Iran newspaper Saturday said ex-president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was damaging Iran’s security by alleging a United States-Russian plot to invade Iran and Ukraine.

In a speech to supporters in Tehran Thursday, Ahmadinejad warned of a "danger of invasion and war" after a "dirty deal" between the two world powers. "I have accurate knowledge that Russia and the US have traded Iran and Ukraine,” he said. “The US will allow Russia to invade Ukraine…allowing the US to move onto Iran.”

"Who has allowed you to make secret deals behind the scenes over Iran?" he asked the world powers Washington and Moscow. "You shouldn't be under the illusion that all Iranians are simpletons like a number of officials that you have met” – possibly referring to President Ebrahim Raisi (Raeesi), recently in Moscow, or Iranian diplomats in the Vienna nuclear talks.

Iran newspaper, which is government-owned, posed a series of questions about the former president’s outburst: “Whose interests is Ahmadinejad trying to secure, and to whom is he offering the gift of instilling fear in the Iranian people? Where is Ahmadinejad getting his ‘accurate information’ from?”

The newspaper was in no doubt that the former president’s claim was “clearly an act against national security.” And “more importantly, it should be clarified who has instilled such false and contrived information in him?"

‘Satan’s partner’

Ahmadinejad, who left office in 2013 and was not cleared to run in the 2017 and 2021 presidential elections, has become a strident critic of foreign policy, with comments laced with allegations of conspiracies.

Ali-Akbar Javanfekr, Ahmadinejad's close associate and confidante, has called Russian President Vladimir Putin “a partner of the Great Satan,” meaning the US.

In his latest speech, Ahmadinejad argued that Russia had “always been against the Iranian people,” and has “always sold Iran,” referring to the expansion of the Russian empire at the expense of Iran’s Qajar dynasty during the early nineteenth century. There were clear parallels with Tehran’s current, relatively warm relations with Russia, Ahmadinejad argued: "Now some people have come out of nowhere saying Russia has changed!"

Since June Ahmadinejad has also criticized Iran's 25-year cooperation agreement with China, which was officially launched during Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian's recent visit to Beijing. During his trip to Moscow last week, Raisi presented a draft of a strategic bilateral agreement to Putin.

While reformist Arman-e Melli newspaper suggested Ahmadinejad should find a better way to "be seen and to influence the government and the society," Iran newspaper said it was "too simplistic" to see Ahmadinejad's remarks as a way just to attract attention.