Ukraine has sent more than 200 experts to help Gulf countries defend themselves against Iranian drones, and was preparing to send nearly three dozen more, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said this week.“What is happening around Iran today is not a faraway war for us – because of the cooperation between Russia and Iran. And we do not believe we have the right to be indifferent,” Zelenskyy told the Parliament of the United Kingdom on Tuesday.The Shahed-type drones Iran has rained down on Gulf states are the same type it sold to Russia in 2022. Russia has since produced thousands of them under licence.Ukraine has shot down more than 44,700 of them during the war with Russia. It now has a success rate close to 90 percent, and is aiming for 95 percent. Last month, Ukraine shot down 3,238 Shahed-type drones – a record, said its Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov.They made up only a part of more than 15,000 Russian drones Ukraine shot down in the same month.Zelenskyy is now selling that know-how to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.He also offered to protect British bases in Cyprus, which were struck by a Shahed on March 2.“Our experts would place interception teams, and set up radars and acoustic coverage,” he told British MPs. “If Iran launched a large-scale attack – similar to Russian attacks – we would guarantee protection.”United States allies in the Gulf h …
