Russia helped Iran upgrade Shahed drones now threatening Israel and Gulf states – Zelensky

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said this in an interview with The Jerusalem Post, Ukrinform reports.

"We have had a terrible experience with these drones. [...] Ukraine was kind of an experiment place for these drones in the end. You can't even compare the first class [of] Shahed, what was at the very beginning of the war, and today's Shahed," he said.

According to Zelensky, at the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion, when evidence emerged that Iran was supplying drones to Russia, Kyiv contacted Tehran and urged it not to provide the UAVs in order to avoid becoming complicit in the killing of civilians.

"They said that 'Okay... we are not allies in this'," he recalled. He said the Iranians told Ukraine: "'We sold Russians this part of Shaheds, and it will be 1,200 or 1,300, and that's all.' But it was not true. They lied, of course."

He noted that Iran not only supplied drones but also trained Russian operators and helped Russia establish its own production facilities by sharing licenses and technologies.

Today, Zelensky added, Russia is providing Iran with upgraded drones and technical know-how.

"We saw some details from one of the Shaheds, which was destroyed in one of the countries of Middle East," he said. "I will not tell you, sorry, because we said that we will not tell publicly what country was it."

What Ukraine found, he said, pointed to Russian involvement.

"We saw some details. It was Russian details. We know it because Iranians didn't produce it."

Pressed on whether that meant Russia had helped Iran improve the drones now attacking targets in the region, Zelensky said: "I think that means that Russians also helped them, [just] like Iranians helped [the Russians] at the very beginning of the [Russia-Ukraine] war."

The threat now confronting the Middle East did not emerge overnight. Ukraine, he said, saw it first, endured it first, and paid for the lessons learned in civilian blood.

In his opinion, the consequences of the Russia-Ukraine war extend beyond a single conflict or region, as Russia's battlefield experience is turning into exportable knowledge, new technologies, and methods that will not remain limited to Ukraine.

"This is big knowledge from the battlefield. This is new technology based on Iranian technologies. All these will have impact on other regions. I always said Africa, Middle East, and Europe," the Ukrainian leader added.

Summarizing the interview, The Jerusalem Post wrote that it serves as "a warning about what the rest of the world is now beginning to face: a drone war that started over Ukrainian cities, then spread outward, grew cheaper, grew smarter, and became harder to stop."

Photo: Volodymyr Zelensky / Telegram