US says UN unwilling to investigate Russia's use of Iranian drones

This was reported by Reuters.

US deputy ambassador to the UN Robert Wood believes that UN Secretary-General António Guterres succumbed to pressure from Russia. Because of this, officials have not yet been sent to Ukraine to verify Russia's use of Iranian drones.

We regret that the UN has not taken steps to conduct a normal investigation into this violation. We are disappointed that the secretariat, apparently succumbing to Russian threats, has not fulfilled the mandate given to it by the Security Council to investigate.

At the same time, the US, UK, France, Germany and Ukraine say Russia's supply of Iranian-made drones violates the 2015 UN Security Council resolution enshrining the nuclear deal with Iran. These countries insist Guterres has sent officials to Kiev to investigate.

Russia has already rejected any accusations and said it would not recognise the results of the investigation. Russia's representative to the UN, Vasily Nebenzya, said at a UN Security Council meeting that Russia's accusations of Iranian drone use were artificial.

Iran's ambassador to the UN, Amir Saeed Iravani, once again said that Iran had not transferred any items banned by the Security Council to Russia. He also said that Iranian drones supplied to Russia before February had not been banned by Rada and had not been transferred for use in the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.

He called the accusations baseless and described them as an attempt "to divert attention from the transfer by Western states of huge quantities of advanced modern weapons to Ukraine in order to continue the conflict".