Ukraine sends teams to help Gulf counter Iranian drones: What to know
Ukraine has significant experience downing Iran’s Shahed drones, leading Gulf states to express interest in Ukrainian expertise and hardware.
Teams of Ukrainian experts have arrived in the Gulf to help defend against Iran’s drones, according to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, as defense manufacturers in the Eastern European country prepare to increase exports to the region.
Zelenskyy said in a post on X on Wednesday that Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council secretary, Rustem Umerov, arrived in the United Arab Emirates to discuss cooperation with local officials. He will then travel to Saudi Arabia and a number of other unspecified countries. In total, three groups of Ukrainian experts, military personnel and engineers traveled to the region, according to the post.
Zelenskyy told reporters on Tuesday that the teams would travel to the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar to share expertise on downing Iranian drones. A day earlier, he said that 11 countries had asked Ukraine for help countering Iranian drones, without naming them.
The Ukrainian leader has held calls with the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Bahrain since the war began on Feb. 28. He specifically discussed ways to “counter” Iranian drone and missile strikes with Bahrain’s King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa, according to a Ukrainian readout.
Ukrainian expertise
Ukraine has extensive experience in downing Iranian drones — a result of Russia deploying the Iran-made Shahed drone during its invasion of the country. Ukrainian armed forces Commander in Chief Gen. Oleksandr Syrsky said on Telegram earlier this month that Ukraine destroyed more than 1,500 Russian drones in February, with more than 70% being the Shahed-type aircraft.
Karolina Hird, a national security fellow at the Institute for the Study of War in Washington, said that Ukrainian personnel are likely to focus on both technology and technical expertise during the Gulf trip.
"Ukraine has pioneered the innovation and production of counter-drone technologies meant to protect Ukrainian cities against near-nightly Russian Shahed strikes. The technologies include lost-cost interceptor drones," Hird told Al-Monitor.
In terms of expertise, Hird said that Ukraine has developed a number of low cost tactics to down Shahed drones that could be of interest to the Gulf, including so-called mobile fire groups where soldiers shoot at the projectiles via machine guns mounted to trucks.
Hird said Gulf countries may face difficulties utilizing Ukrainian tactics and hardware.
"The Gulf states will need to learn and implement these new tactics and effectively integrate them into their air defense calculus while under sustained Iranian fire," she said.
Russia launches hundreds of drones on average per night at Ukraine, and only about 10% hit their targets, according to a March analysis from the Philadelphia-based Foreign Policy Research Institute.
Iran has deployed drones alongside missiles in its attacks against the Gulf and Israel following the American and Israeli strikes on the Islamic Republic late last month that led to the current war. The UAE said it intercepted 26 drones launched from Iran on Thursday alone. Saudi Arabia said it intercepted more than 20, while Qatar reported that an unspecified number were downed.
A Tuesday report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington noted that Shahed drones are among the most common types of unmanned aerial vehicles Iran has deployed in the current war.
Industry interest
Members of Ukraine’s defense industry have signaled interest in sending drones to the Gulf. The founder of drone manufacturer TAF Industries, Oleksandr Yakovenko, told the Financial Times last week that the firm had received requests for 5,000 drones from the UAE and 2,000 from Qatar, adding that Kuwait was also interested.
Yakovenko told the outlet that training pilots to deploy their interceptor drones would be the “main problem” for Gulf states.
Reuters reported last week that Ukrainian drone producers have made a surplus of products, despite war-related demands. Local company SkyFall estimated it could make up to 50,000 interceptor drones a month and export 5,000 to 10,000 of them without hurting Ukraine’s war effort.
