Zelenskyy's Digital Diplomacy in the Shadow of the Middle East Crisis
Ukraine entered 2026 facing an urgent challenge of preserving international visibility and sustaining political, military, and financial support within an increasingly overcrowded global security agenda. The escalation of conflict in the Middle East redirected significant diplomatic attention away from the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine. In response to these changing geopolitical realities, the digital diplomacy of the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, across platforms such as X and Instagram began demonstrating notable discursive adaptation.
On March 30, 2026, Zelenskyy published an evening address (Exhibit 3) in Ukrainian, stating that “Зараз уже є домовленості, це історичні домовленості” (“agreements already exist, and these are historic agreements”) with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar, declaring that “We are exporting our system of protection, the skills of our warriors, the knowledge that our state possesses” (Exhibit 3). This statement marks a discursive shift, where Ukraine no longer presents itself primarily as a country asking for protection, but as a country offering it.
Compared to the dominant narratives of the earlier stages of Russian full-scale invasion, Zelenskyy’s 2026 communication increasingly repositioned Ukraine within broader discussions of technological warfare, global instability, and transregional security cooperation. His public communication represents a rhetorical shift away from survival-centered messaging toward presenting Ukraine as a strategically relevant actor in a period of global instability. Further investigation of this topic through the lens of critical discourse analysis on social media uncovers a converted discourse of geopolitical threat to Ukraine’s visibility into a legitimating frame for ten-year defense agreements and security exports. In addition to this, the usage of both Ukrainian and English languages suggests possible legitimization of presidential functions for domestic audiences.
The beginning of 2026 marked a significant transformation in the global geopolitical environment. A more assertive and less predictable U.S. foreign policy under the second Trump administration generated growing uncertainty regarding the stability of the existing international order and the future distribution of Western strategic priorities. The U.S. military operation “Absolute Resolve” in Venezuela on January 3, 2026, which resulted in the capture of Nicolás Maduro, followed by the U.S.-Israeli operations Epic Fury and Operation Roaring Lion against Iran beginning February 28, 2026, signaled a renewed willingness in Washington to use direct military force to reshape regional security dynamics.
The Iran war has further redirected diplomatic attention, military resources, and international media coverage toward the Middle East, creating new geopolitical realities that Ukraine could not ignore as it entered another year of full-scale war against Russia. The international response to the Middle East developments remained fragmented. Western actors, including the European Union (EU), Canada, and the United Kingdom, largely called for restraint and de-escalation while stopping short of opposing the U.S.-Israeli operation. At the same time, China and Russia avoided direct intervention, while rising energy prices and Western distraction arguably worked to Russia's strategic advantage. Meanwhile, the Gulf and other countries were directly affected by the escalation, including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait, and Jordan, facing growing concerns regarding the vulnerability of their defense infrastructure and air defense systems.
Within this environment, Ukraine attempted to reposition itself from a country competing for international attention into a strategically relevant security actor within a broader global security crisis. This discursive shift became increasingly visible in the public messaging of Volodymyr Zelenskyy throughout spring 2026. Earlier stages of Ukrainian wartime communication primarily emphasized humanitarian suffering, democratic solidarity, and moral resistance against Russian aggression and committed war crimes, promoted by Zelenskyy and others using hashtags on social media such as #StandWithUkraine, #SupportUkraine, #RussiaIsATerroristState, etc. In contrast, Zelenskyy’s 2026 rhetoric started increasingly to frame Ukraine through the language of technological warfare, missile defense, drone production, and transregional security cooperation.
Two days before the U.S.-Israeli strikes, in a readout of Zelenskyy’s call with Israeli President Isaac Herzog on February 26, he framed Iran not as a regional issue but as a co-author of war in Ukraine: “the regime that supports the Russian war and supplied Russia with ‘Shahed’ drones for terror against Ukrainians.” On the day the strikes began, in a post on X (Exhibit 1), Zelenskyy folded Iran and Russia into a single category: “Whenever there is American resolve, global criminals weaken... This understanding must also come to the Russians.” Within a CDA framework, this naming strategy of “global criminals” versus “American resolve” performs an important argumentative work, where if Iran and Russia constitute one front, then Western resources spent over the Gulf are not diverted from Russian aggression in Ukraine but are spent within it.
The consolidation of the new discourse was translated into diplomatic initiatives, followed at the end of March during Zelenskyy’s tour. At the Joint Expeditionary Force leaders’ summit on March 26, Zelenskyy’s public discourse acquired a transactional clarity: “Ukraine has the world’s most extensive experience in drone utilization. We offer Middle Eastern and Persian Gulf countries a partnership that will benefit both sides: our knowledge and technology in exchange for their financing”. As a result, on March 27-28, Ukraine signed 10-year defense agreements with Saudi Arabia and Qatar, with a similar 10-year agreement with the UAE concluded within days, completing a set of long-term security partnerships across the Gulf by the end of March.
The Presidential Office’s statement of the Saudi agreement gave the new category its official name, stating that the document “strengthens Ukraine’s role as a security donor”. The term “donor” can be read as an inversion of Ukraine’s established role: a donor is conventionally the party with surplus and standing, and applying the term to a country still under daily missile attack re-authors Ukraine’s international identity.
This positioning was transitioned into the President’s social media messaging. In an X post from March 28, 2026 (Exhibit 2), Zelenskyy cited his conversation with journalists, stating that “When I travel outside of Ukraine, I get daily intelligence updates online. This morning, I was briefed that U.S. military facilities in the Middle East and the Gulf region were photographed by Russian satellites in the interests of Iran…There must be pressure on the aggressor. And lifting sanctions is certainly not pressure. It looks strange. Sanctions are being lifted, while the aggressor is providing intelligence to strike facilities, including those of the countries that are discussing or have already lifted sanctions.” Three discursive moves carry the post’s argument. First, Zelenskyy converts privileged access into testimony: by recounting that he receives “daily intelligence updates online,” he imports the genre of the intelligence briefing into a social media post, lending classified-channel authority to a public warrant.
Second, agency is assigned and withheld in parallel. Russia appears through the functional label “the aggressor”, but its identity is presupposed rather than argued, where “sanctions are being lifted” deletes the agent entirely. The understatement “It looks strange” leaves the charge of hypocrisy to implicature, preserving diplomatic register while the audience concludes itself.
Third, by linking Russian satellite intelligence to prospective Iranian strikes on facilities “of the countries that are discussing or have already lifted sanctions,” Zelenskyy relocates Russia’s war against Ukraine from a Ukrainian security problem to the audience’s own force-protection problem. Sanctions relief is thereby reframed not as diplomacy but as self-harm; “Their” bad actions are emphasized while “our” mitigated failure - lifting sanctions - is cast as what enables them.
Similarly, in the evening address of March 30, 2026 (Exhibit 3), delivered in Ukrainian after his return, Zelenskyy summarized the tour for the domestic audience: “Сьогодні вже вдома, в Україні, це був дуже корисний візит у регіон Близького Сходу, у регіон Затоки. Відчувається, яке хороше ставлення до України, до наших воїнів, до нашого досвіду. Висока повага до України — я вдячний за це лідерам, є загальне бачення країн регіону працювати разом із нашою державою, із нашим захистом разом із нашими експертами.” (In English: “I am back home in Ukraine today. It was a very productive visit to the Middle East, specifically the Gulf region. There is a very positive attitude toward Ukraine, our soldiers, and our experience. There is deep respect for Ukraine—I am grateful to the leaders there for this—and the countries in the region share a vision of working together with our state, our defense sector, and our experts.”) The address then names the outcome: “Зараз уже є домовленості, це історичні домовленості: Україна та Саудівська Аравія, Об'єднані Арабські Емірати, Катар.” (In English: “Agreements already exist, and these are historic agreements: Ukraine and Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar.”) The English version states the exchange as doctrine: “We are exporting our system of protection, the skills of our warriors, the knowledge that our state possesses. And from these countries - from our partners - we expect reciprocal security engagement.”
Two features of this wording deserve note. First, the adverb “вже” (“already”) in “вже вдома” (already home) and “вже є домовленості” (already have agreements) constructs speed and internal reassurance, countering the domestic anxiety that the Middle East war had left Ukraine behind, and signaling that the President’s place is at home, not abroad. The wording also justifies the trip to the domestic audience: sentiments such as “Відчувається, яке хороше ставлення до України, до наших воїнів, до нашого досвіду” (In English: “One can feel the good attitude toward Ukraine, toward our warriors, toward our experience”) present the foreign visit as recognition of Ukrainian soldiers and their expertise, rather than as time spent away from the war. Second, the deficits are admitted openly, but as the missing half of a trade rather than grounds for pity: as Zelenskyy told journalists the same day, “I believe these are historic agreements... This is mutual assistance - we are interested in anti-ballistic activities, we have a deficit in this area. We also have challenges related to energy - with diesel and so on.” At the same briefing, he confirmed that the shortage of anti-ballistic missiles had been raised with Middle Eastern partners and that Kyiv was negotiating with two unnamed countries to source alternatives to scarce PAC-3 interceptors for its Patriot systems.
The offer to the Gulf is paired with a warning aimed at Washington and Europe, and the two messages are best read together. In an interview with the Associated Press in Istanbul on April 4, 2026, Zelenskyy cautioned that a prolonged war on Iran “could further erode America’s support for Ukraine” as Patriot deliveries shrink. Read together with the March communications, the warning sets the price of neglect at the very moment Zelenskyy demonstrates an alternative market for Ukrainian expertise. Ukraine is shown to have options, so Western support appears less like charity toward a dependent and more like a relationship that must be actively maintained.
In a post from April 9, 2026 (Exhibit 4), Zelenskyy declared that “The Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council continues to work with countries neighboring Iran. New draft security agreements have already been prepared.” He further stated that “Ukraine is making its contribution to security, and in return our partners will contribute to strengthening Ukraine.” This wording reflects an initial stage of preparing the basis for the Drone Deals initiative, framing it as a security cooperation between Ukraine and its partners, which differs notably from earlier phases of wartime communication primarily centered around emergency support requests from Western allies.
This recontextualization is also visible in Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s post on X from May 11, 2026 (Exhibit 6), where he explicitly acknowledged that “the war in Iran is now drawing the greatest attention from America and the U.S. President.” Rather than presenting this as a diplomatic setback for Ukraine, the post attempts to integrate the war against Russia into the wider security public discourse emerging from the Middle East crisis. This can also be observed in Zelenskyy’s emphasis that “Russia’s war…is having a global impact on technological change…especially everything related to drones.” (Exhibit 6). This framing simultaneously demonstrates elements of strategic narrative construction and securitization of the discourse. Together with this, Volodymyr Zelenskyy noted that “nearly 20 countries are currently involved at various stages” of concluding Drone Deals with Ukraine, with four agreements already signed.
Through this framing, Ukraine is no longer positioned solely as a recipient of assistance, but as a country possessing relevant wartime experience in areas directly connected to the war in Iran, particularly drone warfare and air defense systems against Iran-made technologies supplied to Russia, so-called “shaheds”. This rhetoric is used to position Ukraine as a reputable partner, and by mentioning that “We [Ukraine/Ukrainians] have also begun preparations for the Drone Deal with Canada”, this public communication showcases continued efforts of Ukraine to establish bilateral security and defense deals with Western countries.
Moreover, in another post on X from May 13, 2026 (Exhibit 7), Zelenskyy openly stated that “Ukrainian security expertise is already working in the Gulf countries, helping the Middle East and the South Caucasus - and it’s just beginning.” With this wording, Zelenskyy is trying to present Ukraine’s battlefield experience as globally transferable security knowledge relevant not only to Europe but also to countries directly affected by instability in the Middle East. In the same post, Zelenskyy also announced that he had “proposed the Drone Deal for the EU” and stressed that “all of us need bilateral Drone Deals”. The introduced initiative “Drone Deal” is itself significant within a CDA framework, as it brings together two separate concepts: the word “drone” represents drone warfare as a military subject, and the term “deal” refers to a diplomatic and economic instrument of partnership-building.
The strategic broadening of Ukraine’s diplomatic outreach is also visible in Zelenskyy’s Instagram engagement with Gulf leadership, where the President strategically combines Ukrainian and English language communication. In an Instagram post published following a meeting with the King of Bahrain Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa (Exhibit 5), on May 5, 2026, Zelenskyy wrote in Ukrainian: “Практично щодня наша країна теж під такими ж терористичними ударами, і наші люди мають відповідний досвід повномасштабного захисту. Україна готова ділитися з Бахрейном такою безпековою експертизою та допомагати посилювати захист життя.” (In English: “Almost every day our country is also under similar terrorist attacks, and our people have relevant experience in full-scale defense. Ukraine is ready to share such security expertise with Bahrain and help strengthen the protection of lives.”) While this wording was used to emphasize shared interest for future cooperation between Ukraine and Bahrain, Zelenskyy’s use of the Ukrainian language also functions as an instrument of domestic legitimization, reinforcing internal public support for Ukraine’s expanding international security strategy. This framing allows him to position new bilateral defense partnerships and geopolitical outreach as directly connected to national survival and state resilience.
The evolution of Zelenskyy’s rhetoric is also closely connected to emerging institutional frameworks and defense financing initiatives in Europe. In the X post on May 13, 2026, from the Bucharest Nine Summit (Exhibit 8), Zelenskyy stressed that “the most effective tools are those that can physically stop the Russians,” specifically emphasizing at the end of his address the importance of NATO’s Prioritised Ukraine Requirements List (PURL) initiative, “which allows us [Ukraine], here and now…to buy anti-ballistic missiles.” By directly linking diplomatic negotiations with practical military NATO procurement, the discourse increasingly moves from symbolic appeals toward institutionalized security mechanisms. Simultaneously, initiatives such as the EU's Security Action for Europe (SAFE) instrument and the Ukraine Facility reflect attempts to integrate Ukraine into long-term European defense-production and financing structures, moving beyond emergency, ad hoc wartime support toward more predictable, multi-year mechanisms.
By early summer, the donor identity had become stable enough to be used offensively. In two separate publications on the X platform, Zelenskyy introduced an Open Letter to the President of the Russian Federation published on June 4, 2026 (Exhibit 9), where he addressed Vladimir Putin directly. The Gulf cooperation appears in the letter not as policy but as evidence in a taunt. The Ukrainian text reads: “Ви розраховували, що українцям не вистачить сил захистити себе, але тепер наші хлопці допомагають будувати захист нашим партнерам на Близькому Сході та в Затоці.” (In English: “You believed Ukrainians would not have the strength to defend themselves. Yet today, our people are helping our partners in the Middle East and the Gulf build their own defenses,” per the official English text published by the Office of the President.) The Ukrainian original uses the familiar “наші хлопці” (“our guys”), which the official English version neutralizes as “our people.” This vernacular wording echoes the domestic register of the March communications, which centered “наших воїнів” (“our warriors”), and here turns the donor identity against the adversary as evidence of Russian miscalculation. The open letter also addresses the enemy head of state while in fact performing for Ukrainian, Western, and Gulf audiences simultaneously.
The material side of the discourse has not always kept pace with its narrative, which is itself relevant for CDA. Ukrainian-made interceptor drones were delivered to the UAE by early June, yet Abu Dhabi struggled to integrate them, a reminder that the export narrative can run ahead of operational reality. The discourse, however, continued to widen. In an evening address on September 4, 2026, Zelenskyy thanked “our partners in the Middle East and North Africa for their strong focus on food security issues,” noting talks with Turkey, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia on export corridors and particular thanks to the President of Egypt, and linking the region’s stability to Ukraine’s own: “It is essential that maritime food shipments remain safe, as this is a matter of social security for dozens of countries around the world.” The Black Sea corridor experience is recontextualized as a service relevant to the Gulf, repeating the same discursive move by which interceptor expertise became an export.
On September 6, 2026, after talks with U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Zelenskyy extended the frame into the economic domain, speaking of “a prosperity plan... not only about security guarantees, but also economic guarantees for Ukraine to recover and rebuild” (Exhibit 10). The lexical movement from “security” to “prosperity” suggests an attempt to anchor the donor relationship in the post-war period as well.
September communications show the donor discourse underwriting Ukraine's negotiating position. In an interview with DW published on September 12, 2026, Zelenskyy stated that Ukraine was in a strong position to negotiate and offered to meet Vladimir Putin at the G20 summit in Miami, while a Ukrainian official indicated that a bilateral meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump is expected this month. After President Trump announced on September 14 that Ukraine and Russia had agreed to stop striking each other’s energy targets, Zelenskyy on his X account reframed the announcement as a U.S. “proposal” and converted it into a conditional offer, stating in his evening address that day (Exhibit 11): “Якщо американським партнерам вдасться забезпечити реальну готовність Росії припинити цю війну на знищення життя, Україна зробить свої деескалаційні кроки.” (In English: “If our American partners can ensure that Russia is genuinely ready to stop this war aimed at destroying life, Ukraine will take its own de-escalatory steps”).
The final conditional sentence complicates rather than simply extends the donor thesis. “Якщо” (if) makes Ukrainian de-escalation dependent on a prior, externally secured Russian readiness to stop the war. The conditional construction is significant here, as Ukraine’s de-escalation is grammatically subordinated to American delivery and Russian readiness, preserving agency while appearing accommodating. Notably, the war itself is named “війну на знищення життя” (“a war aimed at destroying life”), which keeps the moral framing of the earlier survival discourse active even as the donor framing dominates. The result is not a clean replacement of victimhood with power. It is a layered discourse that asserts technical agency without surrendering the claim to protection, and whose effects on negotiation cannot be inferred from these public statements alone.
Through platforms such as X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram, Zelenskyy began to frame Ukraine not only as a recipient of military assistance, but as a credible security partner with practical experience in drone warfare, missile defense, and modern military technologies. Simultaneously, this discourse appears aimed at encouraging deeper foreign investment, bilateral defense cooperation, and long-term strategic engagement with Ukraine’s expanding defense sector.
The discourse moves away from portraying Ukraine solely as a victim of aggression toward presenting the country as a strategically necessary security actor whose battlefield experience is globally transferable. The Middle East crisis functions not only as a geopolitical challenge for Ukraine, but as a discursive opportunity through which the Ukrainian leadership strengthened the country’s relevance, discursively legitimized ten-year defense agreements with Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, publicized the deployment of more than 200 Ukrainian counter-drone specialists to regional partners, and converted the language of assistance into a grammar of reciprocal exchange.
The analysis of the Ukrainian-language component shows that this repositioning required simultaneous domestic legitimation, achieved through vernacular and familial wording and through the presentation of the Gulf cooperation as an extension of national defense rather than a distraction from it.
By September 2026, the donor discourse expanded into food security and post-war "prosperity" framing and began to support Ukraine’s negotiating position in the emerging de-escalation track. The durability of this construction will need to be analyzed further: the integration difficulties reported by the UAE, the implementation of the ten-year agreements, and the outcome of the announced Zelenskyy-Trump meeting will show whether Zelenskyy’s evolving public communication is translating into sustainable institutional, economic, and security outcomes that support the broader strategic direction of Ukraine.
Initiatives such as SAFE, PURL, and the Ukraine Facility, covering the European institutional track, will need to be analyzed further as a comparative study against the Gulf cooperation documented in this report, in order to evaluate how Zelenskyy’s evolving public communication translates into sustainable institutional, economic, and security outcomes across both directions of Ukraine’s international engagement.
Exhibit 1. X Post from Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Meeting with the Israeli President. (Feb 26, 2026). Exhibit 2. X Post from Volodymyr Zelenskyy. On Military Intelligence. (March 28, 2026) Exhibit 4. X Post from Volodymyr Zelenskyy. New Draft Security Agreements. (April 9, 2026). Exhibit 5. Instagram Post from Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Meeting with the King of Bahrain. (May 5, 2026). Exhibit 6. X Post from Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Drone Deal with Canada. (May 11, 2026). Exhibit 7. X Post from Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Bucharest Nine Summit 2026 (1). (May 13, 2026). Exhibit 8. X Post from Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Bucharest Nine Summit 2026 (2). (May 13, 2026). Exhibit 9. X Post from Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Open Letter to the President of the Russian Federation ( Exhibit 10. X Post from Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Territorial Issue. (September 6, 2026) Exhibit 11. X Post from Volodymyr Zelenskyy. September 14 Address. (September 14, 2026).
