Kremlin calls Ukraine's attack on an Iranian commercial vessel in the Caspian Sea an act of aggression

Dmitry Peskov, spokesman for the Kremlin, told reporters on the evening of Monday, 27 July 2026 (5 Mordad 1405), that Ukraine's attack on an Iranian commercial vessel in the Caspian Sea was an act of aggression, and said it fits a pattern of Kyiv widening the geography of its conflicts to other countries. He added that a critical energy infrastructure facility in Germany had previously been struck and that now an Iranian ship had been targeted.

Peskov said Iran is an independent country that defends its rights firmly and has the capacity to do so, and described the widening geography of the Ukraine conflict as undesirable. Earlier, Iran's foreign minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi had written on the social network X that the action would not go unanswered, and that one sailor was killed in the attack.

At the same briefing the Kremlin spokesman disclosed a telephone call between Vladimir Putin and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, saying the two stressed the need to hold a referendum on Armenia's withdrawal from the Eurasian Economic Union as soon as possible. The Caspian Sea is one of Iran's trade routes to Russia and northern Eurasia, and its security bears on the cost and routing of Iran's northern trade.