TEL AVIV, June 23. /TASS/. Weapons that the West supplied to Ukraine has already been detected near the Israeli border, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told The Jerusalem Post newspaper in an interview.
When asked to comment on his government’s stance on the situation around Ukraine, Netanyahu said that "Israel is in a peculiar situation, different from, say, Poland or Germany or France or any of the Western countries that are assisting Ukraine."
"First of all, we have a close military border with Russia. Our pilots are flying right next to Russian pilots over the skies of Syria," he continued. "And I think it’s important that we maintain our freedom of action against Iran’s attempts to place itself militarily on our northern border."
"Second, we also have concerns that any systems that we give to Ukraine would be used against us because they could fall into Iranian hands and be used against us," the Israeli premier continued. "And by the way, that’s not a theoretical possibility. It actually happened with the Western anti-tank weapons that we now find at our borders. So we have to be very careful here."
Since early 2022, Ukraine has repeatedly request Israel to provide it with various weapons, including air defense systems, but Israel has consistently turned down all requests. The Jewish state said it would only said humanitarian cargo and non-lethal equipment to the Kiev government. Among other things, Israel pledged to help Ukraine in deploying a cutting-edge civil defense missile warning system.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and other Russian officials have pointed out the danger Western weapons to Ukraine spreading to other regions. Russian Ambassador to the US Anatoly Antonov warned that the Western militarization of Ukraine directly threatens European and global security.