USA and 6 Middle Eastern countries turn to Ukraine for help repelling drone attacks – Zelenskyy
The United States has turned to Ukraine for assistance in repelling drone attacks on its bases in the Middle East, and similar requests have been received from six countries in the region, with cooperation already underway with some of them, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in an interview with Le Monde, the text of which was posted on the head of state’s Telegram channel on Thursday.
"The United States of America turned to us regarding their bases on the territory of Middle Eastern countries. Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Jordan, and Kuwait also turned to us. We are already working with some of them, and our expert teams are already on-site: assessing the situation, sharing invaluable experience. Because no matter how many Patriot, THAAD, and other air defense systems there are in the Middle East, it will not be enough for full air defense operation. There are modern interceptors that must work against dense drone strikes," Zelenskyy said.
According to him, "now we are talking about the future supply of some things that Ukraine has," but the Ukrainian side is interested in receiving missiles for air defense systems in return.
"We want the Middle Eastern countries to give us the opportunity to strengthen ourselves as well. They have some air defense missiles that we have a deficit of. We would like to negotiate this," the President of Ukraine said.
He also emphasized that Ukraine has more production capacity for manufacturing drones than funds for their production, and is therefore interested in selling drones abroad during the full-scale invasion.
"Money is the most scarce thing today. Currently, our defense industry is half-loaded, and we need more funding to produce drones for ourselves. Therefore, those systems that we have in surplus, we are ready to sell to our partners. And we don’t just sell, we give them our expertise. Interceptor drones don’t work without our expertise. The system works," Zelenskyy added.
