© Iranian Presidency Office via AP/TASS

On October 18, British Defense Minister Ben Wallace paid an unannounced visit to the United States. Britain’s Evening Standard called it an "extraordinary" occurrence, as Wallace even canceled his speech before the House Defense Committee.

In the USA, the British Defense Minister visited the Pentagon and the White House to discuss military assistance to Ukraine. It is no secret that Washington and London are Kiev Nazi regime’s major allies and key suppliers of various types of weapons, including heavy ones. Therefore, Wallace had plenty to talk about with his counterpart and other establishment "hawks".

Ben Wallace and Lloyd Austin discussed Ukraine amid Russia's expanded use of UAVs allegedly purchased from Iran, the Daily Telegraph reports. Just a reminder: last week, NATO defense ministers met in Brussels to agree upon delivering air defense systems to Kiev, designed to combat drones, among other things. DT writes Austin insisted on a personal meeting with Wallace in Washington, since the parties were concerned about a possible tapping.

Earlier, the US and other Western governments have claimed Iran supplies Russia with its UAVs. The collective West is echoed by official Kiev, which demands that Iran stop supplying any weapons to Russia after the latter used drones against Ukraine’s vital energy infrastructure. Otherwise, the Kiev regime will respond with sanctions, international lawsuits and even disrupted diplomatic relations.

It was The Washington Post that first wrote about Russia’s alleged drone purchases back in July this year, prior to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to Tehran. Military transport planes loaded with UAVs supposedly flew from Iran to Russia the day before his trip, the American outlet claimed. On September 13, Ukraine for the first time announced it had shot down an alleged Iranian drone. Judging by the photo of its remnants, the inscription on its side reads "Geran 2", not "Shahed 136", as Western military experts suggest.

Interestingly, all of this coincided with the failed nuclear deal negotiations between Tehran and the West. European capitals are eager to renew the deal broken by US President Donald Trump in 2017, paving the way for Iranian oil to global markets amid the raging energy crisis. But that's not going to happen, sanctions against Tehran are not lifted. And now it faces accusations for drone supplies to Russia. Moscow denies those, however. Earlier, presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov called the data fake.

Tehran also denies rumors, with Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian saying his country does not support any party to the conflict in Ukraine and disapproves of foreign weaponry supplies to either of them. As recently as October 17, official spokesman for the Iranian Foreign Ministry Nasser Kanaani said the following regarding the accusations: "Unfortunately, there has been politically motivated news, and that is mostly fed by Western sources of information."

Let’s recall here that October 16 saw The Washington Post report a new episode of Russian-Iranian military cooperation. The author refers to information obtained from several sources in the US intelligence community at once, some of which have previously stating Russia obtains Iranian drones. This fact is cited as indirect proof of Ukraine’s credibility on the issue. In particular, WP reports that Iran is also set to provide Russia with short-range surface-to-surface ballistic missiles Fateh 110 and Zolfaghar, capable of hitting targets at a range of 300 and 700 km respectively, with their delivery contract having been allegedly concluded on September 18 this year.

"Iran is also preparing new deliveries of unmanned aerial vehicles for Russia, including dozens of additional Mohajer-6s and a larger number of Shahed-136s. The latter, sometimes called “kamikaze” drones because they are designed to crash into their targets, are capable of delivering explosive payloads at distances of up to 1,500 miles. Iranian technical advisers have visited Russian-controlled areas in recent weeks to provide instructions on operating the drones," WP points out.

Both US intelligence and officials in Moscow and Tehran have refused to comment upon this. One should not trust the American special services, as they often feed the public and the media with information beneficial to official Washington. Suffice it to recall 2003 when, referring to the CIA, then US Secretary of State Colin Powell addressed the UN Security Council shaking a test tube with an unknown substance to prove Iraq’s possession of weapons of mass destruction. This gave Washington good reason to invade and ruin the country. It later emerged that the CIA was wrong…

The West has prepared new sanctions against Iran. Washington and its allies are displeased with the recent rapprochement between Russia, China and Iran, which undermines Western influence not only in the Middle East, but in Eurasia as a whole. However, experts in Moscow and Tehran say this will not force Iran to give up on its cooperation with Moscow, including in the military-technical area.

One of the reasons is that Tehran has been subject to sanctions for decades and managed to fully adapt. Besides, Iran benefits from diverse ties with Russia. These factors allow suggesting that the sides will keep fostering collaboration.