The diplomat explained why the Trump administration had made a sharp U-turn in its rhetoric regarding Ukraine
A telling statement was made by the US Secretary of Defence, Pete Hagset, at the Shangri-La Dialogue security forum, where he said that the United States was ramping up military production to significantly higher levels in order to be able to supply Ukraine with more weapons.
According to former Ukrainian Foreign Minister Volodymyr Ogryzko, there is a much deeper process behind these words. He spoke about this in an interview with Obozrevatel.ua.
“We will have to speak a completely different language with Ukraine and think about mutually beneficial cooperation. One way or another, Ukraine is emerging as a leader in drone programmes, and the Americans will have to take this into account,” the diplomat noted.
According to Ogryzko, the US is beginning to realise that Ukraine is no longer merely a consumer of Western technology, but is developing its own.
The full-scale war has created a unique Ukrainian experience in the field of drones, countering missile attacks and modern warfare in general.
That is precisely why, the diplomat believes, Washington is now interested in cooperating with the Ukrainian defence industry.
“Ukraine is already offering solutions that are competitive even on the American arms market,” Ogryzko emphasised.
The former foreign minister is convinced that the change in tone in Washington is largely due to economic reasons.
The American defence industry remains one of the world’s largest arms exporters, but Ukrainian technologies are actively entering the international market.
“If an American ballistic missile costs, say, ten million dollars, and a Ukrainian one costs one million, a simple question arises: which missile will they buy?” the diplomat noted.
According to him, the US is beginning to realise that cooperation with Ukraine may be more profitable than competition. This is particularly true in the context of upcoming projects to create a European missile defence system, involving potential investments of hundreds of billions of dollars.
Another factor has been the war in the Middle East. The US military has run into a problem where relatively cheap attack drones are forcing them to use extremely expensive interceptor missiles.
Against this backdrop, Ukraine’s experience in combating drones takes on particular value.
“Only the Ukrainian and Russian armies have full-scale experience of large-scale drone warfare. No other armies in the world have such experience,” Ogryzko emphasised.
At the same time, Russia is actively sharing its expertise with China and Iran, whilst the US effectively has access only to Ukrainian experience.
According to the diplomat, this is precisely why Washington is gradually rethinking Ukraine’s role – the talk is now of joint development, technology exchange and new arms markets.
“The Americans know how to think ahead. They see these trends and are forced to make decisions. And, as I see it, the current decision is that it is more advantageous to be friends with Ukraine than to be in conflict with it,” Ogryzko noted.
As for Donald Trump’s position, the diplomat believes that the US president can no longer “turn a blind eye to reality” and must now take Ukraine into account.
“Trump conducts foreign policy in a very personalised manner. If he likes Putin, then Russia is good. If he likes Xi Jinping, then China is good, even though the reality may be quite different. Personal sympathies are often more important to him than inter-state relations. But he doesn’t like Zelenskyy,” Ogryzko recalled that this antipathy stems from personal misunderstandings dating back to the Biden era.
“But when Ukrainian specialists began to demonstrate their capabilities in practice, not only in Ukraine but also in the Middle East, and when Arab countries began to shift their focus from American solutions to Ukrainian ones, the situation became much more serious. And note this: Trump himself does not make such statements. He does not say that Zelenskyy is doing a good job or that the Ukrainians have achieved significant successes. That is the role of Hegset and other second-tier administration officials,” the diplomat explained.
He added that it is becoming increasingly difficult for Trump to ignore reality, because his own military advisors are telling him: Ukrainians are indeed ahead of many others in certain areas of modern warfare, and this has to be taken into account.
Against the backdrop of the rapid development of Ukrainian drone technology and the growing demand for new solutions in the field of air defence, defence cooperation could become one of the key themes in the new phase of relations between Kyiv and Washington.
As a reminder, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy previously asked the US to allow the production of Patriot missiles in Ukraine.
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