In a move that turned out to be prophetic, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky sent a piece of an Iranian Shahed drone to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the start of 2023 with a warning that his country could be one of the Islamic Republic’s next targets.
“I brought from Kyiv pieces of Iranian drones, called Shahed,” Ukrainian Ambassador to Israel Yevgen Korniychuk recalled for The Jerusalem Post during an interview this week.
Passing on the ‘gift’ of the Iranian drone piece
At the time, he asked Israel’s National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi to “pass it as a gift from Zelensky to Netanyahu” telling him that if Ukraine and Israel do not cooperate against Russia, “you will receive the same.”
Indeed, Korniychuk told the Post, “This is what’s happening right now.”
It has not given the ambassador any comfort to know that he and Zelensky were right, as events have unfolded and Israel has been targeted by Iranian drones and missiles since the October 7 invasion by the Iranian proxy group Hamas.
First, the Houthis shot Iranian projectiles at Israel from Yemen and then on Saturday night and early Sunday, as Korniychuk sat in his Tel Aviv office updating Kyiv, Iran itself launched more than 300 of its drones and missiles at the Jewish state.
In a move that has left Ukraine envious as its army battles Russia alone, most of them were shot out of the night sky by a coalition of five armies: Israel, the US, Great Britain, France, and Jordan.
Zelensky himself commented on it the next day in a post on X, stating, “European skies could have received the same level of protection long ago if Ukraine had received similar full support from its partners in intercepting drones and missiles.
“Terror must be defeated completely and everywhere, not more in some places and less in others,” the Ukrainian president stressed.
Korniychuk said that there are, of course, differences, and the risks to Europe would be greater if it mounted such a defense.
Had the West mounted a similar defense, it would put the countries belonging to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) at war with Russia, the Ukrainian ambassador said.
Israel and the United States also have strategic alliances that long predate their relations with Ukraine, he said.
Still, October 7 and the direct Iranian attack, he said, underscored how deeply united the two allies are even as they battle a joint enemy from vastly different geopolitical positions, Korniychuk said – adding, however, that it also emphasized some of the differences, as Israel continues to maintain diplomatic relations with Russia, despite Moscow’s military alliance with Iran.
“On a higher political level,” Israel needs to keep its own relations with Russia, for the strategic reasons, but it should “minimize the dialogue because of their obvious support for your enemies,” namely Iran, he stated.
He took issue in particular with the conversation Hanegbi held the day after the Iranian attack with Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev, even though the Kremlin had defended Iran’s right to strike Israel, explaining that it sent the wrong message.
“What else needs to happen for [Israel] to understand that we have the same enemy!?” Korniychuk asked.
This is the time for Israel to do more to support Ukraine, rather than worry about neutrality with Russia, he stated, adding that “We must join forces and fight the joint Russian-Iranian enemy together.”
That’s particularly true, given that Russia has reduced its military forces in Syria and does not really pose a threat to Israel from there, as it once did, he explained.
Israel and Ukraine are fighting against the “axis of evil,” as US President Joe Biden has said, and “what we have to do is to cooperate much more strongly together and on a trilateral level as well” as on all levels, he said.
Initially, in the aftermath of Russia’s attack on Ukraine in February 2022, Korniychuk was harshly critical of the Israeli government’s stance, as the country, led by former prime minister Naftali Bennett, attempted to walk a neutral line that would maintain relations with both Moscow and Kyiv.
Israel also needed to maintain its relations with Russia, a long-time ally, because it had a deconfliction agreement that allowed it to operate against Iranian military targets in Syria.
While other countries offered defensive and offensive military aid, Israel focused on humanitarian assistance, providing a civilian warning system against missiles only in the second year of the war.
Korniychuk said he was summoned to the Foreign Ministry five times within two years for his frustrated statements about the absence of a more aggressive Israeli stance.
Ukraine’s attitude changed, he said, after the Hamas-led attack on October 7, in which over 1,200 people were killed and another 253 seized as hostages.
Opponents of Israel and its subsequent war against Hamas in Gaza have often compared the Jewish state to Russia and the Palestinians to Ukraine, by way of demonizing the Jewish state.
Korniychuk, who supports a two-state resolution to the conflict, spoke out against those in the United States who have been protesting against Israel by calling for its destruction, chanting “from the river to the sea.”
“None of the students in the United States” who are proclaiming that slogan “understand what they’re talking about,” he said.
Most Ukranians, he said, identify with Israel and compare the Hamas attack on October 7 with Moscow’s invasion of its country two years ago. They view the Hamas massacre on that day as akin to the one the Russian forces carried out in Bucha outside of Kyiv in March 2022, he explained.
The ambassador recalled how when he arrived in Bucha in May, “bridges were demolished,” homes were in ruins and deserted, and “Russian military vehicles, tanks, and infantry machines were all over the place. I was shocked.”
While in Bucha, he said, Russian forces raped and killed civilians. Hamas in Israel on October 7 used the “same tactics that the Russian troops were using in Bucha,” he stated.
Ukrainians know what it means to face an enemy that wants to destroy it, he said.
Two years ago, “we were invaded. We know how you feel. This is why we support you: because we were in the same shoes. And we are still there,” Korniychuk stated.
“You are fighting against a terrorist organization, and we are fighting against a terrorist state, which is much bigger than us.”
Iran and its military technology are involved in both wars, Korniychuk stated.
In addition, both Ukraine and Israel are also heavily dependent on the US, he said, as he pointed to the aid bills for both Israel and Ukraine that the House of Representatives was slated to vote on this weekend.
He lamented the domestic American politics that had caused a long delay in the passage of what would be a 60.8 billion US dollars military package for Ukraine and 23.2 billion US dollars for Israel.
Every single day the vote is delayed “costs Ukrainian lives,” he said, adding that its passage “is a matter of survival for us now.”
Supporters of Israel and Ukraine have worked together in Washington to help ensure the aid bills’ passage, he explained. “This is how close we are,” he stated.
“We do believe sincerely that” Israel and Ukraine “are brother nations. Our closer cooperation benefits both states.
“We could do more together than each of us separately,” he said: “That’s what I believe is true.”
