By Yuliia Dysa and Max Hunder
KYIV – Ukraine has sent air defense teams to Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia to help them fight Iranian airstrikes, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Tuesday.
Gulf states have deployed large numbers of precious air defense missiles to counter Iran’s attack drones and sought Ukraine’s expertise in shooting them down. Kiev shoots down Russian drones every night using a range of weapons, including cheaper smaller drones or jamming devices.
“As for the situation in the Middle East, we have sent our teams: three professional, equipped teams,” Zelenskiy told reporters. He did not give details on the teams, but said they should all be in place this week.
His communications adviser also said that Ukrainian specialists had already been deployed to a US military base in Jordan, without giving details.
Zelensky said the presence of Ukrainian pilots is key to the effectiveness of anti-missile drone operations.
“Even those countries that have been quietly buying interceptors, I think they’ve realized that without our military, our operators, our software… without all of that, the interceptors just don’t work.”
KYIV GAINING EXPERIENCE
Since February 28, when the U.S. and Israel launched airstrikes against Iran, Ukraine has sought to use its years of experience countering Russia’s Iranian-designed Shahed attack drones.
Kiev says Russia – which now manufactures them itself – has so far launched more than 57,000 Shahed drones into Ukraine.
Reuters reported last week that the US and Qatar were looking to buy anti-missile drones from Ukraine as a much cheaper alternative to missiles to shoot down the Shahed.
When asked what Kiev would get in exchange for the deployment of specialized teams, Zelenskiy replied that Ukraine is primarily looking for air defense missiles.
For months, Kiev has complained about a critical shortage of these munitions, particularly the US-made Patriot systems, which are Ukraine’s only effective tool to intercept ballistic missiles.
The Iran war has delayed a new round of Washington-brokered peace talks between Russia and Ukraine.
Zelensky told reporters on Tuesday that another trilateral meeting had been postponed until next week, adding that he wanted more prisoner-of-war exchanges and a discussion of a possible meeting between himself, US President Donald Trump and Russia’s Vladimir Putin.
This article was generated from an automated news agency source without text modification.
