President Donald Trump launched a surprise attack on Iranian nuclear bases on Saturday night, hitting three underground sites alleged to be enriching weapons-grade uranium. In response, Iran has promised “everlasting consequences” for the assault.

“The United States, a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, has committed a grave violation of the UN Charter, international law and the NPT by attacking Iran’s peaceful nuclear installations,” Seyed Abbas Araghchi, Foreign Minister of the Islamic Republic of Iran, wrote in a statement.

“The events this morning are outrageous and will have everlasting consequences. Each and every member of the UN must be alarmed over this extremely dangerous, lawless and criminal behavior.”

Experts have cautioned that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s response to the attacks could result in attacks on American citizens and military personnel in the region.

“If you start going up that escalation ladder, they can act asymmetrically, as we said, with terrorism, militias, hostage-taking,” Richard Haass, adviser to Colin Powell and George W. Bush, told CNN. “It’s what they do.”

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres warned in a statement that America’s intervention in Iran is a “dangerous escalation in a region already on the edge—and a direct threat to international peace and security.”

“There is a growing risk that this conflict could rapidly get out of control—with catastrophic consequences for civilians, the region, and the world,“ Guterres wrote.

The U.N. leader called on all member states—including Iran—to “de-escalate” and uphold the rules of international law. However, Iran’s foreign minister does not seem inclined to follow such level-headed direction, invoking those same rules to justify Iran’s potential response.

“In accordance with the UN Charter and its provisions allowing a legitimate response in self-defense, Iran reserves all options to defend its sovereignty, interest, and people,” Araghchi said.

The U.S. State Department has already begun evacuating Americans from Israel in anticipation of the escalation of this conflict.

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Russia lambasts US attacks as Iran looks to Moscow

Russian officials on Sunday castigated the US for its missile strike against Iran’s nuclear plants, issuing veiled threats that Iran’s nuclear ambitions would not be thwarted and welcoming Tehran’s foreign minister for talks in Moscow.

Meanwhile Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned ‘Ayatollah Putin’ to expect a similar fate, as the country that has been cast as a pariah by the west for its full scale invasion of Ukraine sought to assume the role of honest broker.

A statement from Russia’s Foreign Ministry “strongly condemned” the airstrikes and called them a “a gross violation of international law, the UN Charter, and UN Security Council resolutions.”

Dmitry Medvedev, who serves as deputy head of President Vladimir Putin’s Security Council, said several countries were prepared to supply Tehran with nuclear weapons. He didn't specify which, but said the US attack caused minimal damage and would not stop Tehran from pursuing nuclear weapons.

The Iranian foreign minister told a press conference earlier he will fly to Moscow today and have a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday.

“Russia is a friend of Iran and we enjoy a strategic partnership,” he told a news conference in Istanbul.

“We always consult with each other and coordinate our positions,” Araghchi said, noting that Russia was one of the signatories of the UN agreement on nuclear proliferation in Iran.

“I will have serious consultations with the Russian president tomorrow and we continue to work with each other,” he said.

Zelenskyy points to brazen double standard

But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy underlined the irony of Russia pointing the finger at the US for alleged breaches of the global rulebook, in a post on X in which he stated that the country had once again signalled it wanted no ceasefire in Ukraine.

"Ayatollah Putin can look at his friends in Iran to see where such regimes end up, and how far into decay they drive their countries," Zelenskyy warned the Russian President in a post on X.

Zelenskyy said "Russia wants to wage war. Even brandishing some threats. This means the pressure the world is applying isn’t hurting them enough yet, or they are trying very hard to keep up appearances. Well, the Russian economy is already crumbling. We will support this process even more."

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Keir Starmer backs US strike on Iran and calls for Tehran to return to talks

Keir Starmer has backed the US strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities and called on Iran to return to negotiations, saying the country’s nuclear programme was a “grave threat to international security”.

The prime minister said on Sunday there was a “risk of escalation” after the US strikes against Iran, including “beyond the region”.

“It is important that we now de-escalate the situation, stabilise the region and get the parties back around the table to negotiate,” he told broadcasters.

Donald Trump announced overnight that the US had bombed three nuclear sites in Iran, joining Israel’s attack on the Tehran regime.

There was no UK involvement in the action. Starmer and the foreign secretary, David Lammy, had pushed for a diplomatic solution. The US made no request for any UK assistance, the Guardian understands.

Starmer convened a Cobra meeting in London on Sunday afternoon after holding calls with the sultan of Oman and the king of Jordan. No 10 said the leaders agreed that “escalation of the conflict is in no one’s interests”.

As recently as Tuesday at the G7 summit, Starmer had said he did not have any indication the US was planning on joining the attack, though later in the week he had warned of a “real risk of escalation” in the conflict, adding there had been several rounds of discussions with Washington and “that, to me, is the way to resolve this issue”.

On Sunday morning, Starmer said: “Iran’s nuclear programme is a grave threat to international security. Iran can never be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon and the US has taken action to alleviate that threat.

“The situation in the Middle East remains volatile and stability in the region is a priority. We call on Iran to return to the negotiating table and reach a diplomatic solution to end this crisis.”

The business secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, said the UK did not receive a request from the US to use its Diego Garcia base in the Indian Ocean.

He told Sky News: “We support the prevention of Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon. We had proposed a diplomatic course of action, as other European countries had done; the Iranians had rejected that.

“I know people will be waking up this morning and they’ll be worried. They’ll want to know what this means, and I do want to give them reassurance that whilst the British government has not been involved in these attacks, we have been making extensive preparations for all eventualities.”

Reynolds said the British people should be in no doubt that the Iranian regime did pose a threat to the UK, but he said regime change in Tehran was “not the question” when it came to these strikes.

“I wanted a different way to obtain this, but I cannot pretend to you that the prevention of Iran having a nuclear weapon is anything other than [in] the interests of this country,” Reynolds told the BBC.

“This is very different to what we saw with the invasion of Iraq … I think stability for the region would come about through an agreement where Iran would acknowledge that, because of its behaviour, no country in that theatre or the wider world would be able to countenance it having nuclear weapons.”

He said the threat from Iran was “an active one … this is at the forefront of risks to the United Kingdom and our security apparatus has to do a great deal to keep the country safe”.

Iran’s ambassador to the UK, Seyed Ali Mousavi, said his country was “considering the quantity and quality” of its reaction and retaliation for the US overnight strikes.

He refused to say if Iran would stop firing missiles at Israel, insisting it was defending itself in line with its sovereign rights.

Asked what Iran would do in response to the overnight US strikes, he told the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme: “Our authorities are considering the quantity and quality of our reaction and retaliation. Everything is going to be according to our rights.”

After MI5 said Iran had been linked to more than 20 plots in the UK, Mousavi claimed that reports and suggestions that Iran posed a threat to the UK were based on misinformation.

Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, told the same programme: “We were very cautious all throughout, as you can see, and we decided to leave it to the Americans and the president if he wanted to carry out the strike. The strike was aimed at very specific installations where the Iranian nuclear programme was advanced.

“It’s quite clear to me that the Iranian nuclear programme has been hit substantially [but] … I don’t know the details.”

In an address to the US public from the White House, Trump said there could be further strikes if Iran retaliated. “There will either be peace or there will be tragedy for Iran,” he said.

Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said the attacks “will have everlasting consequences” and that Tehran “reserves all options” to retaliate.

Lammy had urged the US to pull back from the brink on a visit to Washington for talks with his counterpart, Marco Rubio, before attending talks with Iran on Friday alongside European allies in Geneva.

The Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, said the US strike was “decisive action against a regime that fuels global terror and directly threatens the UK. Iranian operatives have plotted murders and attacks on British soil. We should stand firmly with the US and Israel.”

Overnight, Iran launched a ballistic missile barrage against Israel in retaliation against the US action.