KYIV, Ukraine— Ukraine is offering to share its hard-won battlefield lessons on Iranian drones with allies now confronting the same threat it has for years, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warning no country can assume it’s fully protected from the kind of drone barrages Russia unleashes nightly.
“Everyone can now see that Ukraine’s experience in defense is, in many respects, irreplaceable,” Zelensky said in a post to X Monday urging deeper cooperation with partners.
“We are ready to share this experience and help those nations that helped Ukraine this winter and throughout this war. We are ready to work on developing Europe’s shared defensive capabilities.”
Since the latest war with Iran began Saturday with US and Israeli strikes on Tehran, the Islamic Republic has launched more than 500 ballistic drones at regional enemies, according to a statement by the United Arab Emirates’ Defense Ministry.
Ukraine first began dealing with the Iranian drone threat in fall of 2022, with Russia purchasing them from partner Iran more than a year into its full-scale war on the country, Maj. Gen. Vadym Skibitskyi, deputy chief of Ukraine’s defense intelligence, told The Post on Monday — with Moscow’s use of attack drones has skyrocketed over the course of the war.
In the early stages, Russia launched roughly 30 Shahed drones per month, he said. Now, it routinely fires hundreds.
“The largest number of UAVs that the Russian Federation used in July last year was 802,” Skibitskyi said. “It’s a huge number.”
During some nights, more than 90 drones are launched in a single wave.
Skibitskyi pointed to an overnight Sunday assault in which Russia launched 94 Shahed drones — Ukrainian forces intercepted 84 of them, with only 10 reaching their targets.
“That is the practical experience of our militaries of intercepting Shahed,” he said. “We have the expertise to know which direction, when, at what time they launch the Shaheds and which direction they fly.”
He said Ukraine’s air defenses rely on layered coordination — from mobile ground teams to anti-aircraft missiles to radio-electronic warfare — all working together.
“It should be working in complex incorporation, not by just one type,” Skibitskyi said. “All together.”
Zelensky called on Westerns nations to dramatically scale up production of air defense systems and interceptor drones, saying the continent must build “real strength” to defend its skies, land and sea.
“Europe must have enough air defense missiles, enough experience in shooting down drones, and sufficient production of modern interceptor drones,” he said. “Together, we can make this happen.”
His comments come as Russia continues to hammer Ukraine with waves of Iranian-designed Shahed drones and ballistic missiles — attacks that Ukrainian forces have learned to blunt with a patchwork of Western-supplied systems, mobile fire groups and electronic warfare.
It’s this experience that Ukraine is willing to share with partners, knocking down drone threats through three different angles: by interceptor-drones that explode in the air next to incoming Shaheds, jamming them with electronic warfare and shooting them out of the sky.
“The situation in the Middle East shows how difficult it is to provide one hundred percent protection against missiles and ‘Shahed’ drones,” Zelensky said, noting that Gulf countries with more advanced air defense systems still failed to intercept every ballistic missile and drone launched at them.
His message to the West was blunt: stockpiles and production lines must grow.
“In particular, this means building sufficient air defense production capacity — both against drones and against ballistic missiles,” Zelensky said.
Skibitskyi stressed that Ukraine is not offering to deploy troops abroad, as they must still counter the threats Russia poses to Kyiv daily, but to share the lessons it has learned under relentless fire.
“We are not saying that we are going to participate in practice,” he said. “But the shared experience — because the threat is still there.”
As Russia expands the scale and frequency of its drone attacks, Kyiv is positioning itself not only as a frontline state but as a testing ground whose hard-won expertise could shape the rest of the world’s future defenses.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: nypost.com
