Iran rejects reports of weapons transfers as ‘ugly propaganda’ in support of Israel

Reports of Iranian weapons transfers to Russia are “ugly propaganda” to conceal Western military support to Israel, Iran’s foreign ministry said on Tuesday, after Western powers said they would hit Tehran with new sanctions over the issue.

“The publication of false and misleading reports about the transfer of Iranian weapons to some countries is simply an ugly propaganda to conceal the large illegal arms support of the United States and some Western countries for the genocide in Gaza,” foreign ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani said in a post on X, without mentioning the new sanctions.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Tuesday that Russia had received ballistic missiles from Iran and would likely use them in Ukraine within weeks, warning that cooperation between Moscow and Tehran threatened wider European security.

Alongside the United States, France, Germany and Britain said they would apply new sanctions on Iran, including measures against its national airline Iran Air.

“Some Western countries present themselves as defenders of human rights and support the implementation of international conventions and treaties, but send all kinds of weapons to back the war crimes of the Zionist regime (Israel),” Kanaani added in his post, primarily about the war in Gaza.

Iran is already one of the most heavily sanctioned countries in the world, and some experts have questioned the impact of more economic penalties that might hurt the middle classes more than the country’s leaders.