Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Saturday that his country had “undoubtedly changed the geopolitical situation” in the Middle East with a series of decade-long defence agreements with Gulf states being hit with Iranian drones and missiles.<\/p>\n
Has he? And how important are the agreements for Ukraine, more than four years into the Russian invasion and facing its own maelstrom of military, economic and diplomatic challenges?<\/p>\n
The Ukrainian leader has been on a whirlwind tour of the Gulf in recent days — Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar — touting what he calls Kyiv’s world-leading air defences.<\/p>\n
Ukraine has developed a suit of tools to fend off nightly Russian drone attacks, chief among then cheap and highly effective drone-on-drone interceptors.<\/p>\n
Moscow’s attack drones are based on the Iranian Shaheds now being fired by Tehran across the region — strikes it says are retaliation for US-Israeli air attacks on Iran.<\/p>\n
Zelensky has sought to craft an opportunity from the war, which otherwise benefits Russia through higher oil prices and possible slowdowns in Western arms supplies to Kyiv.<\/p>\n
Almost immediately, he started offering US allies in the region deals to get their hands on Ukrainian drone interceptors and has dispatched over 200 military experts.<\/p>\n
“Surely no one else can help in this way today, with expertise,” he told reporters, including AFP, on Saturday.<\/p>\n
“No one else possesses such experience.”<\/p>\n
Ukraine has for months been downing more than 80 percent of all incoming Russian missiles and drones — typically fired in their hundreds every night — according to AFP analysis of Kyiv’s air force data.<\/p>\n
– ‘Risky moment’ –<\/p>\n
Details of what exactly Ukraine has agreed in the Gulf are slim.<\/p>\n
“We are talking about a 10-year cooperation. We have already signed a relevant agreement with Saudi Arabia, we have just signed a similar agreement with Qatar, also for 10 years, we will sign one with the Emirates,” Zelensky said.<\/p>\n
On the table are co-production of drones — with factories both in Ukraine and in the Gulf — and expertise sharing, he said, without providing specific information.<\/p>\n
It is unclear what Kyiv gets in return, or whether the deals are anything more than simple arms-for-cash.<\/p>\n
Zelensky — who had originally been pushing for expensive air defence missiles in return — \u00a0said the agreements were worth “billions, not millions” to Ukraine.<\/p>\n
“Specifically billions for our exporters — everyone will earn, Ukraine will earn, we won’t lose out.”<\/p>\n
Ukrainian drone manufacturers told AFP they had been inundated with requests from the Middle East since the outbreak of war in the region.<\/p>\n
“Neither the US, nor Europe, nor the Middle East are prepared for drone warfare,” the Ukrainian drone unit commander told AFP.<\/p>\n
Zelensky is also keen on the region’s energy resources, he said Saturday.<\/p>\n
Four years of Russian attacks have decimated Ukraine’s energy network, leaving the country critically vulnerable when it comes to electricity, gas and fuel.<\/p>\n
“We need long-term agreements with energy-producing countries … this is precisely what we are negotiating,” the Ukrainian leader said.<\/p>\n
However, Ukrainian support to the Gulf is not straightforward.<\/p>\n
Inside the army, commercial exports of weapons at a time of war present an ethical dilemma.<\/p>\n
“Somebody becomes a millionaire, another ends up dead or amputated. Yet they seem to be serving the same cause,” the commander of one drone unit told AFP recently.<\/p>\n
Producers told AFP export deals would bring them cash to ramp up production, not take away from what they supply to the Ukrainian army.<\/p>\n
“This is quite a risky moment for Ukrainian diplomacy,” Yevgen Magda, a political analyst and director of the Kyiv-based Institute of World Policy think-tank, told AFP.<\/p>\n
Especially since Kyiv is an absolute newcomer to the world of international weapons sales.<\/p>\n
“The arms market is quite a delicate thing and succeeding there with one swift move or a single tour … is very difficult,” Magda said.<\/p>\n
“Let’s hope it will be implemented in the way that is best for Ukraine, but it’s very difficult to guarantee anything now,” he added.<\/p>\n
bur-jc\/jxb<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Saturday that his country had “undoubtedly changed the geopolitical situation” in the Middle…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":40458,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[26],"tags":[306,996,989,2087,159,17241,4660,394,2214,1743,34,39,81,271,55,17238,17240,17239,16125,2348,56,272,2915,3869,36],"class_list":["post-40457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-persian-gulf","tag-afp","tag-conflicts","tag-diplomacy","tag-drone-warfare","tag-foreign-policy","tag-foreign-relations-of-ukraine","tag-global-politics","tag-government","tag-gulf-cooperation-council","tag-international-relations","tag-iran","tag-persian-gulf","tag-politics","tag-qatar","tag-russia","tag-russia-ukraine-military-relations","tag-russian-invasion-of-ukraine","tag-russo-ukrainian-war","tag-russo-ukrainian-war-2022-present","tag-shahed-drones","tag-ukraine","tag-united-arab-emirates","tag-unmanned-aerial-vehicle","tag-volodymyr-zelenskyy","tag-war"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116308743597021452","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40457\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}