KYIV, Ukraine — As the conflict in the Middle East escalates, Ukraine could prove to be an invaluable trove of battle-tested expertise from its own bitter and costly fight against Russia.
After months of pressure and hardened rhetoric from Washington aimed at ending the war in Ukraine, Kyiv is now also fielding requests for help as Iran’s Gulf neighbors grapple with the modern reality of drone warfare.
Hotels, airports and residential buildings have been hit in cities across the Gulf, wreaking havoc as Iran targets the U.S. military bases hosted by its neighbors. It’s a picture all too familiar in Ukraine, whose skies are swarmed by hundreds of Russian drones on a nightly basis, many of them of the Shahed type designed in Iran.
Kyiv’s forces deflect the majority of them every night, not with expensive air defense missiles — as many countries in the Middle East have done — but with much cheaper and more effective interceptor drones, technology honed and perfected by four years of intense drone warfare.
The raging war has made Ukraine a unique “ecosystem” that allows for real-time testing of innovative drone technology on the battlefield, said Marko Kushnir, a spokesperson for General Cherry, one of Ukraine’s top drone manufacturers.
“The feedback loop between the front and the manufacturer is very short,” Kushnir said. “We can get feedback in the morning, and in the evening have a solution that will be tackling new tasks on the battlefield.”
Created in 2023 by a group of veterans and volunteers, the Kyiv-based company produces close to 100,000 drones a month, Kushnir said. One of its flagship interceptor drones specifically stops Shaheds and is actively used by Ukraine’s armed forces, he added. The company was invited to take part in the Pentagon’s $1 billion Drone Dominance initiative before the Iran war broke out.
It’s a level of expertise that Ukraine has paid heavily for, Kushnir said — “with lives, territory and a very long war with a bigger, better-resourced enemy.”
There are two countries in the world that understand from experience how to fight a daily, grinding technological war with drones, he said. “That’s us and Russia,” Kushnir added.
Ukraine’s allies recognize that now, he said.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said earlier this week that he received nearly a dozen requests from the U.S. and countries in the Middle East and Europe for “Ukraine’s experience in protecting lives, relevant interceptors, electronic warfare systems, and training.”
Ukraine’s experience in countering attack drones is “irreplaceable,” he said in a series of posts on X, and “the most advanced in the world.” Kyiv has dispatched teams to the Middle East, Zelenskyy said on Wednesday, raising the prospect of a weapons exchange, with Ukraine desperate for air defense missiles to counter the sophisticated weapons that Russia is using against Ukrainian cities and critical infrastructure on a near daily basis.
“This is not about being involved in operations. We are not at war with Iran,” Zelenskyy told Reuters in comments released Sunday. “This is about protection and a thorough, complete assessment on our part of how to counter the Shaheds.”
He said that what Ukraine will get in return for the assistance still needed to be discussed, adding: “Honestly, for us today, both the technology and the funding are important.”
Zelenskyy said he was unsure whether Ukraine and the U.S. would sign a deal on drone cooperation, after earlier reports that the Trump administration had last year dismissed Ukrainian efforts to sell its battle-proven technology for downing attack drones.
In a phone interview with NBC News on Saturday, President Donald Trump said that “we don’t need help,” adding that the “last person we need help from is Zelenskyy.”
Yuriy Ihnat, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s air force, told NBC News on the phone Wednesday that between 150 and 200 Russian drones attack Ukraine on an average day, with some of the bigger attacks involving up to 700 drones.
Between 80% and 90% of those get shot down routinely, Ihnat said. “This is the experience we have, and it’s the best in the world,” he added. “That’s why they came to us,” Ihnat said, referring to countries now seeking Ukraine’s support.
It wasn’t always like this.
Before the full-scale Russian invasion in 2022, Ukraine’s military leadership showed little interest in drone technology and treated it with skepticism, said Yaroslav Honchar, co-founder of drone innovation nonprofit Aerorozvidka. “In their eyes, a drone — next to a tank or artillery — looked like a toy. They couldn’t get it into their heads that it was the way of the future,” Honchar said. But that thinking has since changed, and an entire new industry has sprung out of wartime necessity, he said.
More than a dozen Ukrainian drone and defense tech companies were on a “road show” in the U.S. this month, scheduled before the start of the Iran war, hoping to secure U.S. investment. “In the moment of history when the world needs Ukraine’s technology and capabilities the most, here we are,” Ukraine’s ambassador to the U.S., Olga Stefanishyna, told reporters Monday during a stop in Washington, D.C., which NBC News attended.
“It was really important for Ukraine to show that what we can offer is not a political position or concern or condolences,” Stefanishyna said. “What we can offer is the immediate action and immediate effect.”
Asked if there are Ukrainians currently in the Middle East helping U.S. forces, Stefanishyna said: “I don’t think any of us now have the liberty to provide this information directly.”
Iran has threatened Ukraine over its interventions, in line with its threats to neighboring states and European powers seen to have helped the U.S. or Israel.
Iranian MP Ebrahim Azizi, Head of the National Security Commission, said on Saturday that assisting Israel with drone support makes "the entire territory of Ukraine" a "legitimate and lawful target for Iran."
Russia, an ally of Iran’s, appears to be keeping an eye on the developments.
Moscow is not “giving any assessments,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told NBC News during a press briefing on Thursday when asked about Kyiv sending its drone teams to the Middle East. “It’s rather a matter of bilateral relations between the Kyiv regime and the countries that requested such assistance,” Peskov added. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova called it a “public relations exercise” for the Ukrainian leader, with Kyiv normally the one “begging” for weapons. Last week, four sources told NBC News that Moscow was providing intelligence support to Iran, including intelligence that could help Iran locate American warships.
Kushnir, the General Cherry spokesperson, said his company has been approached by private entities and governments in the Middle East for help. That help would involve not just the sale of drones, he said, but the supporting infrastructure they require — things like batteries and maintenance protocols — and most importantly, the experience of using them. “We can quickly train their military to use this product in their conditions,” he said.
But Honchar said it’s hard to say if Ukraine’s drone experience can just be dropped into the Middle East. It’s a smart diplomatic move to offer this expertise, he said, but “we have our own context, and just copying it won’t work.”
While any partnerships could generate new sources of revenue for Kyiv to sustain its fight at home, Honchar stressed there is more at stake.
“We have been in this position — we were attacked and we had to beg the world for help,” he said. “Now it has happened to others, so Ukraine’s dedication is reminding the world that it’s not all about cynical calculations but principles of morality that are still in place and are worth fighting for.”
