Ukraine has been pushing to bolster security agreements with Gulf states and on Friday signed a defense cooperation pact with Saudi Arabia, during a visit by Zelenskyy to Riyadh. That accord, Zelenskyy said, “lays the foundation for future contracts, technological cooperation, and investment. It also strengthens Ukraine’s international role as a security donor.”
The outreach reflects Kyiv’s broader push to leverage its battlefield experience following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, positioning itself as a security partner to countries facing rising regional threats, particularly from Iran.
Since the start of the Iran war, Kyiv has been pitching its unique experience and interceptors to the Middle Eastern countries, which rely on costly PAC-3 and other systems to shoot down Iranian drones, capabilities which Ukraine lacks.
Ukraine has also sent more than 200 of its own drone-сountering experts to Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar. Some 30 more were heading to Jordan and Kuwait, Zelenskyy told reporters via a WhatsApp chat last week.
Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha told Reuters on Friday that Kyiv is close to finalizing security agreements with the UAE and Qatar to counter Iranian attacks. “We have the situation in the Middle East, so it is important not to lose the global attention on the Ukrainian case, because everything is interlinked,” Sybiha said.