From Washington: In a striking reversal of Cold War aid patterns, the United States is turning to Ukraine for military technology in the Middle East. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed that a Ukrainian team departed Friday for Jordan, which has US military assets at its Muwaffaq Salti Air Base.
The deployment came at America's urgent request as Washington seeks cheaper technology for intercepting Iranian missiles targeting Israeli and US defence assets as well as other infrastructure across Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The economic calculus driving this partnership is stark. Ukrainian interceptor drones are priced at about $1,000 to $2,000, a fraction of the several million dollars it costs to manufacture, transport and fire a high-tech US interceptor.
Ukraine's interceptor drones emerge from brutal necessity. Kyiv, which has long sought more advanced US defence systems, has developed technology to mass-produce much cheaper interceptor drones to counter drone swarm attacks from Russia. The weapons proved themselves under fire. Last month, Ukrainian interceptors destroyed more than 70% of incoming Shaheds over Kyiv, freeing scarce Patriot missiles for the ballistic threats they were designed to stop.
The Gulf crisis stems from Iran's relentless drone campaign. Iran is deploying its cheap, domestically produced Shahed drones across the Gulf and is believed to have thousands in stock. These are the same drones it has supplied to Russia over the course of Moscow's war on Ukraine. The US Army has sent 10,000 interceptor drones developed in Ukraine to the Middle East as it looks to repel Iranian attacks without using up high-cost missile defences, according to US Army Secretary Dan Driscoll. Driscoll said in an interview that the AI-enabled Merops drones were sent within five days of the start of the US-Israeli operation against Iran on 28 February.
However, training poses a challenge beyond simply acquiring hardware. "We can train an experienced pilot on our drones in three days," a spokesman for Wild Hornets told CBS News. "But that does not mean that a Ukrainian or U.S. drone pilot can come and they are knocking down Shahed drones in three days." Kyiv's willingness to send its specialists abroad marks a significant strategic sacrifice because of the impact on Ukraine's own air defence capabilities.
Ukraine's production capacity may enable sustained supply. Ukrainian manufacturers are producing thousands of them per month. General Cherry said they had the capacity to produce "tens of thousands" of interceptors per month. Ukraine currently has a surplus of interceptor drones, and manufacturers say they could produce tens of thousands more without compromising the country's defences.
For Australian policymakers, the development carries strategic weight. The success of cheap, mass-produced drone systems in countering more expensive air defence infrastructure signals a shift in military economics that affects regional security across Asia-Pacific. With Ukrainian drone specialists now training NATO forces while guarding Gulf petrostates and US military bases, it is safe to say that this attempted demilitarisation has backfired in spectacular fashion. Rather than leaving Kyiv disarmed and defenseless, the war unleashed by Putin four years ago has transformed Ukraine into a drone superpower.
The partnership also reflects Washington's cost constraints. As the Middle East campaign strains US missile inventories, relying on Ukrainian manufacturing shifts economic burden from American defence budgets to allied production capacity—a model that may influence how the alliance structures future air defence cooperation across the Indo-Pacific region.