‘Told you so’: Ukraine’s envoy laments past Israeli refusal to collaborate on drones

After deadly Hezbollah strike on base, Ambassador Korniychuk says countries fighting same enemy, touts increased cooperation since Oct. 7 but wishes for more

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian (R) and commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' Aerospace Force Amir Ali Hajizadeh look on as Iran's new Shahed 136-B drone is displayed during the annual military parade marking the anniversary of the outbreak of the 1980-1988 war with Saddam Hussein's Iraq, in Tehran on September 21, 2024. (Atta Kenare/AFP)
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian (R) and commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' Aerospace Force Amir Ali Hajizadeh look on as Iran's new Shahed 136-B drone is displayed during the annual military parade marking the anniversary of the outbreak of the 1980-1988 war with Saddam Hussein's Iraq, in Tehran on September 21, 2024. (Atta Kenare/AFP)

Ukraine’s ambassador to Israel lamented Monday that Israel had not accepted Kyiv’s past offers to collaborate on countering Iran-made drones, a day after one such drone fired by Hezbollah from Lebanon crashed into a military base, killing four soldiers and injuring dozens.

Yevgen Korniychuk told the Ynet news site that in February 2023, he had brought to the Prime Minister’s Office the remains of an Iranian drone that Russia had fired at Kyiv, warning that absent cooperation with Ukraine, similar drones would soon come crashing into Israel.

“I don’t want to say now, ‘I told you so,’ but I told you so,” said Korniychuk, who has previously accused Jerusalem of “close cooperation” with Moscow due to Israel’s refusal to provide Ukraine with certain defensive weapons after Russia invaded in 2022.

“It has long been clear to me that we are fighting the same enemy,” he said, highlighting the close ties between Russia and Iran. “I can say that after the attack on Israel that happened on October 7, [2023], Israel woke up, but there is much more to do.”

Korniychuk said that in the past six months, his country had intercepted between 80 and 90 percent of Iran-made drones, of which Russia fired between 15 and 80 a day during September.

Using exploding drones, the envoy said, Ukraine has been able to take out enemy UAVs at a relatively low cost.

File: Ukraine’s Ambassador to Israel Yevgen Korniychuk attends a ceremony marking the two years anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, in Tel Aviv, on February 23, 2023. (Erik Marmor/Flash90)

While cooperation on the matter has become more active since October 7, Korniychuk said he wished more was done, including intelligence sharing.

However, Dr. Yehoshua Kalisky a researcher at the Tel Aviv-based Institute for National Security Studies, told Ynet that vast Ukraine has more leeway in shooting down drones than does Israel, a densely populated country can’t afford to to shoot and miss.

Israel has struggled to deal with the drone threat throughout the current war. It was Hamas drones that first crossed from Gaza on the morning of October 7, 2023, to disable electronic monitoring systems and pave the way for the massive cross-border onslaught. Drones launched by Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon and Houthi rebels in Yemen have also managed to cause fatalities after evading Israel’s air defenses.

Figures released Monday showed that over the course of the war, some 1,200 drones have been fired at Israel by Iran-backed terror groups, and 221 have gotten through Israel’s defenses.

Ukraine, which since Russia’s invasion in early 2022 has itself been dealing with Iran-made drones, offered Israel military and technological cooperation in February 2023, with Korniychuk even bringing drone shards to senior Israeli officials as part of his extensive attempts to convince the Jewish state to take a much stronger stance in favor of Kyiv and against Moscow, but Israel rebuffed those overtures.

In June 2023, Zelensky’s chief of staff Andriy Yermak told The Times of Israel that “nobody but Israel can provide equipment to combat attacks by Iranian drones.”

Ukrainian air defense intercepts an Iranian-designed Shahed drone mid-air during a Russia aerial attack on the capital in Kyiv, Ukraine, September 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

At the time, Korniychuk told Channel 12 news, “Tomorrow, you may experience the same Iranian drone attack here.” In October 2022, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told the network: “We are fighting against Iran each day, 400 attacks of Iranian drones on our people, civilians, infrastructure. We gave information to Israel and we said ‘help us with air defenses’… We can join against this evil on air defense.”

Russia maintains a military presence in Syria, Israel’s northern and bellicose neighbor. The need to balance security interests at home and policy abroad, while maintaining relations with both Moscow and Kyiv, produced a relatively restrained response from successive Israeli governments to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

On the other hand, Russia has regularly criticized Israel since October 7, including at the UN Security Council, and has hosted Hamas leaders, in a development widely seen as an extension of its increasingly friendly ties with Iran.

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