Struggling to fully defend against swarms of Iranian attack drones, the United States and Arab states are calling on Ukraine for help.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he had received requests from the United States, Europe and 11 countries neighboring Iran to help shoot down drones fired by Tehran.
After four years of large-scale invasion by Russia, Ukraine has become a world leader in the development of innovations drone defense capabilities.
Russia's weapon of choice has been its so-called kamikaze drones, based on Iranian Shahed technology.
A resident touches a Russian-Iranian Shahed-136 kamikaze drone installed in front of Saint-Michel Cathedral in Ukraine.
(Reuters: Valentin Ogirenko)
Moscow demonstrated that Iranian Shahed drones are cheap can be mass-produced and released in hundreds to overwhelm air defense systems.
Today, Iran is using the same tactics, with the same type of drones, to launch retaliatory strikes against U.S. targets and its allies in the Gulf.
A building in Bahrain's capital was directly hit by an Iranian attack drone. (Reuters: Hamad I Mohammed)
Over the past week, Iranian drones have burning vulnerable oil and gas facilitiesaffected civil and military infrastructure and caused damage to international airports.
Analysts say it appears the United States was unprepared to deal with the “highly predictable threat from Iran” and is now seeking to obtain Ukrainian drone expertise before its stockpiles of interceptors are exhausted.
Drones draining American interceptors
Sophisticated American air defenses are scattered across the Gulf, deployed primarily to protect U.S. military bases and its allies in the region against Iranian threats.
But most expensive systems, such as Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) and Patriots, were designed to target ballistic missiles, not cheap drones.
A single Patriot missile interceptor can cost up to $1 million ($1.4 million), while an Iranian Shahed drone costs between $20,000 and $50,000.
Missiles used in Patriot air defense systems can cost millions of dollars. (AP: Mindaugas Kulbis)
Iran has so far used a combination of ballistic missiles and drones. in response to the American and Israeli attacks which began on February 28.
Dara Massicot, a senior fellow at the Russia and Eurasia program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said the majority of Iranian drone attacks were intercepted, but would be difficult to sustain.
“The United States, Israel, and the Gulf countries are making significant efforts to neutralize these two threats, using strikes on launch platforms, combat aircraft, and high-quality air defense interceptors,” she wrote in an assessment for the Washington-based think tank.
“The methods are effective, but targeting drones in this way is resource-intensive and expensive, and will quickly exhaust some types of interceptors.“
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The Shahed drones have a wingspan of around 2.5 meters, with a propeller motor at the rear and 50 kilograms of explosives in the nose.
The weapons don't need a staging platform, so hundreds can be launched essentially from the back of a truck.
Drones are often fired alongside a number of decoys to saturate air defenses and can evade radar systems by flying slowly and low to the ground.
By the middle of last week, Iran had launched more than 2,000 drones across the Middle East, according to the Pentagon.
Iranian Shahed drones on display during 2023 National Army celebrations. (AP: Iranian Army)
CNN and US political magazine The Atlantic reported that US officials had admitted cracks in drone defense capabilities.
In a closed-door meeting between senior Trump administration officials last week, the US defense secretary and the Joint Chiefs of Staff reportedly discussed shortcomings in the fight against drones.
“The U.S. military does not have large defenses to defend against Shahed,” a congressional official told The Atlantic.
“We have known this for a long time. We do not have good defenses against drones on a large scale.“
It is unclear exactly how many Shahed drones Iran has stockpiled.
Iran's Fars News Agency, affiliated with the country's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, published a video last week purportedly showing underground bunkers lined with rows of Shaheds.
Oleksandra Molloy, an aviation lecturer at the University of New South Wales and an expert on drone warfare in Ukraine, said Russia had shown how drones could be mass-produced on a large scale.
Moscow produces nearly 3,000 Shahed-type drones per month in domestic factories.
“Iran and Russia enjoy close relations,” Dr Molloy said.
“We have seen Russia continually increase its capabilities…by the end of 2025, its manufacturing of Shahed drones has increased threefold.”
Ukraine receives a call for help
Retired Australian Army Major General Mick Ryan, an authority on drone warfare, was surprised that the United States had not adopted lessons learned in Ukraine.
“This was a highly predictable threat from Iran, which was not adequately respected by the Americans and others, and therefore they were unprepared,” he wrote.
“Ukraine built a multi-tiered, cost-effective anti-drone architecture over four years of trial and error.“
Mr. Zelensky said he had “received no direct request” from the United States to share his country's expertise at the start of the current war in the Middle East.
But last Thursday, he announced that Ukraine had been requested for “specific support in protection against the Shaheds”.
Mr Zelenskyy told the New York Times that Ukraine had sent interceptor drones and a team of experts to protect US military bases in Jordan at Washington's request.
The first group of Ukrainian military experts was expected to arrive in the region this week.
In return for his help, Mr. Zelensky proposed a “trade” to his partners, saying that Ukraine would like to receive “the Patriot missiles of which we have a deficit and give them a corresponding number of interceptors.”
Drone on Drone War
Several Ukrainian companies have developed innovative low-cost interceptor drones, with prices ranging from $1,000 to $2,000.
New solutions have also evolved rapidly, with systems moving from prototype to mass production within months.
Dr Molloy described the interceptors as “drone-on-drone warfare”.
There are several types of interceptors designed to neutralize drones by physically hitting them at high speed.
“Recent systems have advanced capabilities to detect and track the target,” Dr. Molloy said.
“On average, the success rate of interceptor drones was around 60 percent.“
The SkyFall P1-Sun interceptor drone is flown by pilots wearing first-person viewing glasses. (Reuters: Valentin Ogirenko)
Marco Kushnir, a spokesperson for Ukrainian arms manufacturer General Cherry, said its “Bullet” interceptor drone, developed in late 2025, had already shot down several hundred Russian Shaheds.
He said the company had the capacity to produce “tens of thousands” of interceptors per month and would be willing to help the Middle East.
“We are ready to share them, and we want to share them,” Mr. Kushnir told The Associated Press.
The Sting, produced by volunteer start-up Wild Hornets, uses tactics similar to the Bullet Interceptor.
The weapons are controlled remotely by unmanned aerial vehicle pilots, who control the drones via display screens or first-person goggles.
Another model, Skyfall's 3D-printed P1-Sun, costs around $1,000 and can reach speeds of more than 300 kilometers per hour.
Skyfall had a production capacity of up to 50,000 drones per month, a company spokesperson said.
Training challenges
Some Ukrainian manufacturers have said they could supply thousands of interceptor drones without compromising the country's defenses.
But there will be challenges in training crews.
The weapons will also need to be integrated into radar systems capable of detecting long-range targets.
“Many Western countries are unprepared for the drone warfare we are currently seeing in Russia and Ukraine,” Dr Molloy said.
Ms. Massicot, of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said the lessons from Ukraine “should have started a long time ago.”
“Now is the time to get started and quickly catch up,” she said.
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