In an interview with Fox News, the U.S. president said Washington doesn’t need Ukraine’s help in the Middle East.
The U.S. does not need Ukraine’s help with air defense in the Middle East, President Donald Trump said Friday.
“We don’t need their help in drone defense,” Trump told Fox News in an interview. “We know more about drones than anybody. We have the best drones in the world, actually.”
The comments came after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the U.S. had requested support in protecting against Shahed drones in the Middle East. “I gave instructions to provide the necessary means and ensure the presence of Ukrainian specialists who can guarantee the required security,” the Ukrainian leader wrote on social media on March 6.
He later told the New York Times that Kyiv had deployed interceptor drones and a team of drone specialists to help protect U.S. military bases in Jordan.
POLITICO reported last week that Ukrainian officials were in talks with Persian Gulf countries and the U.S. to offer their anti-drone expertise and drone tech against Iranian attacks, in exchange for financial support and to boost Zelenskyy’s leverage with the White House.
Zelenskyy called Trump’s remarks to Fox News “rhetoric” and also thanked Washington for supplying weapons for Ukraine’s war effort. “Rhetoric is rhetoric. The main thing is that we know what we are doing,” Zelenskyy told reporters in Paris.
“We are grateful to the Americans for continuing to have the opportunity to buy through the PURL program,” he said, referring to Prioritized Ukraine Requirements List. “And what we are buying includes Himars and missiles for the Patriot,” Zelenskyy said.
In his Fox News interview, Trump vowed to hit Iran “very hard over the next week.” “We are decimating them. We’ve knocked out most of their missiles. We’ve knocked out many of their drones,” he said. “We’re hitting them harder than anybody’s been hit since World War II.”