“Didn’t want to upset Russia”: Former UK Defense Minister “explained” why Israel refused to arm Ukraine

Former UK Defense Secretary Ben Wallace sharply criticized Benjamin Netanyahu’s government’s policy regarding Russia’s war against Ukraine.

According to the British politician, he personally recommended to the Israeli leadership to provide military assistance to Ukraine, but “was refused.” Wallace claims that the Israeli side explained its position by not wanting to “upset Russia.”

The statement was made on July 19, 2026 on the social network X and quickly went beyond the usual discussion among politicians. Wallace linked Israel’s refusal to arm Ukraine with the further strengthening of military-technical cooperation between Moscow and Tehran.

“I recommended to Benjamin Netanyahu’s government that he help Ukraine. Israel declined saying they didn’t want to upset Russia. So Russia kept spending nearly $1bn+ on Iranian drones. Now ordinary Israelis have to face the consequences of Netanyahu’s judgment. Since the invasion of Ukraine Israel has welcomed all the dirty Russia money and crooks. A sad decline for a once decent Country.” — wrote the former British minister.

He added that Russia continued to invest about $1 billion and more in Iranian drone technologies, and the consequences of such a policy are now being felt by ordinary Israeli citizens.

What exactly Ben Wallace claims

Ben Wallace headed the UK Ministry of Defense from 2019 to 2023 and held this position at the time of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine.

He was considered one of the main supporters of the rapid transfer of Western weapons to the Ukrainian army, including anti-tank systems, artillery, armored vehicles, and long-range strike systems.

According to Wallace, during his tenure in the UK government, he tried to persuade Netanyahu’s cabinet to join the countries supplying weapons to Ukraine. Israel refused, fearing a deterioration in relations with the Kremlin.

It is important to understand: the discussion is specifically about military aid, lethal weapons, and air defense systems, not a complete refusal to help Ukraine.

Wallace also issued harsher criticism. He stated that after the invasion began, Israel allegedly “continued to accept Russian capital and associated individuals,” calling it a “sad decline” of the country.

This is an emotional political assessment by the former British minister. In the public part of his publication, there are no documents that would allow verifying the claim regarding specific Russian capitals, companies, or citizens.

The statement appeared during a dispute about the Falkland Islands

Initially, Wallace’s discussion was not about Ukraine at all.

He was responding to American law professor Eugene Kontorovich, who suggested that Israel recognize Argentina’s sovereignty over the Falkland Islands, which Buenos Aires calls the Malvinas.

Kontorovich considered such a step as a possible response to the UK for pressure on Israel, sanctions against Israeli organizations, and British policy on the Palestinian issue.

Wallace, in response, reminded that ally relationships imply reciprocity. In his logic, Israel demands political and military support from the UK but refused to help Ukraine at a critical moment.

The discussion was joined by former British military attaché in Moscow and Kyiv John Foreman. He reported that he made similar arguments to the Israeli ambassador in Russia.

Foreman also claimed that during that period, Iranian agents were preparing attacks on employees of the Israeli diplomatic mission in Moscow. He did not provide independent details of the alleged plot.

Wallace speaks of Israel’s refusal not for the first time

The new statement was not the first time Ben Wallace spoke about his conversation with the Israeli side.

Back on April 15, 2024, he published a column dedicated to the threat from Iran. In it, the former minister wrote that he personally asked the Israeli ambassador to support Ukraine with military means but heard that Israel did not want to “upset Russia.”

At that time, Wallace pointed out a strategic contradiction: Israel tried to maintain working relations with Moscow, while Russia simultaneously developed military cooperation with Iran — the main regional adversary of the Jewish state.

This makes the 2026 publication not a sudden revelation but a repetition of a position that the British politician publicly expressed at least two years ago.

However, an important caveat remains: so far, it is Wallace’s testimony. There is no published transcript of the conversation, official letter from the British government, or confirmation from the Israeli participants of the meeting.

Did Israel really not help Ukraine?

The claim of a complete refusal by Israel to help Ukraine is inaccurate.

After the start of the full-scale invasion on February 24, 2022, Israel provided Ukraine with medicines, medical equipment, food, generators, water purification systems, and other humanitarian supplies.

In the spring of 2022, the Israeli side opened a field hospital “Kohav Meir” in western Ukraine. It had departments for adults and children, a maternity ward, a laboratory, and an intensive care unit.

According to the Israeli international cooperation agency MASHAV, hundreds of tons of humanitarian supplies, more than 206,000 servings of hot meals, hundreds of thousands of containers of drinking water, and ten large water purification systems, each capable of serving up to 100,000 people, were delivered to Ukraine from 2022 to 2024.

Israel also provided Ukrainian rescue services with three armored ambulances equipped with defibrillators, oxygen systems, and other medical equipment.

Therefore, the correct formulation is different: Israel provided significant humanitarian and civilian assistance to Ukraine but refused to supply Kyiv with combat weapons and full-fledged air defense systems in the early years of the war.

For NANews — News of Israel, it is fundamentally important to separate these two directions. Otherwise, criticism of the military-political decision turns into a denial of the work of Israeli doctors, diplomats, volunteers, and humanitarian organizations.

Why Israel feared conflict with Russia

The main argument of the Israeli leadership was Syria.

After Russia’s intervention in the Syrian war in 2015, Russian military gained significant influence over Syrian airspace. Meanwhile, Israel regularly struck targets of Iran, Hezbollah, and weapon delivery routes.

To prevent direct clashes between Israeli and Russian aircraft, a military coordination mechanism operated between the parties.

In Jerusalem, there were fears that openly supplying Israeli weapons to Ukraine could lead Moscow to restrict the freedom of action of the Israeli Air Force in Syria, transfer more advanced air defense systems to Damascus, or increase support for Iran.

The second reason was the situation of the Jewish community in Russia. The Israeli leadership did not rule out that the Kremlin might restrict the activities of Jewish organizations, complicate repatriation, or use Russian Jews as a tool of political pressure.

From a military point of view, Israel also expressed concerns about Israeli technologies falling into Russian hands. If such weapons were captured, the Russian army could study them, develop countermeasures, and pass the obtained data to Iran.

All these concerns had a practical basis. But Wallace’s statement raises another question: did Israel’s cautious strategy pay an even higher price?

Russia and Iran built a large-scale drone program

The strongest part of Wallace’s argument concerns Moscow and Tehran’s cooperation.

Russia began using Iranian Shahed strike drones against Ukraine in 2022. In the Russian army, they were named “Geran-1” and “Geran-2.”

Later, the cooperation evolved from regular drone deliveries to a large-scale localization program.

In the special economic zone “Alabuga” in Tatarstan, a plant was created where Russia, with Iran’s technical support, planned to produce thousands of strike drones.

According to documents obtained by The Washington Post, the initial plan provided for the production of 6,000 drones by the summer of 2025. Iran transferred project documentation, components, personnel training, and production technologies to Russia.

The cost of individual parts of the program was estimated at 151 billion rubles, which at the exchange rate of that period exceeded $2 billion. More than half of the amount, according to the documents, could be intended for Iran, which demanded payments in dollars or gold.

This means that the $1 billion mentioned by Wallace does not seem like a random figure. Moreover, the real cost of the entire Russian-Iranian project could be significantly higher.

However, it cannot be claimed that every Russian dollar under this contract directly went to the production of a specific drone that was later launched against Israel.

But the strategic connection is obvious: Russian orders, money, and technologies helped expand the Iranian drone industry, and the cooperation between the two countries turned into a stable military-industrial partnership.

Did Israel make a mistake by trying not to irritate Moscow

The logic of the Israeli government in 2022 was based on short-term interests.

Israel tried to maintain freedom of action in Syria, protect ties with Russian Jews, and avoid direct confrontation with the Kremlin.

However, Russia did not distance itself from Iran because of this. On the contrary, Moscow deepened cooperation with Tehran precisely in those areas that pose a direct threat to Israel’s security: drones, missiles, guidance systems, electronic components, and mass production technologies.

This is what Wallace points out.

In his opinion, Netanyahu’s government hoped to maintain Russian neutrality, but as a result, Russia continued to finance and strengthen the Iranian military-industrial complex.

For the Israeli reader, this dispute goes far beyond relations with Ukraine. It is about a principle: can a small country guarantee its own security by trying not to irritate an authoritarian power that simultaneously arms its main adversary?

NANews — News of Israel has repeatedly pointed out that Russia’s war against Ukraine and Israel’s confrontation with Iran cannot be viewed as completely isolated conflicts. In both cases, the same supply chains, arms manufacturers, intermediaries, sanction evasion technologies, and political alliances operate.

The role of Patriot and the gradual change in position

Over time, Israel’s position became less unequivocal.

In January 2025, the United States removed about 90 Patriot interceptor missiles from storage in Israel. They were delivered to Poland for subsequent transfer to Ukraine.

The office of the Israeli Prime Minister confirmed that the Israeli side returned the American system to the United States but stated that it was unaware of its further dispatch to Ukraine.

Formally, Israel did not directly transfer missiles to Ukraine. But in fact, the weapons stored on Israeli territory ultimately strengthened Ukraine’s air defense.

This episode shows that the previous absolute caution gradually began to give way to more flexible cooperation schemes.

Nevertheless, Ukraine continues to experience an acute shortage of Patriot missiles. Russian troops regularly use ballistic and cruise missiles, as well as hundreds of drones, against Ukrainian cities.

What is confirmed and what remains Wallace’s claim

It is confirmed that Israel avoided direct supplies of lethal weapons and air defense systems to Ukraine in the early years of the full-scale war.

It is confirmed that Russia paid Iran large sums for drones, technologies, and the organization of Shahed production on Russian territory.

It is also confirmed that Ben Wallace publicly spoke in 2024 about Israel’s refusal to help Ukraine with weapons due to fears of spoiling relations with Moscow.

However, there is no published transcript of Wallace’s conversation with Israeli representatives. Nor is there a document in which the Israeli government officially formulated the refusal with the words “we do not want to upset Russia.”

Therefore, the statement should be presented as the testimony of the former British minister, not as an officially recognized fact by Israel.

Strategic lesson for Israel

The dispute, which began with a publication on a social network, touched on one of the most painful issues of Israeli foreign policy.

The attempt to maintain relations with Russia did not stop the rapprochement between Moscow and Tehran. Russian money helped Iran expand its arms production, and Iranian technologies allowed Russia to create its own long-range strike drone industry.

Ukraine became the first major testing ground for this weapon.

The experience gained, improved technologies, and created production capacities can no longer be separated from the broader threat to Israel and other countries in the region.

This is why Ben Wallace’s statement caused such a resonance. He effectively pointed out a possible strategic mistake by Netanyahu’s government: Israel tried not to irritate Russia, but Russia still helped strengthen Iran.

History has not yet given a definitive answer as to whether the transfer of Israeli weapons to Ukraine could have changed Russian-Iranian cooperation.

But one conclusion is already clear: caution in relations with the Kremlin did not turn Russia into an ally of Israel and did not prevent it from investing in weapons that threaten both Ukrainian and Israeli cities.