Ukraine’s counter-drone expertise has been hard won. War in the Middle East may reveal its silver lining

2026-03-07 - 13:33

As Iran unleashes a wave of retaliatory drones strikes on critical infrastructure around the Persian Gulf, Ukrainian expertise in countering those drones appears to be in demand. Days into the war with Iran, the Trump administration has identified Tehran’s arsenal of Shahed one-way attack drones as a serious military challenge. In a closed-door briefing earlier this week on Capitol Hill, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine acknowledged that the relatively cheap and low-flying drones, which can saturate and overwhelm air defenses, have been a bigger problem than anticipated, according to two sources that were present. It’s a military challenge the Ukrainians have become intimately familiar with four years after Russia’s full-scale invasion. Cities around Ukraine are routinely bombarded by a combination of drones and missiles, sometimes hundreds in one night. But even as Moscow continues its bid to break Ukrainian resolve by targeting power generating facilities and the energy grid, officials in Kyiv are signaling that they can share their know-how on combating drones with states in the Middle East. “Our partners are turning to us, to Ukraine, for help in protecting themselves from Shaheds – with expertise and practical work,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in remarks Wednesday. “There have been requests for this from the American side as well. These days, I have spoken with the leaders of the Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Jordan, and Kuwait. There will be further talks with other regional leaders. We are also coordinating with our partners in Europe.” The Shahed has become a signature weapon of Russia’s war on Ukraine. Moscow started importing the Shahed-136 attack drone (known in Russia as the Geran) after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. As the war ground on, Russia set up production of the drones in a facility in Alabuga, 600 miles east of Moscow, to pump out the drones in industrial quantities – more than 5,500 per month. An interior view shows an apartment damaged by the remains of a drone believed to be an Iranian-made Shahed, shot down during a Russian overnight strike in Kyiv, in May 2023. Valentyn Ogirenko/Reuters Drawing on lessons learned in combat, the Russians also upgraded the drones with more sophisticated counter-jamming equipment, more lethal warheads and greater endurance. The US military has also taken note: It has set up its own squadron that deploys one-way attack drones created after developers reverse-engineered a captured Shahed from Iran. Those US drones have been launched in combat against Iranian targets in the new war in the Middle East. In the cat-and-mouse game of drone warfare, the Ukrainians have also built up a layered defense against the Shahed and its variants – and claim to have seen significant success in countering Russian drone swarms. “We are ready to help and share our experience. Ukraine has 10+ companies producing interceptor and counter-drone systems,” Alexander Kamyshin, an adviser to Zelensky on strategic affairs, wrote on X. “We intercept around 90% of Russian Shahed drones, primarily using interceptor drones alongside other air defense systems. Sometimes it is hundreds per night targeting our cities.” For the United States and its allies, however, countering the Shahed threat appears to be a game of catch-up, some experts say. “Despite Russia’s extensive and damaging use of one-way attack drones (Geran-2 and its successors) in the past four years against Ukraine, and Ukraine’s ongoing development of counters to these capabilities, it does not appear that the types of low-cost defense solutions Ukraine is using were replicated across Gulf nations or by the US military in the region,” wrote military expert Dara Massicot in an analysis published earlier this week by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Rocket trails from an interception by Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system are pictured over Tel Aviv on March 1, 2026. Ahmad Gharabli/AFP/Getty Images “In this conflict so far, Iran is launching hundreds of Shahed drones – as many if not more drones than ballistic missiles – to attrit the air defense systems of Israel, the United States, and its partners in the Middle East and to damage critical facilities. While most are being intercepted – at an impressive rate – that requires extensive resources of near-constant defensive counter air patrols and the use of ground-based air defense systems that are otherwise needed for intercepting inbound Iranian missiles.” Ukraine’s layered defenses against Shaheds and their variants involve a gamut of military technologies. Helicopters and reconfigured cargo planes equipped with miniguns hunt the drones; old-school air-defense teams man heavy machine guns at key points on the ground; and shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles also bring them down. At the higher end, Ukraine also has fighter aircraft – a Ukrainian F-16 can be seen downing a Shahed in this dramatic recent video – as well as US-supplied Patriot missile batteries. But Ukraine’s inventories of Patriot batteries and their PAC-3 missiles are limited, as Zelensky made clear in recent remarks. And he suggested in comments Tuesday that there may be a quid pro quo when it comes to sharing Ukrainian counter-drone know-how. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky gestures as he speaks during a press conference in Kyiv on March 3, 2026. Tetiana Dzhafarova/AFP/Getty Images “We are building relationships with countries in the Middle East,” he said. “We can do the same. For example, today they have Patriot air defense systems and PAC-3 missiles. They have all of this. This is important, very important for them first and foremost. But does it protect against hundreds of Shaheds? We know that no, it is not a working model. But we’re short on PAC-3s. For example, if we are talking about weapons during the war that we are short of, then if they give us PAC-3 missiles, we will give them (drone) interceptors. It is an equal exchange.” News that Russia may be providing Iran with wartime intelligence may also change the calculus in Washington and other Western capitals. According to multiple people familiar with American intelligence reporting on the matter, Moscow has provided Tehran with information about the locations and movements of American troops, ships and aircraft amid the ongoing war Ukraine’s expertise in countering Shaheds has been hard won. But if it helps shore up its international support – or replenish its inventory of air-defense missiles – it will have proven to have a silver lining.