Oh, what a taste for irony life has! On the 28th of February 2025, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky was brutally and unfairly attacked by Donald Trump and JD Vance during the highly contentious meeting in the White House.
He was accused of ingratitude and lambasted by Trump for his resistance to a peace deal with Russia, because he "didn't have the cards" to make any demands or continue the war.
Fast forward by exactly 12 months, on the 28th of February 2026, Israel and the US began their aerial offensive against the regime in Iran.
And while they have inflicted massive, painful damage on the country over the past four weeks, decimating its leadership, its missile stockpiles, its military industries, sinking its navy, destroying its air force and air defences, the regime is now behaving like a cornered terrorist group, harassing its neighbours and blocking free transit of ships through the Strait of Hormuz, triggering a worldwide energy crisis.
This is possible because all it takes to obstruct it is a persistent threat of cheap, unsophisticated drones causing enough damage to prevent any onward journey.
The US appears to be planning a military operation which could seize critical islands along the route and clear them of at least seaborne threats launched from many hidden locations along the coasts, but UAVs can be deployed from many miles away in the mainland before being directed at a container ship or an oil tanker.
While it is fairly easy to shoot them down, it is costly to use traditional interceptors, which may cost a few hundred thousand to even millions per strike. What's worse, given the low cost, Iran is likely still in possession of thousands of such drones, which could swarm both naval and civilian vessels, overwhelming their defences
For that reason it would be difficult for the US navy to closely protect around 100 ships that normally traveled through the straits before the war, and guarantee successful destruction of all threats.
It needs countermeasures that can be deployed at a very large scale and relatively low cost.
It just so happens that Ukraine has developed such a solution during the 4 years of war with Russia, which has targeted the country with tens of thousands of Shaheds and other UAVs.
Small, fast interceptor drones cost just a few thousand dollars each and are designed to tackle swarms deployed by the attacker. This is exactly the sort of a threat that the US would be facing across the Hormuz.
Ukraine is already helping Gulf Arab countries, having sent hundreds of its combat engineers to teach them how tackle Iranian attacks.
The US, however, has been less open to cooperation, with Trump curtly responding to a question about Ukrainian help with "we don't need them", two weeks ago.
Clearly the idea of calling Zelensky for help is completely unpalatable to the US president.
But he might not have a choice if he wants to accomplish all his goals. The regime in Tehran may have been battered, but it still holds some leverage through its harassment of the strait. If the US wants to defeat it decisively and dictate the terms of its surrender, it needs to take charge of the passage.
Loss of control over it would be the final nail in the coffin for Tehran. Unrestricted shipping would end the energy crisis and drop oil prices significantly, reducing political pressure on Trump, buying him and the US military more time to continue attacks.
But to achieve that he might have to begrudgingly ask for help of the man he treated so mercilessly last year.
How the tables have turned in just one year. Who has the cards now?
