Name: Ukraine signs deal with Saudi Arabia offering drone expertise | BBC News
Uploaded: 2026-03-27T21:32:45.000Z
Duration: 4 min 28 s
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Ukraine's President Zelenskyy says his country has struck a deal with Saudi Arabia to share its drone air defense expertise and technology.

Zelenskyy said the kingdom was facing the same type of ballistic missile and drone attacks from Iran that Ukraine had been resisting for more than four years from Russia.

More now from Vitaly Shevchenko, our chief analyst at BBC Monitoring, who's in Kyiv and told us more about the agreement.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy doesn't really say much about what exactly he signed with the Saudis.

But I think we can make an educated guess that this is all about Ukraine's expertise accumulated during the war with Russia, particularly drones and anti-drone technology, because this is the kind of threat that Ukraine's been facing for four years now,

and now it's the Gulf that's being bombed and attacked with drones.

He says that this arrangement, as he calls it on social media, strengthens Ukraine's global role and regional role in ensuring security and improving security,

and it also paves the way for future contracts and investment.

And earlier, he said that it's air defense missiles that Gulf states have,

and Ukraine has a shortage of, that he is interested in getting return for drones and expertise that Ukraine has.

And this comes, Catherine, at a particularly important, crucial time for Ukraine, because the United States, which used to provide Ukraine with a huge amount of military assistance, that has all but dried up,

and now the United States is distracted by Iran.

So Ukraine is really desperate for anything that it can get out of the Gulf.

And Volodymyr Zelenskyy is keen for this to be not just a commercial transaction.

He wants to put Ukraine firmly on the map as a donor of security, as he puts it in his social media message.

But we've been speaking to Ukrainian drone manufacturers here in Kyiv,

and they say they have been approached by representatives of countries such as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait and Bahrain.

But what the Ukrainian manufacturers are saying, they're waiting for the green light, the go-ahead from Zelenskyy's office, so that whatever they're selling to the Gulf works to increase Ukraine's role as an exporter rather than an importer of technology.

So what we might be seeing is Ukraine trying to turn the tables here a bit.

And, Vitaly, Iranian drones, the Shahed drones, were some of the first to be used there in the conflict in Ukraine.

How has the use of drones changed over the last four years?

So the Shahed drones, they are originally an Iranian design, which was imported by Russia.

Now they're being produced by Russia in huge quantities.

Just a couple of days ago, hundreds and hundreds of such drones attacked Ukraine, multiple cities across Ukraine.

There's all sorts of long-range strike drones.

There's first-person view drones that are remote-controlled by operators who see them fly in real time.

There's drones which rely on fiber optic cables, not radio communications, because they can be jammed.

So what we're seeing is this technology that's being developed at an amazingly fast pace,

The Ukrainians are saying they are the global leader in drone technology.

So this is what they're offering to the globe.

And I'm sure Volodymyr Zelenskyy is also really keen to use this technology as a bargaining chip in his talks with the United States.

He is keen to show that he has cards, some cards at least.

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Ukraine signs deal with Saudi Arabia offering drone expertise | BBC News

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