200 Ukrainian experts in drones are already providing assistance in the Middle East, Zelensky announced
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in London on Tuesday that 200 Ukrainian air defense experts are currently in the Middle East, helping to counter Iranian drone attacks, reports CNN and Ukrainska Pravda, according to News.ro.
“Currently, 201 Ukrainians are in the Middle East and the Persian Gulf region. Another 34 are ready to be mobilized. These are military experts, experts who know how to defend themselves and how to help combat the Shahed drones,” Zelenskiy told British MPs.
“Our teams are already in the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Saudi Arabia and are heading to Kuwait. We are collaborating with several other countries – the agreements have already been concluded,” Zelensky said, quoted by Ukrainska Pravda.
Speaking before the British Parliament during his most recent visit to the UK, Zelenski said that drones – especially cheap attack drones – have completely changed modern warfare.
The Ukrainian president gave an example of this shift, saying that while each Iranian drone costs about $50,000, the US and its allies currently use about $4 million worth of missiles to shoot them down.
Ukraine has regularly faced combined drone and missile attacks after Russia stepped up production of Iranian-designed Shahed drones early last year.
Faced with a shortage of traditional air defense systems provided by the West, Kiev has been forced to improvise and has developed a multi-layered defense system that includes electronic warfare tools, reconfigured helicopters and transport planes that hunt the drones from the air, as well as ground troops that shoot them down with heavy machine guns and surface-to-air missiles.
Zelenskiy offered to share what Ukraine has developed, saying the country is capable of producing about 2,000 interceptor drones a day. He said that Kiev could supply about half of this amount to its allies. On March 10, Zelensky announced that Ukrainian experts in the field of security and countering UAVs went to Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.
