Ukraine Designates Iran’s Revolutionary Guard a Terrorist Organization, Zelenskyy Says

Ukraine has designated Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organization, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated, adding that the European Union had “practically agreed” to take the same step and that “European procedures are currently underway.”

The remarks were made on February 2. 

In his nightly address, Zelenskyy linked the move to Iran’s role in enabling the war that Russia is waging against Ukraine, saying Kyiv “will not forget a single one of the thousands of ‘shaheds’” that have struck Ukrainian towns and cities, referring to Iranian-designed attack drones used by Russian forces. 

EU foreign ministers agreed on January 29 to list the Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization. This decision has escalated tensions with Iran and drawn retaliatory steps from Tehran, including a move to categorize EU armies as “terrorist groups,”, while Iran also summoned EU ambassadors in Tehran to protest the designation.

Zelenskyy also said Ukraine had already adopted its own designation and that “for us, this issue is closed,” arguing that “all terrorists in the world deserve the same treatment and condemnation.”

Ukraine and its partners have for years pointed to deepening Iran-Russia defense ties centered on drones and related technology, with Reuters reporting Ukraine’s foreign ministry said Russia had launched 8,060 Iran-developed Shahed drones during the war, and Ukraine’s top commander saying in January that Russia was producing hundreds of “Shaheds” daily and planning to expand output

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Iran has been hit by anti-government protests since late December that began over economic grievances and widened into broader unrest, prompting a sweeping security crackdown that was described as the bloodiest since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, with mass arrests and sharply disputed death tolls reported by officials and rights groups. 

The IRGC has previously been listed as a terrorist entity by the US, which designated it a Foreign Terrorist Organization in 2019, and by Canada, which listed the IRGC under its Criminal Code in 2024. 

Earlier, it was reported that the European Union officially declared Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist group, imposing new sanctions linked to human rights abuses and Tehran’s military support for Russia’s war against Ukraine.

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