The White House declared that the US has no evidence of an Iran-Russia sale of UAV drones. It further noted that no signs of purchase have been observed even weeks after the US claimed that Russia is buying drones from the US.

John Kirby, the National Security Council spokesperson, attempted to minimize the scale of this intelligence media stunt by stating that the White House has not seen any deal “that has been actually affected,” adding, “We’ve seen no indications of any sort of actual delivery and/or purchase of Iranian drones by the Russian Ministry of Defense.” 

Kirby's comments came more than two weeks after National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said that Washington had concrete proof that Iran was getting ready to sell "several hundred" drones to Russia, including "weapons-capable UAVs," and that the deal would be finalized quickly. At the time, Sullivan predicted that training for the new vehicles would start soon and even mused that deliveries could have already started.

In response to the US allegations, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani told reporters, on July 12, "The history of cooperation between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Russian Federation in the field of some new technologies dates back to before the start of the war in Ukraine and there has been no special development in this relationship recently."

Furthermore, the spokesperson said that "The position of the Islamic Republic of Iran regarding the war in Ukraine is quite clear and has been officially announced many times," adding that "The claim of the US official comes while the United States and the Europeans have for years turned the occupying and aggressor countries, including in the West Asian region, into a storehouse for their various fatal weapons." 

Furthermore, and despite acknowledging that the US’ bluff failed, Kirby reiterated Washington's insistence on the claim that Moscow is in search of new weaponry, adding that Russia “obviously has no intention of trying to slow down” when talking about the Russian operation in Ukraine and is looking for new ways to bolster its forces.

On the Russian end, President Vladimir Putin stated that Russia had no intention of discussing potential drone sales during the Tehran summit. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov argued that Russia would rather get its drones from Turkey, Bayraktar drones, which were also sold to Kiev by Ankara. This confirmed that during the summit held in Tehran, Turkey and Russia discussed military cooperation to be during the visit of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to Sochi on August 5.

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