Barak David, an Israeli journalist, revealed in a report on the American site Axios, “Israel recently agreed to supply Ukraine with anti-drone missile systems.” He cited as sources 3 Israeli and Ukrainian officials, who claimed “Israel recently approved export licenses for the possible sale of anti-drone jamming systems, which would allow Kiev to confront the Iranian drones that Russia used during the war”.
With this measure, Israel would have publicly accepted, for the first time since the beginning of the Russian operation in Ukraine, defense export licenses for possible arms sales to Kiev, following promising to refrain, for fear that such a move would cause tension with Moscow. As a reminder, Russia threatened to retaliate “in the event that Israeli-made air defense missiles or other interceptor missiles are sent to Ukraine, either directly or through a third party.”
Similarly, Israeli and Ukrainian officials said, according to the site, that “export license approval” by the Minister of Security, Yoav Gallant, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, came in mid-February. A Ukrainian official told Axios “that a delegation from the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense recently visited the occupied Palestinian territories to check the anti-drone systems”.
Ukrainian officials have also assured that “the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense was interested in the systems mentioned, but that they are considered less important, since Ukraine has managed to intercept drones between 75 and 90% of the time”, according Axios.
Israeli officials claim that “the approval of export licenses is not a policy change as the systems are defensive in nature and do not use any live ammunition that might kill Russian soldiers.” According Axios, ‘one of the reasons Israel accepted the licenses is to see how Iran’s drone defense systems work’, said a senior Israeli official. Earlier, Axios revealed that “the administration of US President Joe Biden had asked Israel to send Hawk missiles to Ukraine”.
A week ago, the New York Times reported “that Israel had agreed to supply Ukraine with artillery shells stockpiled by the United States”. Earlier, under pressure from the United States, Tel Aviv agreed to fund the supply of strategic materials to Ukraine, according to Israeli media.
