The United States has asked Ukraine for assistance in protecting against hostile Shahed drones amid the war with Iran, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Thursday. "We received a request

As the U.S. and its allies face Iran’s response to President Donald Trump’s renewed bombardment of the Middle East, the allied air forces must find a solution to a growing problem: drones.

The United States is dominating the skies above Iran. But math is not necessarily on America’s side. Iran is using low-cost drones for precision attacks in the Middle East. The United States and its allies have air defense systems capable of intercepting a vast majority of Iranian ballistic missiles and drones, which are sophisticated yet costly.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said that Kyiv could provide defensive systems as well as assistance to civilians and American soldiers “deployed in certain countries” in the Middle East as the war in Iran continues.

There is some irony in the fact that America’s LUCAS drone—now being used to strike targets across Iran—is virtually a copy of Iran’s indigenously designed Shahed drone.

Swarms of low-cost drones used by the Russians in Ukraine have been breaching U.S. air defense systems and striking targets across the Middle East.

Gulf states lambast Iran for its continued strikes on their territories, with Qatar urging all sides to de-escalate.