Politicians and experts continue to argue about how significant Ukraine’s role might be in the war that Iran is waging with drones against American bases in the Middle East, the countries of the Persian Gulf, and Israel. For example, Volodymyr Zelensky speaks about requests for assistance and the presence of Ukrainian specialists, while Donald Trump just as energetically dismisses the importance and necessity of Ukrainian help. But regardless of what the presidents say, even the American drones now used in the conflict zone were tested precisely on the Ukrainian front.
That we were entering a new era became clear in the very first months of the full-scale war, when Ukrainians—amid a massive Russian offensive aimed at occupying most of the country and replacing the Ukrainian government—were singing songs about the “Bayraktar.” Later, the very nature of drone warfare changed precisely because Iran began supplying Russia with cheap drones of a new type. It is striking that at the time neither Washington nor Jerusalem had enough foresight or strategic thinking to realize that the Iranians decided to supply their drones to the Kremlin not simply out of love for Putin or for money, but because they needed a testing ground and were preparing for a major war in the Middle East. They could not have failed to understand that Iran has little it can oppose to American military power except a war of economic attrition in a region rich in oil and gas. And this is exactly the stage we have now reached—a stage that should force all of us to draw conclusions.
The question is not how many drones capable of countering Iranian strikes are in the Ukrainian arsenal. The question is that over the past years the Ukrainian army has learned how to fight drones in a way no other army could—because it was Ukrainians who found themselves at the epicenter of this new kind of war. Now Americans and their allies are gaining such experience as well, but this is only the beginning of major conflicts. That is why the experience of Ukrainian military operations is truly invaluable for the civilized world—of course, if this civilized world wants to survive rather than drown in endless wars of attrition imposed by authoritarian regimes. After all, a world with deep economic interconnections and delicate infrastructure has become sufficiently fragile and vulnerable even to a small unmanned aircraft.
Of course, new wars and conflicts—and there will be many more of them in our lifetime—will lead to new technological revolutions, and perhaps new armies and nations will have to learn the difficult art of survival in a century of permanent catastrophes and mistakes. But as of today, in the “age of drones,” it is Ukrainians who have become the pioneers of resistance and survival—and no politician, even if he is the President of the United States, will be able to refute this obvious truth.
Author: Vitaly Portnikov
