Iran reacted with fury to the assault which it said had killed one sailor and injured several others. The foreign ministry said Iran had “never intervened in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.”

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said the attack represented “a blatant UN Charter violation done at Israel’s behest to drag Europe into its war.”

The incident “CANNOT GO UNANSWERED,” he wrote on X.

In his own statement on Monday, Sybiha included Araghchi’s post, with the words “Iranian lies” posted across it.

He also accused Iran of trying to shift attention away from Russia’s attacks on ships carrying grain from Ukrainian ports, which he said were threatening global food security.

For its part, Ukraine has been relentlessly targeting Russian shadow fleet of oil tankers, looking to choke off a major source of revenue for the Kremlin.

Along with drone strikes on oil depots and the Wildberries online retail warehouses, what Zelensky calls Ukraine’s “long-range sanctions campaign” is having increasingly serious impact on the Russian economy.

But some experts question the wisdom of Kyiv’s decision to pick a fight with Iran.

“The main idea… is to disrupt trading routes and cause as much damage as possible,” former intelligence official Ivan Stupak told the BBC.

“But it’s not a good idea for Ukraine to have another battlefront with Iran. It’s not good for us,” he added.

Olha Polishchuk from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (Acled) said the Caspian Sea strike was “less about opening a new front against Tehran” and instead could be seen as an extension of Kyiv’s targeting of networks supporting the Russian war effort.

“Targeting that route allows Kyiv to put further pressure on Russia’s supply networks beyond the traditional battlefield,” she said.