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A little more than a year ago in a dressing down in the Oval Office, President Trump told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy he did not have the cards to prevail in the war with Russia. But the new conflict in the Middle East has shown that Ukraine does have a good hand when it comes to destroying Iran's missiles. NPR's Eleanor Beardsley reports.
ELEANOR BEARDSLEY, BYLINE: The unexpected side effect of the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran has been Iranian drone and missile attacks on stable tourist magnet destinations across the Middle East, like Dubai, where this video of an Iranian Shahed drone crashing into a skyscraper stunned the world. Gulf countries have been scrambling for new ways to protect themselves, and naturally they turned to Ukraine, which has been battling Shahed drones for four years now.
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UNIDENTIFIED NARRATOR: Sting - Shahed interceptor, simple, affordable, yet fast, agile and deadly effective.
BEARDSLEY: That's a promotional video for a Ukrainian drone interceptor called the Hornet. Ihor Fedirko, head of the Ukrainian Council of Defence Industries (ph), which represents more than 400 manufacturers, was in Paris this week for closed-door business-to-business meetings with French defense industry reps.
IHOR FEDIRKO: Hornets is just one of 25, 30 producers who produced such type of interceptors, so we have a lot of them.
BEARDSLEY: There's huge interest because it doesn't make financial sense to shoot down a $50,000 drone with a multimillion-dollar missile. How times have changed, says Fedirko.
FEDIRKO: Just four years ago, we went around the world, ask any of our allies to help us defend our airspace, but right now, it's completely different situation when they come to us and ask us to help them.
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BEARDSLEY: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy recently toured Middle East capitals. In this video, he's given a red carpet welcome in Damascus. Zelenskyy confirmed Friday that Ukrainian specialists sent to the Middle East have helped shoot down several drones. Martin Quencez, an analyst with the Paris office of the German Marshall Fund, says Ukraine is using its experience gained from four years of fighting Russia.
MARTIN QUENCEZ: I think the war in the Middle East has made it quite clear that Ukrainian defense system has value for a number of partners and actors in the Middle East and more broadly in the world.
BEARDSLEY: Fedirko says Ukraine has signed agreements with Qatar, Oman, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates as Kyiv looks to set up joint ventures in the Middle East and beyond. Of course, the new war is also a setback for Ukraine as the world looks elsewhere and desperately needed missiles are burned up over the Gulf. But Fedirko says Ukraine is making strides in manufacturing its own deep-strike missiles like the Flamingo, which can travel 1,800 miles and has already wreaked havoc in Russia.
FEDIRKO: These companies produce not just deep-strike drones. They starting to produce our own ballistic missiles. We launched a few of them just a few weeks ago, testing launches.
BEARDSLEY: Ukraine has hit up to 35% of Russia's oil and gas infrastructure, says Fedirko, and the damage has been so extensive, he says Western allies have urged Kyiv to use restraint because the attacks are driving up the price of gas.
FEDIRKO: You know, it's the tactic of thousand scratches. We see how our allies feel these damages. It's a strong message that, guys, you are in the right way.
BEARDSLEY: In other words, it's working. But Ukraine won't slow down, says Fedirko. It can't afford to. Eleanor Beardsley, NPR News, Paris.
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