President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Ukraine has provided specialist help to Middle Eastern countries confronting Iranian kamikaze drones, but that any such assistance should be matched by money and technology transfers. Kyiv has dispatched three teams to the region to carry out assessments and to demonstrate how drone-defence systems should function, Zelenskiy told reporters.
Earlier this week Zelenskiy identified the destinations for these teams as Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, and he said a separate team was sent to a U.S. military base in Jordan. He emphasized that the deployments are intended to provide expertise rather than to participate in military operations, saying: "This is not about being involved in operations. We are not at war with Iran."
Zelenskiy said Kyiv is open to negotiating more substantial, long-term arrangements with Gulf states, but that the terms remain to be determined. "For us today, both the technology and the funding are important," he said, underlining that Kyiv expects concrete returns for its assistance.
Gulf countries have been using large quantities of air-defence missiles to repel Iran's Shahed drones, Zelenskiy noted, while Ukraine confronts Russian drone threats nightly with a combination of systems, including cheaper, smaller drones and jamming equipment. He said governments across the United States, Europe, the Middle East and Africa have asked Ukraine for guidance on countering these attacks.
However, he also highlighted a divergence with the United States. U.S. President Donald Trump has stated that the United States does not require Ukraine's help in downing drones. Zelenskiy said he was uncertain why Washington had not signed a major drone deal that Kyiv has been advocating for months and that he did not know whether such an agreement would be reached at all. "I wanted to sign a deal worth about 35-50 billion dollars," he said.
Beyond external negotiations, Zelenskiy criticized unnamed Ukrainian companies and foreign governments that he said had attempted to arrange deals for anti-drone equipment without Kyiv's approval. He did not provide names or further details about those apparent bypassed arrangements.
Linking the situation in the Middle East to Ukraine's own defence needs, Zelenskiy warned that a drawn-out conflict in that region could affect Kyiv's supplies of air-defence missiles. "We would very much not like the United States to step away from the issue of Ukraine because of the Middle East," he said, voicing concern that attention and materiel might shift away from Ukraine.
Diplomatic plans have also been affected. A scheduled round of peace talks involving Moscow, Kyiv and Washington, which had been due to take place in the UAE, was postponed after U.S. and Israeli airstrikes on Iran sparked a wider confrontation in the region two weeks ago. Zelenskiy said Washington had proposed holding the talks in the United States next week, but that Russia objected to meeting there. "Either they will change the country where we meet, or the Russians must confirm (a meeting in) the U.S.," he said.
On the fighting in Ukraine, Zelenskiy relayed his military's assessment that a planned Russian spring offensive had already failed, saying that Moscow had expected an offensive to be fully underway by now. He presented that view as a battlefield judgement rather than a prediction of future moves.
Context and implications
The exchanges outlined by Zelenskiy illustrate how Kyiv is trading operational know-how for potential strategic benefits in technology and financing while balancing diplomatic caution about being drawn directly into conflicts outside its borders. At the same time, the postponement of talks and worries about diverted air-defence supplies underscore the interconnected pressures on Ukraine's security and procurement planning.
The situation as described by Zelenskiy leaves open key questions about the scale and formalization of any defence partnerships with Gulf states, unresolved U.S. positions on procurement deals, and potential supply-chain stress for air-defence systems if demand in other theatres rises.