Ukrainian President Zelensky says Moscow and Tehran are ‘brothers in hatred’; Iran claims its drones include Russian units.
More than 200 Ukrainian military experts are assisting governments in their defense against Iranian drone strikes in the Gulf region and the wider Middle East, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.
Addressing dozens of members of the United Kingdom parliament in London on Tuesday, the Ukrainian leader said 201 Ukrainian anti-drone experts were in the region and 34 more were “ready for deployment”.
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“These are military experts, experts who know how to help, how to defend against Shahed drones,” Zelensky said in his speech, referring to Iranian-designed “kamikaze” drones that Russia is using in its war against Ukraine from 2022.
“Our teams are already on their way to the Emirates, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait,” the Ukrainian captain said.
“We are working with several other countries – agreements are already in place. We do not want this terrorism of the Iranian regime against its neighbors to succeed,” he said.
Last week, the Ukrainian leader said military teams were sent to several Gulf states and Jordan.
Zelensky, who met UK Prime Minister Keir Stormer and NATO chief Mark Rutte earlier on Tuesday, said Russia had received Shahed-136 drones from the Iranians, who “taught Russia how to launch them and gave them the technology to produce them”.
“Russia then updated them. And now we have clear evidence that the Iranian Shaheds used in the region included Russian units,” Zelensky said, explaining that the drones were designed for “low-cost destruction of expensive critical infrastructure.”
“So what is happening around Iran today is not a distant war for us, because of the cooperation between Russia and Iran,” he said.
“The regimes in Russia and Iran are brothers in hatred, and that’s why they are brothers in arms. And we want regimes built on hatred to never win – at anything,” he said.
The Ukrainian leader later addressed his country’s newly developed prowess in drone warfare and production, saying that 90 percent of Russian losses on the front line in Ukraine “are caused by our drones.”
Ukraine has moved from making sea and aerial drones to producing interceptors that target drones, he said, adding that Ukraine has the capacity to produce at least 2,000 interceptors a day — half of which it needs for its own defense and the rest for use by Kyiv’s allies.
“If we have to stop Shahed in the Emirates – we can do it. If we have to stop it in Europe or the United Kingdom – we can do it. It’s a matter of technology, investment and cooperation,” he said.
Although Ukraine is one of the world’s leading producers of sophisticated, battlefield-proven drone interceptors, US President Donald Trump has said he does not need Ukraine’s help to counter Tehran’s drones targeting military targets in the Middle East.
After meeting Zelensky at 10 Downing Street, Stormer said Russian President Vladimir Putin “cannot stand to benefit from a conflict in Iran from falling oil prices or sanctions”.
During Zelensky’s visit on Tuesday, London and Kyiv signed a “defense partnership” agreement, which is said to combine “Ukraine’s expertise and the UK’s industrial base to manufacture and supply drones and innovative capabilities”.
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