Kyiv is making striking gains on the battlefields. It’s also securing new friends in the Middle East
Con Coughlin, Executive Defence and Foreign Affairs Editor
A leading expert on global conflict, international security and the Middle East. Con worked as a foreign correspondent for 20 years in the Beirut, Jerusalem, New York and Washington bureaux. More recently he covered the conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan and Ukraine. He is a Senior Visiting Fellow at the War Studies Department, King’s College, London.
Published 07 May 2026
Amid the confusion surrounding negotiations to end the Iran conflict, one unexpected cause for optimism is the beneficial impact the war has had on Ukraine. While the world’s attention has been preoccupied with the economic implications of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, Kyiv has skilfully exploited the conflict to its advantage.
One of the more tangible indications of this has been seen on the battlefield where, for the first time in many months, Ukraine has succeeded in establishing a significant advantage in its long-running war with Russia.
The latest study conducted by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) found that Russia’s army not only recorded almost no territorial gains on the frontline in Ukraine in March for the first time in two-and-a-half years. Its findings confirmed that the Ukrainians had managed to achieve a number of localised breakthroughs in the south-east of the country. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has estimated that the total gains amount to 117.6 sq miles, or about 10 per cent of the territory Kyiv lost to Moscow in 2025.
While this is admittedly modest, the Ukrainians’ success means that, despite Moscow’s highly anticipated spring-summer military offensive, there is now little prospect of the Russians achieving their goal of seizing Ukraine’s “fortress belt”, the heavily fortified Ukrainian territory in the Donbas that is deemed vital to establishing control over the east of the country. At the same time the Russians are continuing to suffer catastrophic casualties – the ISW estimates their losses are currently averaging around 35,000 a month.
Much of this is down to the growing sophistication of Ukraine’s home-grown drone and missile capability which, together with Russia’s inability to access Elon Musk’s Starlink communications network, has placed Russian forces at a distinct disadvantage.
Ukraine, moreover, has managed to intensify its strikes deep inside Russian territory, primarily targeting key Russian oil infrastructure to ensure the Kremlin cannot take advantage of the spiralling prices caused by the Iran conflict. Recent estimates suggest that 40 per cent of Russian oil exports have been affected by Ukrainian strikes on pipelines, ports and refineries in recent weeks.
Ukraine’s air defences have also improved dramatically in recent months as Russia has continued its combined drone and missile attacks against key Ukrainian infrastructure in an attempt to break the resolve of Ukraine’s civilian population. The Ukrainians are credited with shooting down a record 33,000 Russian drones in March, many of them manufactured in Iran.
This follows Kyiv’s success in developing cheap and highly effective ways of countering drone attacks instead of relying on state-of-the-art defensive missiles such as the US Patriot air-defence system.
Ukraine’s increasingly effective battlefield performance is attracting a great deal of interest from a range of suitors in Europe and the Middle East, especially Gulf states that are desperate to upgrade their defences against the threat posed by Iranian drones and missiles.
The upsurge in interest from Gulf states such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the Emirates has resulted in Kyiv agreeing to a number of lucrative defence deals with Arab countries that are keen to take advantage of Kyiv’s technological prowess. Similar agreements have been reached with Germany, Norway, the Netherlands and Turkey.
This has the potential to affect profound change in the geopolitical landscape. Prior to the Iran conflict, many Gulf states were seeking to strengthen ties with Beijing and Moscow because of their concerns about the reliability of the US and its Western allies to defend their interests in a crisis.
Ukraine’s battlefield performance is attracting a great deal of interest from a range of suitors in Europe and the Middle East Credit: AFP
The Iran war, which has seen Tehran regularly launch unprovoked attacks against its Gulf neighbours, has confirmed their worst fears. But the fact that both China and Russia have lent Iran their backing has prompted many Gulf leaders to review their alliances, with the result that Ukraine has suddenly emerged as an alternative.
If anything, the Iran war has exposed the inadequacies of relying on China or Russia. Even though Beijing and Moscow have signed comprehensive agreements with Tehran, neither was able to offer the ayatollahs any meaningful protection against the superior American and Israeli firepower.
Russia’s appeal as a reliable ally is even less convincing given its underwhelming performance in Ukraine, which has resulted in Vladimir Putin being forced to scale back Moscow’s traditional May 9 Victory Day military parade for fear of the event being targeted by Ukrainian drone strikes.
Rather than indulging in the Kremlin’s annual display of military power, Putin is said to be so paranoid about his own security that he has banned his staff from using mobile phones in case they are used to identify his whereabouts. This follows the success the Americans and Israelis enjoyed in targeting and eliminating key figures in the Iranian regime during the recent conflict.
With neither Russia nor China covering themselves in glory, countries like Ukraine, with their cutting-edge military technology, suddenly seem like a better bet for Middle Eastern leaders on the lookout for new allies.
Some really outstanding comments from DT readers today :
Matthew Matic
More people are realising that fascist Russia is a planetary liability of epic proportions, an entirely useless waste of space that only serves to attract vermin, like Iran and North Korea.
Carpe Jugulum
Let’s not forget Donald Trump tried to force effective surrender terms on Ukraine.
That he stopped all donations to Ukraine.
That JD Vance stated he was ‘proud’ to have stopped all aid to Ukraine.
That Trump has suspended oil sanctions on Russia.
That Trump, Vance and Hegseth are trying to block or divert $400 million aid ordered by cross party support of Congress. A block or diversion that is entirely illegal.
Ukraine and Zelensky aren’t just pummelling Russia militarily and economically they have turned Trump into an irrelevance by refusing to be bullied.
Who did the Gulf states turn to when attacked by Iran and sidelined by Trump? Ukraine. The Ukraine that has now signed ten year defence and support agreements with Qatar, the UAE and Saudi Arabia.
I said weeks ago Trump had just lost his Middle East bases and what happened this week? Saudi Arabia BANNED USA military flights from Saudi Arabian airspace ‘temporarily’. The Gulf States will reach their own accommodations with Iran.
Zelensky is the wartime leader and master of deal making.
Trump is an ignorant oaf paying the price of insulting and abandoning allies.
Cross Roads
Astonishing nation! I wouldn’t have believed for one moment that the Ukrainians would still be fighting, let alone looking more like the victors than the vanquished. Their quick adoption and flexible tactics has outscored the backward approach of a regime stuck in history that believed at the expense of so many Russian lives that a ‘meat grinder’ approach, the same used in war 2 would win the day. It is a lesson that is constantly being relearned, being lighter on the foot is far better than using a closed mind. Whatever Ukraine gains out of this conflict, they deserve every advantage. As for ourselves it is a lesson to be relearned, for it was due to our ability to find solutions to in War 2 like radar and advanced ASDIC detection that saved the day as much as common bravery.
Peter Shutak
Meanwhile, NATO prevaricate whether to admit Ukraine or not. We need Ukraine in NATO, otherwise we’re all doomed.
StepBy Step
Ukraine is now winning because of:
– Denial of US Starlink by creation of a whitelist of permitted Ukrainian Starlink systems enabling geographic service denial to non-whitelist StarLink devices
– AI and other tech advances in Ukrainian drones and long range missiles, mostly with US companies cooperation
– Big reductions in supply of Iranian drones and weapons, thanks to the US/Israeli destruction of Irans military industrial complex
– Ukraines own development of a domestic military industrial complex
– Ukrainians awe inspiring resolve and fighting spirit
– Ukraines tactical superiority that minimises loss of Ukrainian lives
– Russias exposure as a paper tiger with military tech that is ineffective and tactics that are primitive and brutal, about the level of WW1 at best.
Stepping back to see the global strategic picture we see an economically crippled Russia, a compliant Venezuela, an Iran about to be prevented supporting regional wars and terrorists and most importantly not about to gain nuclear weapons and China left with only North Korea as a totalitarian ally and most of its strategic partners pivoting to the West.
We also see a Europe finally spending to deliver its own defence instead of relying on US taxpayers to fund defence of Europe.
But of course the global cretinati “know” Trump is an ignorant fool.
Well….if you spot it then you got it my cretinati friends!
The art of herding global cretinati….the next Trump bestseller?
p.s. Literally none of this reality is reported by the BBC. Indeed the BBC cretinati actively work to edit out and distract from this truth. Just as they did with the resentment and violence inciting lie about the removal of the Saddam Hussein regime being a resource war to steal/control Iraqs oil. FOr a long time this lie could be easily seen as a lie yet, knowing most people believe it is true, the BBC cretinati CHOOSE not to report the reality…that Iraq has employed oil companies from across the world (mostly Chinese, Russian and European…20% US) to produce Iraqi oil at some of the lowest (best) oil company service fees ever seen anywhere with the result that Iraq oil production and Iraqi govt revenue is at all time highs.
Is the BBC a public service? Or a global cancer promoting and sustaining grievance with partial reporting and promotion then protection of outright lies?
PPS : Forgot to report a key fact.
Iranian death toll:
– suppression of Iranian uprising against the Iran regime in January – 40,000 civilians, mostly young people
– destruction of Iran regime military industrial complex and assassination of most of the regime leadership – <2,000 mainly military/regime people
The BBC will resort to anything to prevent this truth being understood, in contrast to its endlessly parroting of the Lancet estimate of 1 million Iraqi deaths in removal of Saddam, a number that was maximised by including an estimate of all incidental deaths due to disruption of Iraqi health care etc. Of course neither the Lancet nor the BBC cared to even count or report the Syrian death toll between the Milliband/Obama decision not to respond to Assad use of nerve gas and WMD against Syrian civilians and the final removal of the Assad regime. Actually a death toll higher than Iraq if you count deaths caused directly by violence or like for like Lancet definition of all incidental deaths.
The global cretinati, led by the BBC, work hard to obscure truth to enable hatred of anything right of centre and deny the revealing the terrible toll of death and blighted lives enabled/caused by pacifist left of centre politics.
Richard Anderson
Ukraine will prove to be the New Arsenal of Democracy, as it develops and produces low cost but effective weapons at great pace, because it has to.
Russia is slowly losing the war, because it can’t keep up and has no choice but to go down the meat grinder route.
US is unreliable.
China whilst it has hi-tech stuff; it is unproven in recent large scale war.
Western Europe is incapable of producing weapons without spending billions on hi-tech white elephants that are already outdated by the time they get anywhere near the battlefield.
David Walker
Just be thankful that Ukraine will be on our side in the future. They will be won’t they? Unless Russia eventually prevails in which case Ukraine will be on their side. If Trump walks sway or even worse plays and even hand by allowing Starlink to be switched back on we are going to need some brave new leaders.
Finian Manson
Ukraine will prevail and its territorial integrity and sovereignty fully restored unless Trump stabs them in the back once again.
We all know it only takes one phone call from Trump’s pal Putin for Trump to double down on his support for Russia and threaten to further penalise Ukraine.
Dick Stockley
They soon realised trump is a Russian asset and was instructed to sabotage Ukraine. Musk saved them by refusing to go along with trump. Now they are making their own weapons and seeing that DIY drones are more effective than expensive battleships and tanks. Uk has also learnt the lesson. Ships are expensive targets. Wars are won with digital superiority and hordes of cheap drones.
Ukraine making new friends in the Near East and especially establishing arms production and defense cooperation are the only positive things coming from Taco’s illegal, lost war.