Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy recently concluded a Middle East tour during which he visited Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Jordan, and Syria. The president described the results achieved during the visits as “historic.” However, how do these countries view these agreements? Are the countries in the region prepared to abandon cooperation with Moscow in order to strengthen relations with Kyiv? The Ukrainian Week discussed all of this in an interview with Dr. Omar Ashur, a British-Canadian professor of security and military studies at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies (Qatar), the Qatar Police Academy, and the University of Exeter (UK), and author of the book “How ISIS Fights: Military Tactics in Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Egypt”.
— President Volodymyr Zelenskyy recently visited several Gulf countries, announcing what he called “historic” agreements, including a 10-year intergovernmental cooperation deal in the defence sector with Qatar and a defence agreement with Saudi Arabia. How are these deals viewed in the region? Are they seen in the same “historic” terms?
— They are historic in every sense. I am very glad they happened. I have been trying to highlight this both in Europe and in the UK, where there is a strong understanding of the importance of Ukraine’s contribution to doctrine, defence planning and tactics. I have also been doing the same here in the Gulf. If you remember, I wrote an article at the beginning of the war about the importance of the Global South’s arsenals, when Ukraine still needed Soviet-produced munitions and systems that were widely available there. Now, in a sense, things have shifted. Ukraine is no longer a consumer of security. It has become a producer of battlefield knowledge.
Ukraine is now offering Gulf countries not just symbolism or the moral dimension of a country under attack, but above all battle-tested expertise in two key domains: air and sea.
These are the areas that matter most to the Persian Gulf planners. That includes sea denial without a major fleet, and layered air defence without bankrupting the defender — something Ukraine is actively demonstrating. In this sense, Ukraine is exporting not only drones, but doctrine; not only hardware, but hard-earned operational literacy. These agreements are historic for both Ukraine and the Gulf. Here, however, they are seen as something even more valuable: urgent, practical, and highly relevant. They include advisory teams, training packages, and potentially joint trials of intercepted drones, as well as doctrine transfer. This is particularly important, as local doctrines require significant updating. There is also a strong need for adaptation in electronic warfare. We have already seen, for example, in Iraq how Iran-backed militias use FPV and fiber-optic-guided drones to bypass electronic warfare systems, even striking utility helicopters like the Black Hawk.
Ukraine is offering a comprehensive package: training, tactics, technology transfer and potential co-production. This is no longer symbolic cooperation — it is practical and operational, and that is precisely why it matters.
The six countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) have never been fully unified in their stance on Ukraine. Considerable diplomatic effort has gone into building support across the region. What we are seeing now is a shift: support is increasingly driven not only by moral considerations, but by clear strategic utility.
— Are the six GCC countries now more aligned in their stance, or do significant differences still remain?
— There is both unity and divergence, and the future will largely depend on how events on the battlefield unfold. Historically, positions have varied significantly. Qatar, for example, has drawn parallels with Ukraine. In 2017, it faced the threat of an invasion by a coalition led by Saudi Arabia, alongside the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt, based on similar claims involving language, history and religion. Its alliance with the United States ultimately prevented that invasion. That same dynamic, however, did not work for Ukraine — neither in 2014 nor in 2022. In 2022, support did come, but too late to stop the war.
So, in a way, the U.S. record here was better. It liberated Kuwait in 1991 without a formal defence agreement. This stands in contrast to Ukraine, which had the Budapest Memorandum on security assurances in 1994, yet when it was invaded in 2014, the Obama administration made clear that it would not do much beyond sanctions and diplomacy. Here, however, the alliance worked. In 1990-1991 the U.S. mobilised 900,000 troops, conducted a 37-day air campaign followed by 100 hours of ground combat, and liberated Kuwait.
At the same time, some countries — such as the UAE — previously viewed Putin’s Russia as a model: a country with a strongman leader who does not care about international law, running an iron-fist regime in Moscow, largely unpressured by freedoms, human rights, international law, or democratic lobbying.
And in the middle of Russia’s war against Ukraine, we saw the story of “blood gold” in Africa involving the Wagner Group, African militias, and in some cases certain governments, including in the Central African Republic and Mali. Gold was extracted and then channelled to the Russian Federation via the UAE, effectively supporting the war effort. That was a clear signal of support.
Putin also received a hero’s welcome during his visit to the UAE, where the skies were even painted in the colours of the Russian flag. It was clear he was not being treated as an ICC-indicted suspect, but rather as a war hero. That marked a very different stance.
These are the two extremes. In between sit countries like Kuwait, which has itself been invaded and therefore saw Ukraine through a similar lens — also shaped by familiar claims about shared language, culture and religion, as in Iraq’s case. But Kuwait is a small country and had limited room to act.
During this war, it has become clear what a larger aggressor can do with cheap, mass-produced, pre-programmed systems that know exactly where they are headed. These can be combined with decoys, backed up by larger systems such as ballistic missiles, and even integrated with manned aircraft. Seeing this, countries in the region have begun to recognise the value of Ukraine’s experience — particularly in air defence — above all because of the cost-exchange dynamic. It is well known how expensive PAC-3 Patriot interceptors are, as well as those used in THAAD systems.
In the case of PAC-3, it depends on the version — the MSEs cost around $4 million. When they are used to intercept Shahed drones costing between $20,000 and $50,000, the cost-exchange ratio quickly turns unfavourable. This is where Ukraine comes in. After dealing with this problem for a prolonged period, Ukraine has developed significant experience in building and operating multi-layered air defence systems.
This is also where we see a degree of convergence across the region — I would say across all six countries, most clearly in Qatar, with the 10-year defence agreement, and in Saudi Arabia, with what it describes as a “framework for future contracts, technological cooperation and investment.” In a sense, this reflects a broader strategic pragmatism on all sides. And this regional perception, I think, is very timely, useful, and ultimately consequential.
— Both at the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and after the escalation in Gaza, Middle Eastern countries took very different positions on Ukraine. Some stayed neutral. Others, including Saudi Arabia and Egypt, bought Russian grain — which was in fact partly Ukrainian, as Russia had stolen it from temporarily occupied territories. Has that position shifted since the start of the U.S.-Israeli strikes against Iran?
— Absolutely. One key factor has been that the accusation of Western double standards resonated strongly with many countries in the so-called Global South. In their perception of Ukraine, there were indeed double standards. Some countries took principled positions, but many did not.
Part of the issue, from their perspective, is the belief that the Soviet Union consistently supported them, and that the Soviet Union is essentially the same as Russia. But once you start unpacking that, it becomes clear that the Soviet Union was not simply Russia. In fact, in an interesting parallel with today — where Ukraine is sending air defence instructors and defence industry specialists to support Gulf countries — Ukraine was doing something very similar in the Soviet period. In the 1960s and 1970s, it sent air defence instructors, artillery specialists, pilots, radar teams and, at times, even special operations personnel to a range of Middle Eastern countries, including Egypt, Iraq and Algeria.
In Egypt, there was the only direct confrontation between the Soviet Union and Israel over the skies of Sinai. The Israelis won that air battle, and three Soviet pilots were killed — two of them, if I’m not mistaken, Ukrainians. In a way, history does not really repeat itself, but it rhymes.
That’s one end of the spectrum. On the other hand, Egypt has been deeply tied to Russia. The regimes are quite similar, and in a certain way they see themselves as mirrors of each other. Egypt needed money, and at one point produced 122 mm rockets for GRAD systems. It was reportedly preparing to sell them to Russia, but under U.S. pressure during the Biden administration, it appears to have halted the deal or possibly redirected it to Ukraine.
It is now reported that Egypt imported roughly 7.6 million tons of grain this season. At the same time, Ukrainian intelligence has stated that Russia exported more than two million tons of grain from occupied Ukrainian territories in 2025. This makes Egypt, and also Saudi Arabia, major destinations. There have also been reports that some of the stolen Ukrainian grain reached these markets through concealment schemes, including ship-to-ship transfers and similar tactics.
But the overall picture remains complicated, both in terms of positions before the war and during the current war in the Persian Gulf. Frankly, I am not even sure how to count it anymore — it is either the third Gulf War by one definition, or the sixth by another. In any case, the 2026 Gulf War has not eliminated Gulf hedging; it has simply reordered priorities.
For some regimes, Russia remains a model, as well as an energy and commodity partner, including, in some cases, grain originating from occupied Ukrainian territories. At the same time, Ukraine is becoming an increasingly important security partner, with growing relevance and expertise. This is likely to shape defence doctrines across the entire GCC, and possibly also in Jordan, Syria and Iraq.
— This brings us to the question of trust between partners. Given the region’s past experience and earlier cooperation, trust is a particularly sensitive issue for Ukraine when it comes to security cooperation. So how can Ukraine and Gulf countries build that mutual trust?
— Trust will be built partly through diplomacy, both official and “second-track”, as well as through effective strategic communication. But what will really cement that trust, in my view, are the interception rates achieved by Ukrainian systems and capabilities. Contracts that hold up under real-world conditions, operational credibility, systems that actually work, training that minimises leakage, proper end-use discipline, and co-production arrangements that can withstand pressure will all contribute as well. All of this will help build trust not through slogans, but through results on the ground.
President Zelenskyy has also emphasised that arms sales should take place at the government level, not through private channels, and this, of course, strengthens trust. Ultimately, what Gulf states are looking for is reliability of systems, discretion when needed, and state-backed execution that ensures sustainability.
So I don’t think Ukraine will have a problem delivering on this. But the adversary always has a say: Russia and Iran can introduce countermeasures and respond in kind, and Ukraine will have to keep adapting in turn.
— There is a growing view that the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East are becoming increasingly interconnected. As a recent Guardian article put it, “what happens in one theatre of the war has a tangible impact on the other”. How do you see that relationship between the two conflicts?
— It is absolutely correct. These are no longer separate conflicts. Strategically, this interconnectedness is not new. The Soviets, for example, viewed the space from the Baltics to the Mediterranean as a single theatre. Today, we might extend that from the Baltic Sea to the Red Sea or even further — all the way down south of Oman.
The linkages are technological, economic, and strategic. The same drone technologies, such as Shahed systems, are used in both theatres. And the counter-technologies are being developed in Ukraine and are now being exported to the Gulf. The two theatres are also interconnected through energy, as LNG and oil prices are rising sharply, which, of course, brings in additional resources to Russia.
The Russian government was at one point unable to sustain the $20,000 signing bonus for contract soldiers. Some regional governors even complained that they could not pay compensation owed to the families of fallen soldiers.
At the same time, Ukraine has inflicted casualty levels that Russia struggles to offset through recruitment. The main constraint is financial — Russia simply does not have the resources to sustain the required recruitment levels. Ukraine has pushed total monthly losses (across all five categories: killed, wounded, captured, missing, or defected) to over 30,000. Russia has not been able to match this through recruitment, largely because of funding limits. As a result, it has resorted to measures such as university quotas intended to push students towards military service, and is even considering general mobilisation, which is not particularly viable politically.
But then energy politics come into play, particularly around the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf. Due to the crisis, oil prices have spiked, which could once again give Russia greater financial capacity to recruit and deploy more soldiers in its war against Ukraine. This is how interconnected these dynamics are. And, of course, sanctions are part of the equation too — imposed, adjusted, and in some cases relaxed.
— When we spoke two years ago, in the early months of the Israel–Hamas war, you said that Ukraine needed a consistent, or even more sophisticated, strategic communications policy in the Middle East. How would you assess Ukraine’s communication strategy in the region over the past two years? Have there been any notable achievements or milestones?
— I would say it is improving, both in rhetoric and in substance. Official statements increasingly take into account the region’s complexities and sensitivities. We were talking about six countries that, in some cases, have faced threats from other Gulf states, yet still maintain very different positions on the war in Ukraine. That alone shows how complex the situation is.
On the one hand, the messaging has evolved. At the beginning, Ukraine’s communication here was largely framed as an appeal for solidarity, grounded in moral, ethical and legal arguments. That position remains valid and clear. But, as we know, pragmatism often prevails.
What we are seeing now is a shift: Ukraine’s strategic communication has moved from a purely normative appeal to an offer of concrete strategic utility — something that directly affects the region’s security and defence.
This marks a significant step forward, both in messaging and in practical terms. Frankly, Ukraine’s value to Gulf countries is no longer abstract. It has faced Shahed drones, absorbed large-scale missile strikes, and protected its infrastructure under sustained, complex attack patterns — very similar to those now relevant in the Gulf.
Ukraine has also demonstrated innovation. We have not spoken much about the maritime dimension, but Ukraine has effectively achieved maritime denial in the Black Sea without a traditional navy, which is highly significant. In simple terms, Ukraine has already dealt with the kinds of defence and security challenges the Gulf is now confronting.
Because of that, it can speak with real credibility when offering assistance. At the same time, Gulf states will need to adjust their policies and behaviour — towards stronger support for Ukraine and less of a fixation on Russia.
