As the war in Iran spirals beyond its borders, Ukraine has sent interceptor drones and a team of drone experts to protect US military bases in Jordan, President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an interview with The New York Times.
The US made the request for help on Thursday, and the Ukrainian team left the next day, Zelensky said. It was expected to arrive in West Asia soon.
“We reacted immediately,” Zelensky said on Friday evening during a train ride I took with him from eastern Ukraine to the capital, Kyiv. “I said, yes, of course, we will send our experts.”
The White House did not respond to a question about whether the US had asked for Ukraine’s help.
The US-Israeli war in Iran risks redirecting world attention away from the war in Ukraine. But it has also given Kyiv an opportunity to use its hard-won expertise and advanced technology on a new front. The country has eagerly offered to help US forces and their West Asian allies defend against the sorts of Iranian-designed attack drones that Russia has been using in Ukraine for years.
Kyiv is hoping to score points with the US in American-brokered peace talks. The relationship remains fraught. On Thursday, US President Donald Trump again said he viewed Zelensky as more of an impediment to a peace deal than President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, who ordered the invasion. Trump has been much more solicitous of Moscow than his predecessor was.
As Ukraine cooperates with the US in West Asia, Kyiv hopes to draw a contrast with Moscow. US officials say that Russia has provided intelligence to Iran during the war, including satellite imagery showing the locations of American warships and military personnel. Zelensky said he had also seen intelligence showing that drones now swarming out of Iran had Russian components. The Times could not verify that claim.
The Ukrainian leader said he wanted to help West Asian nations but also needed to balance those requests with Ukraine’s needs at home, as the war there has dragged into a fifth year.
New York Times News Service