To most observers, Ukraine and Israel are natural allies as they both fight difficult, long wars against countries on the same hostile axis.

Though the fight began many decades before, following the Hamas invasion of southern Israel on October 7, 2023, Israel has been engaged in a multifront war against Iran and its armed proxies. In June 2025, the focus of that effort shifted to the Islamic Republic itself, which has sustained massive damage in two wars with Israel and the US but is proving more resilient than many expected.

Ukraine, too, has been confronting the Iranian threat since 2022. Since early in Russia’s invasion, Tehran has been providing Moscow with hundreds of exploding drones for use on the battlefield in Ukraine and helped launch their production in Russia.

“Iran supports our enemy and supports aggression,” Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Taras Kachka told The Times of Israel in December.

But despite the common foe, the Ukraine-Israel relationship remains awkward and tepid, to the detriment of both countries. That reality was on full display this week in Washington, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky held separate meetings with US President Donald Trump on the very same morning, but couldn’t manage a sit-down with each other.

Kyiv — and some select Israeli officials — seem eager to move toward a more mutually beneficial relationship, but ties remain oddly anemic. That’s largely due to Jerusalem’s cold shoulder as it continues to defer to Moscow.

“This is the world of old concepts that are no longer relevant,” said Ksenia Svetlova, fellow at Chatham House and executive director at ROPES, the Regional Organization For Peace, Economics & Security, “that Russia is a superpower, that Ukraine is weak and not important.”

Russia and Iran have been openly partnering on weapons and intelligence for years.

“The military cooperation between Iran and Russia is not something new,” boasted Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi in March. “It’s not a secret. It has been in the past and it’s still there and will continue in the future.”

That alliance has exacted a price from both Ukraine and Israel.

Iran uses Russian-made fighter jets, armored vehicles, air defenses, and many more systems.

In December, after Israel decimated Tehran’s Russian-made air defense network, Iran signed a secret 500 million euro ($589 million) arms deal with Russia to acquire thousands of advanced shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles, according to the Financial Times. The two countries also signed a “comprehensive strategic partnership” treaty in January.

At the height of the US-Israeli campaign against Iran earlier this year, The Washington Post reported that Russia had been assisting Iran in the war by providing intelligence on the locations of American military assets in the Middle East.

Ukraine has suffered more directly from the military alliance between Tehran and Moscow.

Russia has deployed thousands of the Iranian-designed Shahed drones against Ukrainian cities and critical infrastructure, including energy facilities.

“Ukraine and Israel have common enemies,” Ukraine’s former defense minister Oleksii Reznikov told The Times of Israel in March, calling Russia and Iran “the real axis of evil.”

“Iran is using the same drones against you, and Iran is using Russian weaponry against you,” said Reznikov.

An awkward........

© The Times of Israel