At UN, Zelenskyy Offers Drone Warfare Know-How to Ukraine’s Partners

War-torn Ukraine has much to offer its allies and partners in the expanding drone arms race, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a speech before the U.N. General Assembly on Sept. 24.

Noting recent developments in unmanned weapons systems and artificial intelligence, Zelenskyy told the assembly, “We are now living through the most destructive arms race in human history.”

The Ukrainian president touted his country’s successes in employing drones to slow the march of the numerically superior Russian military.

“Ukraine doesn’t have the big fat missiles dictators love to show off in parades, but we do have drones that can fly up to 3,000 kilometers. We had no choice but to build them to protect our right to life,” he said.

“Control over the sea used to depend on having a big navy. Ukraine doesn’t have a big fleet, but we succeeded in the Black Sea. We pushed what’s left of the Russian navy into a remote base, and we did it with sea drones.”

While Kyiv has relied heavily on outside assistance since Russian troops invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Zelenskyy said his country can also give back to the international community with its expansive first-hand experience with evolving drone warfare tactics.

“You don’t need to start this race from scratch. We’re ready to share what has already proven itself in real defense and for many involved,” he said.

Zelenskyy offered this assistance while continuing to emphasize the need for international support to turn back Russia’s assault on Ukraine.

“International law doesn’t work fully unless you have powerful friends who are truly willing to stand up for it. And even that doesn’t work without weapons,” he said early in his speech.

The day before Zelenskyy’s U.N. speech, U.S. President Donald Trump expressed newfound confidence that Ukrainian forces could take back all the territory they’ve lost to Russia in recent years, with enough continuing international support.

“After getting to know and fully understand the Ukraine/Russia Military and Economic situation and, after seeing the Economic trouble it is causing Russia, I think Ukraine, with the support of the European Union, is in a position to fight and WIN all of Ukraine back in its original form,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.

Trump’s remarks represent a shift in his administration’s stance on the Russia–Ukraine conflict.

In remarks before NATO in February, U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said the U.S. policy toward the conflict would have to take into account “hard power realities,” including that “the borders won’t be rolled back to what everybody would like them to be in 2014.”

Before his Sept. 23 comments, Trump had also repeatedly raised the prospect of land swaps and territorial concessions to settle the conflict.

During a Sept. 23 evening interview with Fox News, Zelenskyy expressed his belief that Trump truly has changed his position on the Ukraine conflict.

“I think he understands for today that we can’t just swap territories,” the Ukrainian president said. “It’s not fair. It’s not the reality.”