from the commanding heights of Chasiv Yar, less than 10 miles to the northeast, to the mining town of Toretsk, whose slag heaps can be seen eight miles to the south, and Pokrovsk – the key target for Moscow at the moment – some 33 miles to the southwest along a route already vulnerable to shelling by the approaching Russians.

A local businessman, Petro, says: “Our city has been a target for the Russians since 2014, but they have been hitting us hard, smashing away at Kostyantynivka since the start of the full-blown invasion in 2022. There has been an increase in their attacks since August and perhaps the Ukrainian invasion into Russia has made [the Russian troops] more ferocious and so they’re firing more. That’s how it feels.”

Askold Krushelnycky has more in this dispatch from Kostyantynivka: