Ukraine’s president has said he sent interceptor drones and operators to protect US bases in Jordan last week, one of 11 countries that had asked kyiv for help as the US-Israel war against Iran continued into its 10th day.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in an interview that he had responded to a request from the United States for help defending Jordan last week as Ukraine seeks to improve relations with Gulf and Middle Eastern countries that are under attack by Iran.
Zelenskyy posted on social media that “there are 11 requests from countries neighboring Iran, European states and the United States” and that some had received “concrete decisions and specific support.”
Aid was requested Thursday for Jordan, where the United States has maintained a sizable presence at the Muwaffaq Salti air base, Zelenskyy told the New York Times. A Ukrainian team left the next day.
Satellite images indicate that the radar used by a US Thaad air defense system at the Jordan base was damaged or even disabled by the Iranian strikes, one of several apparently hit in the region.
Orysia Lutsevych of the Chatham House think tank said Ukraine was “trying to demonstrate that it is an asset, including to the United States and other allies” by offering to share its war experience in exchange for aid and goodwill.
Zelenskyy also acknowledges that Iran and Russia are friends, amid US reports that Moscow is sharing targeting information with Tehran. “If Russia sends intelligence to Iran, Ukraine will send specialists and interceptors to defend these bases and energy and water infrastructure,” Lutsevych added.
Over the past week, the Ukrainian president spoke with the leaders of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and Jordan, according to kyiv. “It is very important to coordinate security both in Europe and in the Middle East,” Zelenskyy said after speaking with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Ukraine has faced near-nightly attacks by swarms of Shahed-136 drones since September 2024. The technology, originally designed in Iran, was transferred to Russia, allowing Moscow to manufacture them in large quantities.
Confronting them forced kyiv to develop low-cost air defense capabilities to prevent large numbers of delta-winged attack craft from passing through, with interception rates of more than 85% to 90%. On Saturday morning, Ukraine’s air force reported stopping 453 of 480 incoming drones.
Initially, Ukraine relied heavily on ground-based machine gun crews and a small number of fighter jets to stop them, but in the past six months it has begun using cheap, high-speed Shahed interceptors, which are piloted from the ground.
They include the Sting missile made by Wild Hornets, which costs $2,000 (£1,500) each. In February, interceptor drones destroyed more than 70% of Shahed-type attack drones over kyiv and its surrounding areas, according to the head of the armed forces, Oleksandr Syrskyi.
The strategy contrasts with Gulf and Middle Eastern countries, which have been making heavy use of US-made Patriot and Thaad air defense systems to counter missiles and drones fired by Iran.
A Shahed-136 costs around $50,000, while Patriot interceptors cost around $4 million each. Zelenskyy said that “more than 800” Patriots had been used in three days of war last week, roughly the equivalent of a year’s global supply, although many will have been deployed against incoming high-speed ballistic missiles.
However, the total laid off is higher than the 600 kyiv said it received during its entire four-year war with Russia, and raises the possibility that there could be serious shortages in the Middle East and Ukraine in the future.
There are two types of Patriot interceptors. Raytheon manufactures Pac-2s, which rely on explosive fragmentation to take down targets, at a rate of 300 a year. The Pac-3 missiles, made by Lockheed Martin and considered more capable, are produced at a rate of 600 a year.
However, Iran’s rate of fire has also plummeted since the United States and Israel attacked on February 28. Iran fired 137 missiles and 209 drones that day toward the United Arab Emirates, but only 15 missiles and 18 drones today. That suggests stocks of Patriot and other interceptors won’t deplete anywhere near last week’s levels.
Israel’s military reported that the rate of Iran’s missile fires toward the country had fallen by 80% since the start of the war, from more than 100 to less than 20 on Saturday, roughly in line with its claim to have disabled 75% of Iran’s missile launchers.
Thaad missiles are more expensive, costing $12.8 million each, according to the most recent US figures, and are intended only for use against ballistic missile threats. Lockheed Martin said in January that it earned 96 a year, although it intended to increase that figure to 400 in the coming years.
