Last week, Iran joined the Russian-Ukrainian War – or should we start calling it the Russian-Ukrainian front of World War III?
Kyiv Post
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Ebrahim Azizi, head of the Iranian Parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, has stated that the participation of Ukrainian specialists in countering Iranian drones in the Middle East makes Ukraine a legitimate target for attacks by the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Does this mean that Iranian drones, which, so far, have been launched at Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities from annexed Crimea and Russia, will start arriving direct from Iran? That’s unlikely.
Firstly, the distance is too great. Secondly, an attack would require Putin’s permission to use Russian airspace and, much as Putin would appreciate the “extra help” from Iran, there is always the considerable risk of drones falling short of Ukraine and crashing into Russian territory. No less importantly, drones launched by Iran would create chaos for Russian civilian aviation, which is already regularly disrupted by Ukraine.
Furthermore, Russian air defenses, which have already learned to shoot down their own planes and helicopters, could easily mistake the Iranian drones for Ukrainian ones. Shahed-type drones, resembling enormous flying triangles, are already being produced in Ukraine, the US, and, of course, in Russia, and are visually indistinguishable on radar. Things could become very complicated.
Given all this, if Iran is determined to retaliate for Ukraine’s assistance to Israel and offer of help to the United States, the logical method would be to transfer even more drones and missiles to Russia for its war against Ukraine.
The disruption left Russian units struggling to coordinate, reducing drone pressure and creating openings Ukrainian forces were able to exploit.
In the current situation, however, such a move must be out of the question. With its military factories and ammunition depots destroyed, Iran needs its remaining drones and missiles, and it will want to fire them at nearby targets, increasing the chances of causing economic and military damage to neighboring countries, the US, and NATO military bases.
This new war has pushed Russian-Ukrainian negotiations off the table. Perhaps Trump was looking for a smokescreen to hide his lack of success in stopping the war in Europe, but it is doubtful he is enjoying the tangled web of military and economic interests that has so quickly sprung up as a result of US and Israeli attacks on Iran.
Trump and his team have been careful to keep their end goals vague, and Trump may not have realized that this lack of clarity coupled with the breadth and ferocity of US attacks makes his regime look even more like Putin’s. He could find himself in the same situation as the Russian leader, whose most ardent supporters are already asking, “When will the SMO (special military operation) end?”
America, of course, already has experience of withdrawing from wars without achieving their objectives in Vietnam and Afghanistan. NATO, weakened by Trump’s lack of support, would have more to lose from withdrawing from a war with Iran without achieving clear goals. Trump is looking for NATO support, but European NATO countries are in no rush to join in this fray, understanding that their participation would further raise the “status” of the war and reduce the chances of it ending quickly.
The US may feel obliged to help Israel, but other NATO countries have no obligations to Israel, nor any treaties regarding security guarantees. Moreover, Europe remains highly critical of Israel’s actions in Gaza.
President Trump’s aims in attacking Iran may be vague, but he does have a very clear target date for the victorious end of this “special military operation” – the US midterm elections, which will take place on Nov. 3 this year. Of course, the war must end long enough before that to allow pro-Trump media to paint the military operation in glorious colors and to counter any outrage over the costs.
Trump’s lifting of sanctions against Russia to allow the sale of Russian oil is certainly not to Ukraine’s advantage, but the US-Israeli war has seen some positive effects for Ukraine. We are now the world leader in countering Iranian drones, and I assume that countries in the Middle East, which are currently subject to attacks from them, have intensified their cooperation with Ukraine in this area of expertise.
President Zelensky also offered assistance to the US, but this provoked a rather negative reaction from President Trump, who said that the US didn’t need Ukraine’s assistance because American drones were the best.
Indeed, the US recently deployed up to 10,000 Merops interceptor drones in the Middle East. Perhaps President Trump forgot that these inexpensive ($15,000 apiece) interceptor drones were developed with the participation of Ukrainian specialists and were first tested in combat operations on Ukrainian territory.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s and not necessarily those of Kyiv Post.
