Sept 23 (Reuters) – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Wednesday he had signed a “drone deal” with Finland’s president, another in a series of agreements offering to combine Kyiv’s technical expertise with other countries’ industrial capacity.
Zelenskiy met Finnish President Alexander Stubb, along with Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere in New York on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, praising both leaders for supporting Kyiv.
“And today we just signed a Drone Deal with Alex (Stubb) – an important step for jointly protecting our people and an even stronger partnership between our countries,” Zelenskiy wrote on Telegram.
“We are always ready to share what has helped us save lives with our closest friends.”
When the war began in February 2022, Ukraine had limited experience in drone technology. Kyiv has rapidly developed its expertise and is now able to down drones, many of them designed by Iran.
It has offered its technology to a wide range of countries, many of them in the Middle East facing Iranian weaponry.
Kyiv has clinched “drone deals” with some 10 countries and has an accord with the European Union.
In his address to the U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday, Zelenskiy said a security accord had also been concluded with Australia.
He described the drone deals as “ready-made security formats that we adapt to each specific country and each specific region”.
“We are already working with partners in the Gulf, the South Caucasus, and across Europe through drone deals.”
Developing drones, he said, allowed countries to control borders, mountain areas and roads “and without them, this would simply be impossible”.
He added, “It is also about protecting infrastructure, about resilience, about organizing resources and defense forces so that critical infrastructure and transport can keep working even in the most difficult conditions.”
“This is also part of the deals we offer.”
(Reporting by Ron Popeski and by Tom Balmforth at the United Nations; Editing by David Gregorio)
