Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Monday he believes Russia may be paying for the drones it is receiving from Iran by providing assistance to Iran's illegal nuclear programme.
Addressing a conference organized by Israel's Haaretz newspaper by video link, Zelensky repeated his request for Israel's Iron Dome anti-missile technology.
Ukraine's army was beating the Russians on the battlefield, "but, unfortunately, we do not have our own Iron Dome. We still do not have a modern and effective air defence and missile defence system that could secure our skies," he said.
After exhausting its own missile stocks, Russia had gone looking for weapons from other countries, Zelensky said.
"It found them in Iran. I have a question for you: How does Russia pay Iran for this in your opinion? Is Iran just interested in money? Probably not money at all, but Russian assistance to the Iranian nuclear programme," he said.
Moscow and Tehran have denied any weapons deal, but there is evidence that the hundreds of drones Russia has sent over Ukraine recently are either of Iranian origin or Iranian design.
Zelensky added that Iranians were also training the Russians in the use of the drones.
He said this alliance would not have come about, if Israel had decided in 2014 to provide Ukraine with weapons after Russian forces seized the Crimean Peninsula that year and launched an attack on the Donbass region of Eastern Ukraine.
Since the Russian invasion, Israel has offered humanitarian assistance to Ukraine but held back from providing military equipment for fear of harming relations with Russia, which is home to many Jews and is heavily engaged in the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad.
