Zelensky in “Syria without Moscow”: why this conversation changes the balance in the entire Middle East

On April 5, 2026, Volodymyr Zelensky held talks with Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa. Following the meeting, the parties declared their readiness to work together to enhance security, expand economic opportunities, and support the development of their societies. Special attention was paid to Russia’s war against Ukraine, issues of exchanging military and security experience, and Ukraine’s role as a reliable food supplier for the region.

For the Israeli audience, this meeting is important not only as a bilateral contact between Kyiv and Damascus.

It is about a much broader process: the balance of power in the Middle East is gradually changing, and Ukraine is increasingly entering regional narratives not only as a country waging a heavy war but also as a player capable of offering food, technology, survival experience under attacks, and a model of cooperation in the field of security.

What Zelensky and Ahmed al-Sharaa discussed

According to the Ukrainian side, the talks focused on security, prospects for regional stabilization, and practical areas of cooperation. Zelensky emphasized that Kyiv and Damascus are ready to work together to provide their societies with more opportunities for development and greater resilience to new threats.

Security, war, and exchange of experience

A separate topic was Russia’s war against Ukraine.

Zelensky thanked the Syrian side for their support and noted a significant interest in exchanging military and security experience. This is an important signal because Ukraine, over the years of full-scale war, has accumulated real, not theoretical, experience in countering infrastructure attacks, protecting critical facilities, organizing civil resilience, and rapid recovery after attacks.

For Syria, which is currently facing serious challenges in energy, logistics, and basic infrastructure, such experience can have practical, not theoretical, significance. Essentially, Kyiv offers not only political contact but also practical partnership.

Food as a tool of influence

Another key block was food security.

Ukraine once again positioned itself as a reliable supplier of agricultural products and proposed discussing joint steps to strengthen the resilience of the entire region. This is especially important for the Middle East, where disruptions in the supply of grain, oil, and other basic products quickly become a factor of internal tension.

Against this backdrop, Ukrainian diplomacy is betting not on loud slogans but on a language of interests understandable to neighboring countries: food, stability, infrastructure, security. This approach looks much stronger than any abstract rhetoric about a ‘new regional architecture’ because it relies on the concrete needs of states.

Why this meeting is painful for Moscow

There is another layer to this story that is hard to ignore. For decades, Syria was considered one of Moscow’s most important strongholds in the Middle East. It was through the Syrian direction that the Kremlin demonstrated its claim to the status of an indispensable player in the region for many years, and the very presence in Syria was used as a symbol of the geopolitical depth of Russian policy.

Now the situation looks different. The very fact of negotiations between Zelensky and the new Syrian leader shows how much the political map is changing. For Moscow, this is not just an unpleasant diplomatic episode. It is a signal that the former monopoly on influence is melting, and countries in the region are increasingly less willing to perceive Russia as the only center of power to be reckoned with.

That is why the meeting on April 5 can be seen as an event with far-reaching consequences.

In a region where Russian presence was recently considered almost unshakable, Ukraine is gaining the opportunity to speak directly — about security, food, recovery, and future rules of cooperation.

In this sense, NAnews — Israel News | Nikk.Agency draws attention not only to the formal outcomes of the negotiations but also to their political subtext: the Syrian direction, until recently closely linked with Russian interests, is beginning to open up to new formats of dialogue, where Kyiv has its own place and voice.

What this means for Israel and the entire region

For Israel, any movement on the Syrian issue has direct significance.

Syria remains a space where the interests of regional states, international players, and various military structures intersect. Therefore, the emergence of new channels of cooperation between Damascus and Kyiv is not a passing news, but part of a larger restructuring of Middle Eastern reality.

New contour of relations

If Ukraine manages to establish itself in the Syrian direction as a food supplier, partner on infrastructure issues, and bearer of valuable security experience, it will strengthen its position not only in the Arab world but also in the eyes of the Israeli audience, which closely monitors any shifts in neighboring countries.

Here, another aspect is important. Ukraine is integrating into the region not through ideological formulas but through utility.

In conditions where the Middle East lives in a mode of constant crises, such diplomacy often proves to be the most viable.

Signal of the end of the old order

The meeting between Zelensky and Ahmed al-Sharaa shows: the old schemes, in which Syria was automatically considered a zone of Russian influence, no longer work as before.

And if earlier Moscow used the Syrian direction as proof of its own strength, now the very fact of the Ukrainian-Syrian dialogue becomes a marker of its weakening.

For the Israeli reader, this means one thing: changes in Syria can no longer be viewed in isolation. They are connected with the war in Ukraine, energy, food routes, and how the entire regional security system will look in the coming years.

The negotiations on April 5 may be only the first step. But it is already clear that Kyiv is trying to play in the Middle East not the role of a distant observer, but the role of a state capable of offering solutions. And this is precisely what makes the new Syrian contact especially significant — and especially unpleasant for those who until recently considered the region their unconditional asset.