Mar. 9 — Ukraine has sent a team of drone experts and interceptor drones to Jordan to help protect the United States military bases located there, said the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in an interview with The New York Times.

Pentagon officials in closed-door briefings said that Iranian drones are punching through air defenses, leaving American bases in the Persian Gulf region vulnerable to attacks, reported The Hill.

Kelly Grieco, a senior fellow at the Stimson Center think tank, told The Hill that, according to open-source reporting, Iranians have upward of 70,000 drones to launch across the Persian Gulf, but she believes that number seemed a bit high.

At the same time, American officials said that the attack drones are posing a bigger problem than anticipated and that the United States’ air defenses will not be able to intercept them all, reported CNN.

On Mar. 4, Zelenskyy said that Ukraine will help Middle Eastern countries defend against Iranian attacks.

The following day, Zelenskyy said, the United States requested help from Kyiv, and a team of experts set out from Ukraine.

Experts will evaluate ways to defend against Iranian Shahed drones without relying on the costly Patriot systems.

As for Mar. 5, the United States and Qatar are discussing buying Ukrainian interceptor drones to deal with Sahed drones, said Reuters, referring to a source familiar with the ​matter.

On Mar. 9, the President said that there are 11 requests from countries neighboring Iran, European states, and the United States.

“Some requests have already been met with concrete decisions and specific support,” said Zelenskyy.

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