- March 26, 2026
- 11:33 pm
- World News
On March 25, 2026, the American publication The National Interest released an article by Michael Luccese titled How Ukraine Can Help Donald Trump Defeat Iran. The main idea of the article is simple and sounds quite concrete for the Israeli audience: Kyiv views the confrontation with Tehran not as a foreign Middle Eastern story, but as part of a larger war against the axis of autocracies, which includes Iran, Russia, and, more broadly, China.
Against this backdrop, it is particularly telling that Volodymyr Zelensky, despite the well-known tension in relations with Donald Trump, publicly supported the American strikes on Iran as early as February 28, 2026, just a few hours after the operation began. In a post on X, he wrote that it is important for the US to act decisively because every time America shows determination, “global criminals weaken.” It is precisely this episode that The National Interest relies on when discussing the unexpected but quite logical political connection between Kyiv and Washington on the Iranian issue.
For Israel, the important thing here is not the genre of beautiful journalism, but the logic itself. Ukraine has long ceased to perceive Iran as a distant regional problem. For Kyiv, Tehran is a direct accomplice in the war because Iranian Shaheds have become one of the symbols of Russian strikes on Ukrainian cities, and then Moscow established its own production of these drones. This same line was previously publicly formulated by the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, stating that Iran is an accomplice in the aggression against Ukraine.
Why Kyiv supports strikes on Iran without much hesitation
The article in The National Interest makes an important observation: Ukraine’s support on this issue is not based on personal sympathy for Trump and is not reduced to American domestic political struggle. Kyiv views the war more broadly. For the Ukrainian leadership, a strike on the Iranian regime simultaneously means a strike on the military, technological, and political infrastructure that helps Russia.
These are no longer two separate wars
In March, Zelensky spoke even more harshly. According to Reuters, he claimed that Ukraine has confirmed information about the use of Russian versions of Shahed by Iran against American bases in the Middle East, and also accused Moscow of transferring intelligence to Tehran. In other words, it is no longer just about the old scheme of “Iran supplies Russia,” but about a more dense military exchange in both directions.
Hence the conclusion, which for the Israeli reader seems especially understandable: the war against Iran and the war against Ukraine no longer exist in different political folders. One fuels the other. One front helps the second. One regime strengthens the second.
And in Jerusalem, they understand this perhaps much better than in many Western European capitals.
As early as 2024, Zelensky publicly drew a direct parallel between the skies over Israel and the skies over Ukraine, saying that “Shaheds” sound the same in the Middle East and over Ukrainian cities.
At that time, it looked like a strong metaphor. In the spring of 2026, it is almost a dry description of a common military reality.
Ukraine offers the West not only sympathy but also practical benefits
The most interesting thesis in the material of The National Interest is that Ukraine is now trying to act not only as a recipient of aid but also as a supplier of unique military experience. After several years of war, it is Kyiv that has accumulated one of the largest practices in the world in combating massive Shahed attacks, FPV drones, and combined air raids.
And now this experience is needed not only in Europe.
According to Reuters, Ukraine sent dozens, and then hundreds of specialists to Middle Eastern countries to help repel Iranian attacks. It was about Qatar, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and later a wider range of countries in the region. Kyiv also offered an exchange: Ukrainian solutions for intercepting drones and expertise in air defense in exchange for technologies, investments, and air defense missiles for Ukraine itself.
Kyiv is trying to turn combat experience into strategic capital
That’s why the article in The National Interest is important not only as another column in support of Ukraine.
It reflects a broader shift. Kyiv wants to prove to its allies that it is no longer just asking for weapons and money but is becoming part of the common security system of the West. For Israel, this sounds especially concrete: Ukrainian experience in combating Iranian drones has indeed become needed in a region that itself lives under the threat of Iranian missiles, drones, and proxy structures.
And here a broader context appears, which the Israeli audience reads faster than many. News — Israel News | Nikk.Agency in such topics is important because it helps to see not a set of disparate crises, but one strategic chain: Iran helps Moscow, Moscow helps Iran, Ukraine learns to shoot down Iranian drones in its war, and then this experience becomes in demand in the Middle East, where Israel has long lived under the same threat — only in a different geography.
This is no longer just foreign policy. This is the same military language.
Why this logic is especially important for Israel
For the Israeli reader, the article in The National Interest is valuable not because it praises Zelensky or Trump. Its real value lies elsewhere: it captures a new international reality where the lines between European and Middle Eastern security are blurring faster and faster.
Israel and Ukraine are increasingly finding themselves in the same strategic framework
Israel has long assumed that Iran is not only a nuclear threat and not only regional expansion but also a producer of military technologies that then work on different fronts. Ukraine, in turn, has gained unique experience in countering these technologies over the past few years.
Therefore, it is not surprising that Kyiv is increasingly loudly saying: victory over the Iranian regime is not a “foreign war” and not a plot for foreign TV channels, but part of a common struggle for world order, where autocracies cannot be allowed to endlessly strengthen each other.
In this sense, the material of The National Interest can also be read as a signal to Washington. If Ukraine is useful not only on its territory, if it is capable of strengthening allies and sharing combat experience, then the attitude towards it as a passive consumer of Western aid becomes outdated. And for Israel, this leads to an even more practical conclusion: the Iran-Russia link does not weaken by itself, and the faster the West begins to perceive the Ukrainian and Middle Eastern theaters as interconnected, the fewer strategic illusions there will be.
That is why the thought from The National Interest should not be dismissed as too journalistic.
Behind it lies the rather harsh reality of 2026: Ukraine is no longer just a front against Russia. It is becoming part of a broader anti-Iranian, and therefore anti-autocratic architecture, in which the security of Israel, Europe, and Ukraine itself is intertwined much more strongly than the West wanted to admit until recently.