Eighteen American service members are dead since the Iran war started. Volodymyr Zelenskyy says he has evidence that Russia helped Iran find the targets. And the President of the United States is taking Vladimir Putin's word that none of that is true.
What Zelenskyy Actually Said
On Saturday, Zelenskyy posted on X that Ukraine has been tracking Russian satellite surveillance of U.S. military facilities in the Gulf since the beginning of July, and that the images Russia was collecting kept showing up in Iranian hands before strikes. Not after. Before.
"There is a clear correlation between Russia's satellite imagery of these sites and Iranian strikes — both before the attacks, in preparation for them, and afterward, to assess the damage inflicted," Zelenskyy wrote. He named specific dates: July 19 and 20 alone, four air bases were swept by Russian satellites. Two in Bahrain, one in Jordan, one in Kuwait.
He said he would share this evidence directly with the United States. The implication being that the United States, apparently, needs someone to tell it what is happening to its own troops.
The Casualties Are Real and Getting Worse
Let's be specific about what is at stake here, because it gets lost in the diplomatic fog. CBS News reports that 18 American service members have been killed since the Iran war began. Four of them died in just the last few days. Three at Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan. One during a controlled demolition of an Iranian drone in Iraq.
Earlier in the war, six Americans were killed in an Iranian strike on an installation in Kuwait in March. Six more died the same month when a refueling plane went down in Iraq. One was killed at Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia. Nearly 100 more have been wounded in airstrikes across the region this month alone, according to U.S. officials who spoke to CBS News last week.
These are not statistics. These are people. And the question of whether Russia is helping Iran find them is not an academic foreign policy debate.
Hegseth Said Yes. Then Trump Said No.
Here is where the story gets genuinely surreal. At a Capitol Hill hearing earlier this week, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was asked directly whether Russia and China were helping Iran target U.S. forces. His answer, CBS News reports, was that yes, they were. He said there was "adversary alignment" and that both countries were "enabling some of the things Iran is doing."
Then Trump went on Truth Social and said he didn't believe any of it. He wrote that both Xi Jinping and Putin had personally assured him they were not involved, and that therefore, in his opinion, they were not involved. "If they did, it would be very bad for them," Trump wrote, as if a strongly worded personal assurance from two authoritarian leaders who lie professionally is a reasonable basis for U.S. intelligence assessments.
So the President of the United States has now publicly contradicted his own Defense Secretary on whether American enemies are helping kill American soldiers. This is the information environment in which 18 families are grieving.
This Accusation Has Been Out There for Months
None of this is entirely new, and that almost makes it worse. CBS News reported six days into the Iran war that Russia was providing intelligence to Iran about U.S. positions in the Middle East, based on a senior U.S. official with direct knowledge. China's possible involvement has been floating through media reports for months.
The allegation has been sitting there, reported and documented, while the death toll climbed. What Zelenskyy is doing now is forcing it back into the open with specifics: dates, locations, satellite passes, a direct offer to hand over evidence. He is doing the thing you would hope an American president would already be doing.
Instead, the American president is on Truth Social transcribing reassurances from Vladimir Putin.
The Dingo Take
Let's just state this plainly. The leader of Ukraine, a country that has been fighting Russia for years and has more current intelligence on Russian military behavior than almost anyone on earth, is telling the United States that Russia is helping Iran kill U.S. soldiers. He has dates. He has locations. He says he has evidence he will hand over directly. And the American response, from the top, is: Putin said he wasn't doing it, so probably fine.
This is not naivety. Naivety is forgivable. This is something else. Trump has staked his entire Russia posture on the idea that Putin is a straight shooter who will deal honestly with him personally, and no amount of dead American service members appears to be enough to puncture that belief. His own Defense Secretary said on the record, under oath, in front of Congress, that adversaries are enabling Iranian attacks. Trump publicly walked that back within days. Pete Hegseth, somehow, still has a job.
The people getting killed in Jordan and Kuwait and Iraq are the ones paying the price for this particular presidential blind spot. Zelenskyy, whatever your politics, is at least pointing at the fire and saying fire. Someone in Washington with actual authority needs to start doing the same thing, before the list of 18 gets any longer.
