How Trump’s war on Iran has affected Ukraine

For Kyiv, Tehran has become a belligerent power.

Over the past four years of Russia’s full-scale invasion, Iran has supplied Moscow with thousands of Shahed kamikaze drones — weapons responsible for killing hundreds of Ukrainian civilians and wounding thousands more.

At first glance, a US war with Iran — a partner of Russia — and resultant regime change in Tehran might be expected to strain US-Russian ties and indirectly help Ukraine’s cause.

Yet that rupture has not occurred, even after Russian President Vladimir Putin publicly denounced the killing of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in a combined US-Israeli strike on Tehran on 28 February.

Mr Putin has, as ever, measured his words carefully, avoiding outright criticism of Donald Trump that could push the US president toward backing Kyiv’s negotiating stance.

And Mr Trump’s campaign against Iran has not reduced the rate of Russian drone attacks on Ukraine. Moscow now produces its own lethal drones — notably the Geran-2, a domestic copy of the Shahed-136 — which has filled much of the gap.

A plume of smoke rises after a strike on the Iranian capital, Tehran

Days before the first US strikes on Iran, on 24 February — the fourth anniversary of Russia’s invasion — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced that another round of trilateral talks between Ukrainian, Russian and US officials was scheduled for early March in Abu Dhabi.

Those planned talks were derailed by airstrikes in the Gulf.

The most recent trilateral meeting had been in Geneva on 18 February, more than four weeks earlier.

“Talks between Ukrainian and Russian officials, mediated by the US, are really in the danger zone,” a senior EU official told the Financial Times earlier this week.

Washington’s current focus appears to be swift regime change in Iran rather than securing an end to the protracted war in Europe.

In response, Ukrainian officials have sought to keep American attention by offering practical assistance: sharing drone know-how with the US and its regional partners.

President Zelensky says Ukraine has already dispatched more than 200 drone specialists to the Middle East, including to the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

Ukrainian defence minister Rustem Umerov added that teams have also been sent to Kuwait and Jordan.

After enduring years of Russian Shahed attacks, these Ukrainian units have developed expertise in drone interception and countermeasures — skills now being exported to Gulf states.

Donald Trump recently said that Volodymyr Zelensky was ‘the last person’ he needed help from

That contribution is aimed at strengthening Ukraine’s standing with Gulf countries that have long-standing economic links to Russia.

“Our diplomats thought what Trump wanted from the European countries, was not just to be the recipient of support and security measures, but also to be a provider, being somebody who can give additional value to America itself and to American allies,” said Oleksandr Kraeiv, a foreign policy expert at Kyiv-based thinktank Ukrainian Prism.

Speaking to RTÉ News, Mr Kraeiv argued that by offering drone expertise to the US and its partners, Ukraine showed it could be “more than they request.”

But those offers have not softened President Trump’s stance toward Mr Zelensky.

“We don’t need help in drone defence,” Mr Trump told a Fox News podcast on 13 March, asserting: “We know more about drones than anybody. We have the best drones in the world, actually.”

A day later, on 14 March, Mr Trump told NBC News that the Ukrainian president was the “last person we need help from.”

The rhetoric was striking coming from a US president who has criticised some NATO allies for not joining American strikes on Iran.

Mr Trump also renewed his criticism of Mr Zelensky over the ongoing conflict with Russia. “I’m surprised that Zelensky doesn’t want to make a deal,” he told NBC.

The aftermath of a Russian airstrike in Odesa, Ukraine

Over the past year, Mr Zelensky has adapted to Mr Trump’s barbs and no longer opens every interview with praise for the US president as he once did.

Part of that recalibration reflects reality: Ukraine is not receiving the same levels of direct US military aid it saw in early 2025, with many European countries now financing American weaponry bound for Kyiv.

In a BBC interview this week, Mr Zelensky warned that a prolonged Middle East war would play into Russia’s hands and jeopardise deliveries of US-made missiles to Ukraine.

“In addition to energy prices, it means the depletion of US reserves, and the depletion of air defence manufacturers. So, we have a depletion of resources,” he said.

Compounding Ukraine’s difficulties, Russia has profited from the US war on Iran.

US and Israeli strikes on Iran, and Iran’s retaliatory attacks on energy infrastructure in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar and Kuwait, curtailed oil exports from the region and dented investor confidence — driving Brent crude from about $65 per barrel before the fighting to roughly $100 per barrel.

Buyers turned instead to Russian supplies, which also jumped in price from about $55 per barrel in late February to around $90 per barrel.

Analysts at the Finnish thinktank Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) estimate Russia earned an additional €625m from oil exports during the first two weeks after the US-Israeli strikes on Iran.

On 10 March, President Trump moved to ease US sanctions on Russian oil exports for one month, citing the need to boost global supply and stabilise prices.

A marine traffic map shows ship movements in the Strait of Hormuz

Iran’s closure this week of the Strait of Hormuz — a strategic chokepoint that handles 20 to 25% of global seaborne oil trade — will tighten supplies further and increase demand for Russian Urals crude.

That, in turn, funnels more revenue to Moscow to sustain its campaign in Ukraine.

Despite these headwinds, diplomatic efforts to press Russia toward peace continue: US and Ukrainian negotiators met in Florida yesterday for the first talks since 26 February, and discussions are set to continue today.

Oleksandr Kraeiv, director of the North America Program at Ukrainian Prism, believes the trilateral format will only resume after the US conflict with Iran concludes.

“Russia is an ambiguous state concerning Iran. So basically, starting any negotiation concerning Ukraine will entangle both Ukraine and Iran into the same negotiating basket, which is not something that the US wants,” he said.