Ukraine Protecting the Gulf Skies with Failed Deals

o cover its inability to protect its allies in the Arab countries, the United States has pushed Ukraine and its cartoonish offers in front of the Gulf Arab states in an attempt to cover up the negligence and failure the U.S. has shown toward its historical friends.

During his first term, while Saudi Arabia was receiving Houthi missiles on Aramco facilities, the economic lifeline of the kingdom, a journalist asked U.S. President Donald Trump about his plans to repel the aggression against his Gulf ally. He replied: “No one has informed me that American lands are under attack to move the army; American lands are safe, and that’s what matters.”

Today, the scenario repeats itself but in a different form. The United States has not supplied its allies with what matches the scale of the war they are conducting alongside Israel against Iran, leaving its friends exposed to Iranian missiles under the pretext of a shortage in interceptor production, while dedicating its production and military industry to supplying Israel.

At the same time, the Arab option has been limited to dealing with Ukraine—which barely defends its own territories against the Russian attack—and President Volodymyr Zelensky’s initiative has been presented as possibly the only option in this difficult circumstance to provide weapons and drones that could protect the Gulf skies.

However, Kyiv’s military history and the corruption that has plagued its leadership, headed by Zelensky himself, do not bode well for the Arab countries suffering from Iranian strikes. The man whom Washington has pushed into the Gulf’s arms as the only savior does not possess a magic wand or any alternative solutions; promises are his sole and only weapon. His capabilities are entirely absent; otherwise, he would have focused on defending his own country. Additionally, Zelensky only possesses one weapon and has become ineffective against defensive developments in the face of offensive operations.

This weapon in question is an anti-drone aircraft against the Iranian “Shahed” drones, but it is only capable of countering the older models of Shahed and cannot deal with the newer types, not to mention its failure to counter other Iranian offensive weapons.

Western reports and information reveal that Zelensky’s offer to the Arab countries came with a request for a huge sum of money under the pretext that it would initiate manufacturing and open production lines to meet Gulf defense needs. It exposes that Ukrainian military and political leadership have long taken funds from European countries to produce defensive weapons, but the weapons never appeared, and the money disappeared. Zelensky also halted the work of organizations and institutions that reveal corruption, before Europe and the U.S. ordered him to cancel the decision and restore their work.

Cooperation with Ukraine will not provide the Arab countries with security, and their skies will remain exposed to Iranian missiles, for which the United States bears primary responsibility after opening war fronts with Iran without supporting its friends, with whom it signed promotional agreements and collected trillions of dollars over the years.

It is evident that the Ukrainian president is exploiting the war in the Gulf, hoping to secure substantial financial gain for himself and his entourage in the end. He is attempting to present himself as an ally to America by filling the defense void left for its Arab friends, while trying to regain Western support for his country after U.S. priorities shifted to the front with Iran and supplying Israel with the necessary defensive requirements.