Iran is threatening to hit back after Ukraine struck its ships. Meanwhile, Ukrainian monitoring channels that help the Ukrainians track Russian drones and missiles carried information that soon Iran might attack Ukraine with ballistic missiles.
The threat is real, but a ballistic strike on Ukraine is not confirmed. It follows Ukrainian long-range strikes on 25 and 26 July against vessels in the Caspian Sea, which President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy publicly confirmed, saying Ukraine hit ships used in military cargo shipments involving Iran, as well as a warship, according to Al Jazeera.
Iran's Foreign Ministry accused Ukraine of attacking what it called a commercial vessel, said the strike killed one sailor and wounded others, called it an "act of aggression," and warned of "expanding the fire of war."
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said the attack "cannot go unanswered." But Andrii Kovalenko, head of Ukraine's Center for Countering Disinformation, said there is no official data on any Iranian intent to strike Ukraine with ballistic missiles, while noting Tehran potentially has the weapons to do so.
The threat comes from a strike Ukraine confirmed carrying out
The Caspian route is a documented artery of the Iran-Russia weapons trade. It links Iran's northern ports to the Russian port of Astrakhan, and Ukraine has struck it before: in August 2025, a cargo ship reportedly loaded with Shahed drone components and Iranian munitions was destroyed there, CNN reports. Iran has supplied Russia with thousands of Shahed drones used against Ukrainian cities since 2022, which is why Ukraine treats the shipping between the two countries as a military target.
Iran's Foreign Ministry summoned Ukraine's chargé d'affaires in Tehran over the strike, and Araghchi said he raised a response in calls with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, accusing Israel of provoking the attack to draw Europe into its war.
Iran has missiles that could reach Ukraine, according to Defense Express
On the question of capability, the Ukrainian defense outlet Defense Express assessed what Iran could theoretically use. Iran does have an arsenal of medium-range ballistic missiles able to reach Ukrainian territory, of which the most threatening is the Khorramshahr, which has demonstrated a range of about 4,000 kilometers.
The technical profile is Defense Express's analysis, not evidence of intent. First shown in 2017 and believed to be based on the North Korean BM-25 Musudan, itself derived from the Soviet R-27 submarine-launched missile, the Khorramshahr is a liquid-fuel single-stage missile with several variants. A 2,000-kilometer version carries a warhead of up to 1,500 kilograms, and Iran has developed and used against Israel a submunition warhead closer to a cluster type, dispersing up to 20 separate warheads within a radius of about 8 kilometers, designed to strike cities and defeat missile defense.
To intercept such missiles, Israel used Arrow-2 and Arrow-3, and the US used THAAD and SM-3 to defend its ally. Ukraine has none of these systems. That is a genuine vulnerability, but it describes what could happen if Iran chose to strike, not a decision Tehran has made.
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