Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has revealed that Russia supplied Iran with satellite images of a US base in Saudi Arabia days before a vital spy plane was destroyed in a strike.
On Friday, Iran launched several drones and at least one ballistic missile at the Prince Sultan Air Base, 60 miles south of Riyadh.
The attack injured up to 12 US soldiers, with two currently in a serious condition, and destroyed an E-3 Sentry aircraft.
Dramatic images of the wrecked aircraft showed the plane’s tail was completely severed from the rest of the body.
The plane’s distinct dome, which is used to house a rotating radar, was completely destroyed.
Tracking data indicates the destroyed aircraft was tail number 81-0005, an E-3G Sentry assigned to the 552nd Air Control Wing out of Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma.
Zelensky said on Saturday, the day after the attack, that the Prince Sultan air base was one of several US military sites photographed by Russian satellites ‘in the interests of Iran’.
He said: ‘On March 25th, they took pictures of the Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia. The Shaybah oil and gas field in Saudi Arabia, İncirlik Air Base in Türkiye, and Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar were all imaged on March 26th.’
The Ukrainian leader added that on March 24, ‘[Russia] imaged the U.S.–UK joint military facility on Diego Garcia located in the Chagos Archipelago in the Indian Ocean. They also captured pictures of Kuwait International Airport and parts of the infrastructure of the Greater Burgan oil field.’
