In the middle of last year, the Trump administration rejected an offer from Ukraine to help strengthen defenses against a deadly, widely used Iranian drone, The Independent reports.
Now that Iranian drones have killed scores of American soldiers, US officials consider ignoring the original offer a big mistake.
“If there was a tactical error or a mistake that we made before this war, it was this one“, a US official told Axios.
Last August, Ukrainian officials tried to sell the combat-proven technology to the Americans to deal with Iran's cheap, one-way Shahed attack drones, which Russia has made a major part of its arsenal for the war in Ukraine.
The Ukrainians reportedly made the offer during a closed-door meeting at the White House on August 18, where Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky offered Trump interceptor drones as a way to strengthen ties. The proposal even ended with a PowerPoint presentation with slides talking about how drones could be a threat in the Middle East during a then-hypothetical war with Iran.
American officials now regret not initially accepting Ukraine's offer.
The president asked his team to consider Ukraine's offer, but the offer was not accepted in the following months, with some in the Trump administration believing Zelensky was faking it.
Months before the reported meeting in August, an Oval Office meeting between Trump and Zelensky degenerated into a heated argument that the Ukrainian leader was not grateful enough for U.S. help, all played out in front of news cameras.
The United States is now directly threatened by Iranian shaheeds, with Ukrainian anti-drone technology being a far more cost-effective way to stop unmanned aerial vehicles than many of the expensive conventional systems for air defenses at U.S. and allied bases in the Middle East.
Ukraine has become a pioneer in countering drone attacks, given that Russia has made the cheap drones a key part of its war against the country.
Military leaders reportedly told lawmakers last week that Iranian drones pose a bigger challenge than expected, as U.S. air defenses cannot stop them all.
The U.S. has approached Zelensky for help, according to the Ukrainian leader, and he has already said his country has sent drones and experts to help protect U.S. bases in Jordan.
The president's sons, Eric and Donald Trump Jr., are reportedly backing a Florida-based drone company that could supply the military.
Despite the challenges with Iranian drones, the US claims to have destroyed much of the Iranian military and the increasingly unpopular war will soon be over, although the president and his team remain tight-lipped about the details.