Iran rejects Oman’s 50-50 Hormuz shipping plan, proposes new route

One sailor was killed and three others wounded when the vessel was struck on Saturday near Russia’s Astrakhan port in the Volga Delta.

While Iranian officials condemned the strike as an act of aggression and vowed it “will not go unanswered,” commentators remain divided over how Tehran should respond and whether opening a new front would strengthen or further strain Iran’s position.

Conservative newspapers portrayed the attack as part of a coordinated Western and Israeli effort to widen the conflict and divert Iran’s attention from the Strait of Hormuz.

The hardline daily Kayhan described the strike as a “strategic warning,” arguing that its purpose was to draw Iran into a new northern front.

“It is not impossible that Ukraine’s serious entry into this arena could ignite another world war, because all the signs of a global war are visible,” the newspaper warned.

Farhikhtegan argued that Zelensky would not have authorized the operation without European backing.

“Tehran knows Kyiv is not the principal actor but Europe’s and NATO’s proxy for testing the battlefield,” the conservative newspaper wrote, adding that the attack could not have taken place without Washington’s knowledge.

Military analyst Nima Akbarkhani went further, arguing that Tehran should retaliate against Ukraine’s European supporters rather than Kyiv itself.

“The strategic and precise response is to target European interests, not an emotional action,” he told state broadcaster IRIB. “The only people who can restrain Zelensky are those financing his war.”

Tehran-based journalist Afifeh Abedi also called for a “proportionate response,” describing the strike as an attempt to expand both the geography and nature of the Russia-Ukraine war.

She suggested Ukraine may be acting under Israeli pressure to bring European and US positions closer together and “merge the two wars” against Iran and Russia.

“Ukraine’s action against Iran was entirely deliberate and intended to raise tensions,” she told ISNA.

Warnings against a new northern front

Other Iranian commentators warned that retaliation could bring far greater risks than benefits.

Conservative political activist Ali Gholhaki, who is close to Parliament Speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, cautioned that direct action against Ukraine could mobilize European governments alongside the United States.

“Iran must ensure that any response to Ukraine does not mobilize all of Europe alongside America against Iran,” he said.

Former diplomat Kourosh Ahmadi warned that the emergence of a northern front could force Iran to redeploy military assets toward the Caspian region, creating new vulnerabilities elsewhere.

He also questioned how the United States, Europe, Turkey and Russia would react if Iran attacked targets in the Black Sea region or inside Ukraine.

Military analyst Mohsen Reyhani highlighted the practical obstacles facing Tehran. In a post on X, he said drone strikes on Odesa from the Caspian would require Russian cooperation, while missiles launched from northwestern Iran could have to cross Turkish airspace, risking NATO involvement.

He said strikes on cities such as Kyiv would require missiles with ranges of about 1,700 to 2,500 kilometers.

Political analyst Maziar Aghazadeh argued that missile or drone attacks on Ukraine would offer little deterrent value while exposing Iran to a prolonged conflict.

Such retaliation, he wrote in Asr-e Iran, could open “a futile and exhausting new front” in which Iran would bear far greater costs than Ukraine.

Diplomats try to de-escalate

The Iranian and Ukrainian foreign ministers spoke on Tuesday in an effort to contain tensions. Abbas Araghchi said Andrii Sybiha had assured him the strike was unintentional and that Kyiv did not seek escalation.

Araghchi said Iran also sought to avoid escalation but demanded restitution for the loss of life and damage.

Sybiha said in a post on X that Ukraine had not intended to target civilians or civilian vessels and urged Tehran to refrain from escalating and end its support for Russia’s war.

Hostile ties shaped by the Russia war

Relations between Tehran and Kyiv were already deeply strained before the ship attack.

The Revolutionary Guards’ downing of a Ukrainian passenger jet over Tehran in 2020 caused a lasting rupture. Tensions later deepened over Iran’s transfer of Shahed drones and production technology to Russia.

Kyiv considers Tehran a direct contributor to Moscow’s war effort. Zelensky has argued that Iran effectively entered the conflict by supplying drones, transferring technology and enabling their production inside Russia.

Tehran denies being a formal military ally of Moscow, although Iranian officials have acknowledged earlier drone transfers and technology cooperation. The two countries’ comprehensive strategic partnership, signed in January 2025, does not include a mutual defense clause.

The relationship deteriorated further after Ukraine offered to help counter Iranian drones during Iran’s confrontation with Israel and the United States, reinforcing Tehran’s perception that Kyiv had aligned itself with Iran’s regional adversaries.

Russia, meanwhile, strongly backed Tehran after the ship strike.

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the incident demonstrated “the clear threat Ukraine poses to the regional security of Caspian littoral states,” while Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said an attack on the Iranian vessel was “like an attack on Iran itself.”

The debate in Tehran now centers less on whether the attack requires a response than on what form that response could take without pulling Iran into an expanding conflict stretching from the Persian Gulf to the Black Sea.

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 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.

“We’re talking to them right now,” Trump said Friday when asked whether Americans should expect major strikes. He said the United States could continue attacking Iran “piece by piece” or intensify the campaign “in a more rapid fashion,” while describing a negotiated agreement as the smarter option.

Trump said Iran appeared increasingly serious about reaching a deal but warned that negotiations could still fail. Any agreement, he said, must prevent Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

His comments came after The New York Times reported that he had met senior advisers to consider intensifying US military operations against Iran. The discussions followed US Central Command’s announcement Thursday that it had completed a 13th consecutive night of strikes on Iranian military and maritime targets.

Persian Gulf states enter the fight

The Wall Street Journal reported that Bahrain and Kuwait secretly sent warplanes to strike drone- and missile-storage facilities and other military sites inside Iran in early July, marking their first direct retaliation against Tehran.

The United Arab Emirates provided intelligence and defensive air cover, according to the report. Bahrain and Kuwait both host US military bases and have repeatedly come under Iranian missile and drone attack.

Kuwait’s military said Friday that its air defenses were confronting “hostile” drones launched from Iran, while Bahrain said it had intercepted and destroyed several Iranian aerial attacks.

Iran also stepped up its warnings to countries supporting US military operations.

Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi said countries that allowed the United States to use their bases or territory for attacks would place themselves “among the aggressors.”

Mediation channels

Pakistan and Oman were working to keep channels open between Washington and Tehran as fighting continued.

Pakistan was exploring a possible route to restart stalled US-Iran talks after a diplomatic push by China, three Pakistani sources told Reuters. They said major obstacles remained, including Iranian attacks on Saudi Arabia and other regional states.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, meanwhile, accused Washington of a “breach of commitments” and “excessive demands” during a meeting with his Pakistani counterpart in Kyrgyzstan.

The Iranian and Omani foreign ministers also spoke by phone as an Omani delegation arrived in Tehran for talks on managing shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, the state-run IRNA news agency reported.

Maritime conflict spreads

Maritime tensions intensified across two of the region’s most important shipping routes.

The United States and Britain were planning a high-level meeting in London on forming an international coalition to protect commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. Washington was seeking allied contributions including de-mining vessels, naval ships and drones.

In the Red Sea, the Saudi vessel NCC Masa suffered minor hull damage in an attack but continued to its destination after checks confirmed that the ship and crew were safe. The incident came four days after the Iran-backed Houthis announced an immediate naval blockade on Saudi-linked shipping through the Bab al-Mandeb Strait.

As fighting continued across the region, rhetoric from Tehran also pointed toward further escalation.

Major General Ali Abdollahi, commander of Iran’s Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, said Iran would kill one American service member for every Iranian citizen killed in US attacks.

“For every proud citizen of the Islamic Republic of Iran who is martyred, one American force will be sent to hell,” Abdollahi was quoted as saying by IRGC-affiliated Tasnim News.

He added that Iran had prepared “free, direct tickets to hell” for US troops.