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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia helped Iran upgrade its Shahed drones after initially using Ukraine as a testing ground for the weapons, warning that the same threat now faced by Israel, Gulf states and US forces had been honed through years of attacks on Ukrainian civilians.
“We had a terrible experience with these drones. We had 350 or 500 Iranian drones, Shaheds, every day, every day and night,” Zelensky told The Jerusalem Post in a remote video interview on Monday, describing the years-long onslaught that Ukraine has faced.
His message, repeated throughout the interview, was straightforward: The threat the Middle East now faces did not emerge overnight. Ukraine, he said, saw it first, endured it first, and paid for the lessons learned with civilian bloodshed.
" Ukraine was a kind of experimental site for these drones in the end. You can't even compare the first-class Shahed, the one that was at the beginning of the war, and today's Shahed ," Zelensky said.
The interview offered one of Zelensky's clearest descriptions yet of how he believes the Russia-Iran military partnership evolved, from Tehran's supply of drones to Moscow, to Russia's subsequent assistance to Iran in upgrading and adapting them in return.
Zelensky said that Ukraine tried from the beginning to stop Iran from supplying Russia with Shahed drones, directly warning Tehran that the weapons would be used against civilians. According to Zelensky, Iranian officials denied that they were truly siding with Russia and tried to minimize the extent of the transfer.
"We asked them not to give weapons because otherwise, if they gave them weapons, like Shahed, they would kill our civilians. And you will be allies. They said, okay... we are not allies in this. We sold this part of Shahed to the Russians, and it will be 1,200 or 1,300, and that's it. But it was not true. They lied, of course ," he said.
Zelensky said that Ukraine is already trying to help countries facing this threat by sending military experts to review local air defense systems and provide practical advice. Zelensky said that Ukraine has already sent three teams of military experts to help countries assess their air defense systems and counter the Iranian drone threat.
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