Netanyahu weighs Israel's alliance with Russia as pressure mounts to provide military aid to Ukraine

Strengthening Russian-Iranian ties threaten the security not only of Ukraine, but also of Israel, according to senior politicians.

JERUSALEM — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long leaned into his relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, leveraging it to act as an intermediary between the Kremlin and Washington and to help secure Israel’s northern border with Syria.

What a difference 18 months makes.

Netanyahu returned to power in late December amid expectations that he would pivot Israel in the direction of Russia. He has instead shored up his country’s backing of Kyiv under pressure from Israel’s most significant ally, the U.S. Now he has to weigh alienating Putin by providing defensive arms to Ukraine, a move he has yet to agree to and which Russia has already made it clear would be a red line.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy publicly asked Israel for its advanced David’s Sling system in his virtual address to the Munich Security Conference on Feb. 17, expressing confidence that Israel would eventually acquiesce.

“We do not have yet the David’s Sling from Israel, but I believe it is just temporary,” Zelenskyy said.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba also laid out his country’s demands when he met with his Israeli counterpart, Eli Cohen, in Kyiv on Feb. 16.

“Israel knows perfectly well the list of our military and defensive requests which we have provided … to this government, and we will be waiting for some decisions to be taken,” he said. “We are talking about the provision of the Ukrainian skies.”

Cohen, who was the first high-level Israeli official to visit Ukraine since the start of the war, went to Kyiv on a solidarity trip that included a meeting with Zelenskyy, but he left without promising defensive military help.

Senior Israeli lawmakers have already called on Netanyahu to provide Ukraine with anti-drone and anti-missile systems.

Yuli Edelstein, a member of Netanyahu’s Likud Party who heads the parliamentary Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, traveled to Ukraine and met with Zelenskyy on Feb. 20, along with opposition legislator Ze’ev Elkin, with a message that was markedly different from Cohen’s.

They promised Zelenskyy to do everything possible to help ensure Israel sends defensive weapons.

“Israel can and should do much more than it has done so far,” they said in a statement after the meeting. “We must stop being afraid, and take an active unequivocal position in accordance with the basic moral values, as would be expected from any Western country.”

Automatic sympathy
Elkin and Edelstein both immigrated to Israel from Ukraine decades ago and say they feel automatic sympathy with its citizens under fire. But they also add that they broke ranks with their government, both from a moral position and then a policy one, given Russia’s growing military alliance with Iran, which has said it wants to see Israel wiped off the map.

Tehran has already shown its enmity to Kyiv by providing Russia with battlefield weapons such as armed drones, which Moscow has used against Ukraine, a move that has automatically tightened ties between Netanyahu and Zelenskyy.

So the strengthening of the Russian-Iranian alliance threatens the security not only of Ukraine, but also of Israel, Edelstein and Elkin said, saying both countries were now on the same side when it came to defending their citizens against Iran.