How Putin and Zelensky View the War in Iran

On April 14th, as Kyiv braced for a round of Russian strikes, the Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky, was seven hundred and fifty miles away, in Berlin, forging a defense agreement with Germany, part of a tour of European allies to raise support for military aid. But his mind seemed to be focussed on a different war, thousands of miles away, in the Middle East. In an interview with the German broadcaster ZDF, Zelensky griped that America’s top negotiators for both Ukraine and Iran, the special envoy Steve Witkoff and President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, “are constantly in contact with Iran and have no time for Ukraine.” Zelensky then noted severe shortages of the U.S. Patriot air-defense system, a vital tool for responding to Russian ballistic missiles. He suggested that the shortfall was due to more Patriot interceptors being used to counter Iranian attacks on America’s allies in the Middle East. “If the war lasts longer, there will be fewer weapons for Ukraine,” Zelensky said, adding that, “we have such a deficit right now, it can’t get any worse.”Hours later, Zelensky was in Oslo. The Iran war was still on his mind. He told journalists that Russia might strike that