Iran has significantly deepened its involvement in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine by providing technical support for Russian pilots flying Iranian-made drones to bomb civilian targets, the White House has confirmed, writes The Guardian.

The national security council lead spokesperson, John Kirby, said that it was the US’s understanding that the Iranian advisers were in Crimea to provide training and maintenance – but not to actually pilot the drones – after Russian forces experienced difficulties in operating the unmanned flying bombs.

“The information we have is that the Iranians have put trainers and tech support in Crimea, but it’s the Russians who are doing the piloting”, - Kirby said. “Tehran is now directly engaged on the ground and through the provision of weapons … that are killing civilians and destroying civilian infrastructure. These are systems that the Russian armed forces are not familiar using and these are organically manufactured Iranian UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles]. The Russians just don’t have anything in their inventory”.