Iran has acknowledged for the first time that it had supplied Moscow with drones but said they were sent before the war in Ukraine, where Russia has used them to target power stations and civilian infrastructure.
Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian said a "small number" of drones had been shipped a few months before Russia's February 24 invasion.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Tehran of lying, saying Kyiv's forces were downing at least 10 of the unmanned aerial vehicles every day.
In Iran's most detailed response to date, Mr Amirabdollahian denied Tehran was continuing to supply drones to Moscow.
"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 official IRNA news agency quoted him as saying.
"The drone part is true and we provided Russia a small number of drones months before the Ukraine war."
In recent weeks Ukraine has reported a surge in drone attacks on civilian infrastructure, notably power stations and dams, using Iranian-made Shahed-136 drones.
Russia denies its forces have used Iranian drones to attack Ukraine.
Zelenskyy expects 'good news' on defence requests
In a video address, Mr Zelenskyy dismissed talk of limited Iranian supplies to Russia, saying Ukraine had downed 11 drones on Friday alone.
"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," he said.
Separately, US Special Envoy for Iran Robert Malley tweeted it was untrue that Iran had sent a few drones.
"They transferred dozens just this summer and have military personnel in occupied Ukraine helping Russia use them," he said.
Mr Zelenskyy, who has repeatedly pressed allies to provide more defences against aircraft and missiles, said he expected "good news" in coming weeks but gave no details.
Kyiv, he added, would next week launch a fundraising campaign to buy marine drones.
Last month, two senior Iranian officials and two Iranian diplomats told Reuters Iran had promised to provide Russia with surface-to-surface missiles, in addition to more drones.
IRNA quoted Mr Amirabdollahian as saying Tehran and Kyiv had agreed to discuss allegations about the use of Iranian drones but the Ukrainians did not show up for talks.
In a response on Facebook, Ukrainian foreign ministry spokesperson Oleg Nikolenko said Mr Amirabdollahian was spreading "insinuations about an alleged refusal by the Ukrainian side".
Mr Amirabdollahian repeated Tehran would "not remain indifferent" if it were proven Russia had used Iranian drones against Ukraine.
The European Union last month agreed new sanctions on Iran over drone deliveries, and Britain imposed sanctions on three Iranian military figures and a defence manufacturer.
Besieged Ukrainian city 'holding on'
Residents of the besieged eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut are living in dire conditions, with civilians killed and wounded daily, the deputy mayor said on Saturday, as fighting between Russian troops and Ukraine's forces rages around the city.
Bakhmut has been an important target for Russia's military in its slow advance through the Donetsk region, one of the territories the Kremlin claims to have annexed after what Kyiv and the West say were sham referendums in September.
Kyiv's military said the area was the site of some of the heaviest fighting with Russian forces, and deputy mayor Oleksandr Marchenko told Reuters that Russia's troops were "trying to storm the city from several directions".
Reuters could not independently confirm his account of the battlefield situation.
"With every day it's becoming harder and harder to survive in this city," Mr Marchenko said from inside an empty government building as mortar fire boomed nearby.
He said more than 120 civilians have been killed in Bakhmut since Russia's invasion.
"There are districts where we don't know the exact number of people killed because active fighting is ongoing there or the settlements are temporarily occupied [by Russian forces]," he added.
Ukrainian troops are "firmly holding the frontline", Mr Marchenko said, while describing a deteriorating humanitarian situation facing the city, where the population had fallen from its pre-war level of about 80,000 to as low as 12,000 today.
It has already been without electricity, gas and running water for nearly two months.
Mr Marchenko said local citizens still ventured out to shop, collect humanitarian aid or gather water despite being urged to evacuate.
He added that the winter would be most difficult for the elderly and infirm.
"We're holding on and hoping that the armed forces of Ukraine will be able to repel the enemy further from the city," he said.
Power blackouts across Ukraine amid Russian shelling
Ukraine's state electricity operator on Saturday (local time) announced blackouts in Kyiv and seven other regions of the country in the aftermath of Russia's devastating strikes on energy infrastructure.
The move comes as Russian forces continue to pound Ukrainian cities and villages with missiles and drones, inflicting damage on power plants, water supplies and other civilian targets.
Ukrenergo, the sole operator of Ukraine's high-voltage transmission lines, initially said in an online statement on Saturday that scheduled blackouts would take place in the capital and the greater Kyiv region, as well as several regions around it — Chernihiv, Cherkasy, Zhytomyr, Sumy, Poltava and Kharkiv.
Later in the day, however, the company released an update saying scheduled outages for a specific number of hours were not enough and instead there would be emergency outages, which could last an indefinite amount of time.
Ukraine has been grappling with power outages and disruption of water supplies since Russia started unleashing massive barrages of missile and drone strikes on the country's energy infrastructure last month.
Moscow has said those came in response to what it alleged were Ukrainian attacks on Crimea, the region that Russia illegally annexed in 2014. Ukraine has denied those allegations.
Meanwhile, Russian shelling of Ukrainian regions continued into the early hours of Saturday.
According to Ukraine's presidential office, at least three civilians were killed and eight others were wounded over the past 24 hours by Russian shelling of nine Ukrainian regions, where drones, missiles and heavy artillery were used.
About 40 shells were fired overnight at the city of Nikopol, Dnipropetrovsk Governor Valentyn Reznichenko said on Telegram.
In the southern Mykolaiv region, the overnight shelling of rural areas damaged several houses, but didn't cause any casualties, Mykolaiv Governor Vitali Kim said on Telegram.
The Russian forces also fired missiles at the south-eastern Zaporizhzhia region, which has been illegally annexed by Moscow and large parts of which remain occupied.
According to regional Governor Oleksandr Starukh, the attack took place shortly after midnight and damaged buildings of three businesses, as well as a number of cars.
In the eastern Donetsk region, also annexed and partially occupied by Russia, eight cities and villages have been shelled, including Bakhmut, Avdiivka and Porkovsk.
Russian-installed authorities in Donetsk reported an attempt on the life of a Moscow-appointed judge of the region's Supreme Court.
Alexander Nikulin, who was on a judicial panel that in June sentenced to death two Britons and a Moroccan fighting on the Ukrainian side, has been hospitalised with gunshot wounds, Kremlin-backed officials said.
In the Russian-occupied Kherson region, where a Ukrainian counteroffensive is underway, the Russian military continues to abduct local residents, the presidential office said, with the most recent cases taking place over the past 24 hours.
ABC/wires
