Iran says Ukrainian attack will not go unanswered

Leading the Republican criticism was Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky, one of the few Republicans to openly challenge President Donald Trump's handling of the conflict.

"The U.S. has been significantly weakened by the war with Iran," Massie wrote on X.

"This administration depleted our missile defenses, drained our oil reserves, sacrificed our men & women, inflated the price of consumer goods, increased our debt, and neglected our domestic needs... all for Israel."

The Wall Street Journal and CBS News reported this week that senior military officials had warned the White House about declining inventories of air defence interceptors and precision-guided munitions, raising fresh questions about the campaign's longer-term cost.

Trump rejected those reports.

"We have far more munitions than anyone in the world, and far more than we need," he told The Wall Street Journal on Sunday.

Democrats, meanwhile, sharpened their own attacks, portraying the campaign as both illegal and increasingly costly for American taxpayers.

Representative Becca Balint of Vermont criticised House Republicans' latest budget bill, saying it allocated more than $70 billion for what she described as Trump's "illegal war of choice in Iran."

"Does it do anything to lower your costs? Nope!" she wrote.

Representative Nanette Barragán of California argued that Americans should not have to "foot the bill for Trump's war on Iran or billionaires' tax cuts."

The United States and Iran have now gone three consecutive nights without direct strikes against one another, while diplomatic efforts involving regional mediators have gathered momentum.

Few officials, however, appear convinced the lull will prove durable. Trump has repeatedly said the United States remains prepared to resume military operations if negotiations fail, while Tehran has continued to warn of retaliation should attacks restart.

Representative Frank Pallone of New Jersey linked the conflict to rising fuel prices and growing pressure on US military resources.

"Gas is at $4 a gallon, our military resources are depleted, and none of Trump's stated goals have been achieved," Pallone wrote after voting in favour of a War Powers Resolution seeking to end the conflict.

"Our vote sent Trump a clear message: the American people are FED UP with this illegal war."

The controversy has exposed the unofficial network of so-called trusties: companies and intermediaries entrusted with receiving and transferring oil revenues outside the international banking system.

Speaking on state television on Sunday, the head of Iran's State Inspection Organization, Zabihollah Khodaeian, said one intermediary alone had failed to return $200 million in state funds before leaving the country.

Khodaeian added that judicial authorities had opened 59 criminal cases against managers of trustee companies. Some suspects have been arrested, while others have fled abroad.

Iranian media also reported that prosecutors had sought Interpol Red Notices for 15 fugitives linked to the network.

The disclosures prompted unusually blunt criticism from Majid Reza Hariri, head of the Iran-China Chamber of Commerce.

In a public message addressed to Tehran's prosecutor, Hariri said the Interpol requests meant at least 15 trusted intermediaries had escaped with "billions of dollars" in national wealth.

"Who introduced these trusties? Who guaranteed them? And why is no action being taken against those who backed them?" he asked.

Although Hariri's estimate has not been independently verified, his comments echoed questions increasingly being raised in Iranian media over how individuals entrusted with handling billions of dollars in oil revenues could allegedly abscond without serious failures in oversight.

A product of sanctions

The trustee system emerged as international sanctions largely cut Iranian banks off from the global financial system.

Unable to receive oil payments through conventional banking channels, Tehran increasingly relied on trusted intermediaries with access to foreign companies and bank accounts to collect, hold and transfer export revenues.

Many of these intermediaries operate through countries including the United Arab Emirates, Turkey and Oman.

The arrangement became indispensable to sustaining Iranian oil exports under sanctions. But it also created a largely opaque financial architecture operating outside many of the transparency, auditing and compliance mechanisms that govern formal banking systems.

Trusties have never been clearly defined under Iranian law. Little is publicly known about how they are selected, what commissions they receive, what guarantees they provide or how their activities are supervised.

Critics say the structure also creates an inherent conflict of interest. Oil revenues can remain in intermediary accounts for days or even weeks before reaching Iran, allowing trusties to profit from holding large balances while the state bears the financial risk.

Questions over oversight

The growing scandal has also drawn attention to who ultimately oversees the network.

Oil Minister Mohsen Paknejad has previously said the Oil Ministry's responsibility ends with marketing and selling crude, while the Central Bank determines where export revenues are deposited and supervises their transfer.

The issue is especially sensitive because trusties are not ordinary commercial intermediaries. They are selected precisely because they are considered sufficiently reliable to handle some of the state's most strategically important financial transactions.

Officials maintain that such intermediaries remain indispensable as long as sanctions keep Iran largely excluded from the international banking system.

The expanding investigation, however, has transformed what was once a largely hidden mechanism of sanctions evasion into yet another damaging scandal for the Islamic Republic, raising difficult questions about both the alleged abuse and the system that allowed it to occur.

Analysts increasingly see a broader effort to erode Tehran's military, economic and political capacity until negotiations become the less costly option.

President Donald Trump has oscillated between threatening "massive attacks" and calling for renewed negotiations with Tehran. According to Axios, he decided against another round of strikes on Friday despite military plans being ready to execute.

Whether the lull marks the beginning of diplomacy or merely an operational pause remains unclear. What appears more significant is how the campaign itself has evolved.

Military analyst and retired US Army officer John Spencer believes Washington's objectives now extend well beyond degrading Iran's immediate military capabilities.

Rather than seeking immediate regime change, he argues, the campaign is designed to convince Tehran's leadership that continuing the conflict will steadily erode its ability to govern, project military power and preserve the strategic leverage it has spent decades building, ultimately forcing Iran to negotiate from a position of growing weakness.

"The United States could do a lot more," Spencer told Eye for Iran. "This is about changing the regime's behavior."

The evolution is visible in the targets themselves. Early strikes focused overwhelmingly on Iran's ability to threaten shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, hitting coastal radar installations, anti-ship missile batteries, drone facilities and command-and-control centres.

More recently, however, the campaign has shifted inland toward bridges, railways, communications infrastructure and military logistics networks, particularly around Bandar Abbas.

Iran's largest commercial port and a key naval hub overlooking the Strait of Hormuz, Bandar Abbas has become increasingly isolated as transportation links and logistics infrastructure come under repeated attack.

For Spencer, that shift reflects an effort not simply to destroy weapons but to restrict Iran's ability to move forces, sustain military operations and eventually rebuild damaged capabilities.

"It could be beyond the battle of Hormuz," Spencer said. "It could be setting the conditions for future operations."

He argues the United States still retains considerable military, economic and cyber capabilities that have yet to be fully employed should Washington decide to intensify pressure further.

Regional balance shifts

Former Kuwaiti Information Minister Saad bin Tefla Al Ajmi believes the campaign has also altered Iran's wider strategic position.

He argues Tehran's regional network has suffered setbacks on multiple fronts. Hezbollah has been severely weakened, Syria no longer provides the strategic corridor it once did following Bashar al-Assad's fall, and repeated attacks have degraded Iran's nuclear infrastructure.

"Iran is now between two choices," Al Ajmi said. "The chalice of poison or suicide."

He also questioned whether Iran's increasingly fragmented decision-making structure could complicate any future negotiations.

"There is a fragmentation in the leadership in Iran now," he said. "Sometimes we have a problem of who to communicate with."

Military pressure has also coincided with a tightening domestic crackdown, with human rights groups reporting an increase in executions of protesters and political prisoners during the conflict.

Whether the two-night pause marks the beginning of diplomacy or simply the interval before another wave of strikes remains uncertain.

What the past fortnight has already revealed, however, is that Washington's objectives now appear to extend far beyond the Strait of Hormuz, towards reshaping the military and political calculations of Iran's leadership itself.

The report said Iran's nuclear infrastructure had already been heavily damaged by Israeli strikes and the US "Midnight Hammer" operation against its main enrichment sites, but that several facilities could still be considered targets.

"It appears that the bulk of the sites that were needed to make nuclear weapons have been hit," David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security and a former UN weapons inspector, told the newspaper.

"But Israel may know of new sites through intelligence, and there may be reason to strike old sites that are being rebuilt," he said.

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  Why Iran’s Pickaxe Mountain has become Trump’s next target

Pickaxe Mountain seen as top target

The Journal said Pickaxe Mountain, known in Iran as Mount Kolang, remains the most likely target because Israeli intelligence believes Iran moved thousands of uranium-enrichment centrifuges into tunnels there after last year's 12-day war.

According to the report, the underground complex lies hundreds of feet beneath granite, making it difficult to destroy even with US bunker-busting bombs. Experts cited by the newspaper said Washington could instead strike tunnel entrances or other access points.

"Washington's clearest nonproliferation wins against Iran in the war were stopping all uranium enrichment at declared facilities and entombing enriched uranium stockpiles," Behnam Ben Taleblu of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies told the Journal.

"The more time elapses, however, the more crucial Pickaxe mountain appears to Iran's reconstitution effort," he said.

• 

  Trump threat to hit Pickaxe renews calls in Iran for nuclear bomb, NPT exit

Other facilities could also be struck

The Journal said other potential targets include the Taleghan 2 facility at the Parchin military complex, which satellite imagery suggests Iran has been rebuilding, although experts differ over how much of the site survived previous Israeli strikes.

It also identified support facilities at Fordow, where above-ground buildings housing centrifuges and isotope-production equipment remain, as well as parts of the Isfahan Nuclear Technology Center, where satellite imagery has shown continued vehicle activity despite previous US missile strikes.

The report added that remaining buildings at Iran's Natanz uranium enrichment plant could also be targeted if Washington expands its air campaign.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Saturday that he would order Ukrainian intelligence to provide partner countries with information showing that Russia had helped Iran prepare strikes against US military facilities and regional states.

“I will instruct our intelligence to share with our partners the information we have regarding Russia’s new assistance to the Iranian regime,” Zelenskyy said in a post on X.

Zelenskyy said Ukraine had recorded active Russian satellite surveillance of Persian Gulf states and US military facilities there since the beginning of July.

He alleged that the resulting images were transferred to Iran and that Russian satellite activity closely corresponded with Iranian attacks—both before strikes, to assist preparations, and afterward, to assess the damage.

“On July 19 and 20 alone, four air bases fell within the area of interest of Russian satellites—two in Bahrain, one in Jordan, and one in Kuwait,” he said.

Zelenskyy did not publish evidence supporting the allegation. But his pledge to share Ukraine’s intelligence with its partners represents a potentially significant role for Kyiv in the US-led war against Iran, particularly given Ukraine’s experience tracking Russian surveillance systems and countering Iranian-designed drones.

CBS News reported that Zelenskyy planned to share evidence with the United States showing that Russia was assisting Iran in targeting US bases in the Middle East.

His allegation also directly challenges President Donald Trump’s recent assertion that he believed assurances from Russian President Vladimir Putin that Moscow was not assisting Tehran.

Rare Ukrainian attack on Iran vessel

Earlier Saturday, Zelenskyy said Ukrainian forces had achieved “very strong results” with long-range attacks in the Caspian Sea.

He said the targets included a Russian warship and vessels used to transport military cargo involving Iran, but did not identify the ships, describe the weapons used or disclose the extent of the damage.

Iran later confirmed that an Iranian commercial vessel had been hit in the Caspian Sea.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry said the attack caused an explosion that killed one sailor and injured another. It condemned the strike as an act of aggression, said Iran would defend its national interests and accused Kyiv of attempting to expand the Russia-Ukraine war.

Tehran also summoned Ukraine’s chargé d’affaires to protest what it described as a “hostile and criminal” attack, according to the Reuters report.

It was not immediately clear whether the Iranian vessel was one of the ships Zelenskyy said had been transporting military cargo.

Taken together, the Caspian strikes and the intelligence offer suggest Ukraine is treating the Russia-Iran partnership as a single military network operating across two wars.

Iranian-designed Shahed drones have played a major role in Russia’s attacks on Ukrainian cities and infrastructure. Kyiv is now alleging that assistance also flows in the opposite direction, with Moscow using its satellite capabilities to support Iranian attacks on US and regional military facilities.

Reuters reported on July 22 that Iranian drone attacks on CIA facilities in the Persian Gulf have prompted US intelligence analysts to investigate whether Russia assisted by providing targeting information or ​advanced drone technology.

The report, citing informed sources, said US intelligence officials have ‌not yet reached firm conclusions about the possible Russian involvement in the attacks on CIA facilities. But they cited the strikes' effectiveness and apparent precision, as well as Russia's broader technical support for Iran, as possible evidence.

Ukraine has previously offered its drone-interception expertise to Middle Eastern countries facing Iranian attacks, drawing on years of experience defending against Shahed-type drones used by Russia.

Kyiv has also increasingly targeted the Caspian Sea as a military logistics corridor, despite its distance from the principal battlefields in Ukraine.

In August 2025, Ukraine said it struck the Russian-flagged cargo vessel Port Olya-4 at the port of Olya in Russia’s Astrakhan region. Kyiv alleged that it was carrying Iranian ammunition and components for Shahed-type drones.

Four months later, Ukrainian special forces said they attacked the Kompozitor Rakhmaninov and Askar-Sarydzha off Russia’s Kalmykia region. Ukraine said the sanctioned vessels had transported weapons and military equipment between Iran and Russia.

Iran has denied supplying weapons for use in Ukraine, while acknowledging that it provided Russia with a limited number of drones before Moscow’s 2022 invasion.

Saturday’s developments, however, point to a broader confrontation. Ukraine is not only seeking to disrupt Iranian assistance to Russia but is offering to help Washington and its regional partners expose—and potentially counter—Russian support for Tehran’s war effort.