After weeks of denial, Iran has confirmed it supplied deadly unmanned drones to Russia for use in its ongoing war with Ukraine.

On Saturday, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian told IRNA, Iran's state-run news agency, that reports of continued drone shipments were false and that Iran had not sent drones to Russia since before the invasion began in February.

"This fuss made by some Western countries that Iran has provided missiles and drones to Russia to help the war in Ukraine - the missile part is completely wrong. The part about drones is correct, we did provide a limited number of drones to Russia in the months before the start of the war in Ukraine," said Amirabdollahian.

The admission from Amirabdollahian comes just weeks after Iran's U.N. representative gave a striking denial to past allegations of drone shipments.

"The Islamic Republic of Iran has taken a clear and consistent position on the situation in Ukraine which has been pronounced since the start of the conflict," Ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani told reporters.

Iravani is the permanent representative of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the U.N. He added that claims Tehran was supplying Russia with drones were "unfounded and unsubstantiated" and accused Western countries of building a disinformation campaign against his country.

Ukraine has reported several deadly drone attacks, including the Oct. 17 attack on its capital of Kyiv, which included the use of signature Iranian kamikaze drones.

In a nightly address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Tehran of false statements, downplaying the extent of Iran's involvement in the ongoing war.

"We shoot down at least ten Iranian drones every day, yet the Iranian regime claims that it supplied Russia with only a small number of them, and those before the start of the full-scale invasion," Zelensky said. "Only during one day yesterday, 11 Shahed drones were destroyed."

Publicly, Iran has taken a position of peace regarding the Russia-Ukraine war, calling for negotiations and the return of displaced people to their homes.

Zelensky added in his address that "if Iran continues to lie about the obvious, it means the world will make even more efforts to investigate the terrorist cooperation between the Russian and Iranian regimes and what Russia pays Iran for such cooperation."

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