BEIRUT — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has signed new, 10-year defense cooperation deals with Qatar and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and said a similar agreement would be reached with United Arab Emirates in the following days.
“We are talking about a 10-year partnership. We have already signed the agreement with Saudi Arabia, and we have just signed a similar 10-year agreement with Qatar,” Zelenskyy told reporters on Saturday, according to Reuters.
The Qatari Ministry of Defense said online that the “agreement includes collaboration in technological fields, development of joint projects, defense investments and the exchange of expertise in countering missiles and unmanned aerial systems.”
Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Defense also announced on X on Friday that an agreement was signed with its Ukrainian counterpart “on defense procurement arrangements,” but no further details were shared.
On Friday Zelenskyy added that he met with Ukrainian military experts, who have been in Saudi Arabia for more than a week.
“The guys reported on the first results of the team’s work and conclusions both at the operational and broader levels,” he said on Instagram. “The main task of our experts in protecting the sky in this region is to identify problematic issues and determine what changes are needed to strengthen the protection of people and life from Iranian ‘shahids’ and missiles.”
He added that Kyiv is ready “to support the protection of those who help us defend our independence. We discussed the key points of what is needed for greater protection of the sky in Saudi Arabia, and this primarily concerns approaches to shooting down drones. Ukraine is ready for long-term and mutually beneficial cooperation.”
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Ukraine has been dealing with Iranian Shahed 136 drones and their Russian derivative, Geran, for years and has developed cost-effective ways to counter them.
“Ukraine has been countering Shahed/Geran drones for years, [and] all features of this defense are of interest to the Gulf: identifying incoming drones (SIGINT/ELINT); sharing data on the incoming threats; interdicting such UAVs: stationary and mobile firing groups, short-range air defense batteries (SHORAD), interceptor drones; and other features such as how to conceal/harden/camouflage potential targets,” Samuel Bendett, an adviser at Center for New America Security (CNAS), told Breaking Defense.
He added that another key feature of cooperation “is investments in Ukrainian defense tech, so that potential solutions can be quickly available to Gulf countries as they are tested against Russian drones and missiles.”
Jean Marc Rickli, head of global and emerging risks at the Geneva Center for Security Policy, said Ukraine has had “no choice than to innovate” in the face of Russia’s onslaught, and that the Gulf nations could quickly benefit from that experience.
“They can also dispatch trainers to train the Gulf military. They can also share their lessons learnt and to adapt the Gulf defense systems.,” Rickli said, adding that Ukraine can teach Gulf states “the rapid innovation cycle that they are implementing. Ukraine can share its expertise in building and innovating very quickly so as to adapt to the very fast pace of innovation in the drone and counter-drone industry.”