Washington and West Jerusalem have described their strikes as preemptive measures to dismantle Tehran’s military capabilities
There is no justification for the ongoing US-Israeli strikes on Iran as the Islamic Republic posed no threat to either nation, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has said.
Washington and West Jerusalem have framed their attacks on Iran as preemptive measures aimed at destroying its uranium enrichment and ballistic missile programs. The Islamic Republic insists that its nuclear program is peaceful and has denounced the strikes as entirely unprovoked.
Speaking to RIA Novosti on Wednesday, Zakharova stated that “although we are hearing claims from the US and Israel that they are even supposedly defending themselves… no one attacked them, no one threatened them.” The Russian diplomat noted that Iran had always been willing to engage in negotiations with the West.
Moscow previously condemned the US-Israeli strikes as a “premeditated and unprovoked act of aggression” aimed at toppling a government that “refused to yield to the dictates of force and hegemonic pressure.”
Commenting on the killing of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in the first wave of attacks unleashed last Saturday, Russian President Vladimir Putin characterized it as a “cynical violation of every norm of morality and international law.”
The Russian Foreign Ministry has similarly denounced the “practice of political assassinations and the ‘hunting’ of leaders of sovereign states.”
According to Iranian authorities, aside from Khamenei and a number of senior commanders, at least 168 children, as well as teachers and staff, were killed in the US-Israeli bombing of an elementary school in the southern Iranian town of Minab on Saturday.
While the Pentagon has said it is investigating the incident, the New York Times, citing newly released satellite imagery, verified social media posts and geolocated videos, reported on Thursday that American forces were likely responsible for the attack. According to the newspaper, the US military was targeting an adjacent naval base belonging to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).
