The well-known conservative editor of a government newspaper in Iran has asked the government why it did not ban Russia from using Iranian drones against Ukraine.

Massih Mohajeri, the editor of Jomhouri Eslami (Islamic Republic) newspaper said on Monday “the fact that you have changed your stance from denying the delivery of drones to Russia to admitting that we gave drones to Russia before the Ukraine war should be taken as a good sign.” But now the government must also admit that it failed to stop Moscow from using the drones in its war on Ukraine, he said.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said Saturday Tehran provided Moscow with a limited number of drones months before the war in Ukraine, but if it is proven that Russia has used them in the war against Ukraine, the Islamic Republic will not be indifferent to it.

Slamming regime’s approach to the war in Ukraine he also stated, “The minimum thing the authorities of the Islamic Republic of Iran could have done in the war in Ukraine was to first negotiate with both sides of the war by forming a mediation committee and encourage them to stop the war.”

He further wrote, “In the very days of the beginning of the war, Tehran could have announced to Moscow that it has no right to use the drones provided by Iran in the war on Ukraine,” stressed Mohajeri.