The United States is not helping Ukraine shoot down Russian missiles and drones, as it did with Iranian ones in Israel. The State Department gave four reasons. This was stated by US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller during a briefing.

Miller noted that he understands Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's comments that Western allies have shot down Iranian missiles and drones in the sky over Israel, but are afraid to do the same in Ukraine.

"I would think that the president of any country that is under such debilitating attacks would look for any possible way to protect their people. I completely understand that," he said.

However, the State Department spokesperson emphasized that the United States has "completely different relations with Ukraine and Israel."

"We have a decades-long security partnership with Israel, where we have provided them with direct military assistance - not just during the two years of conflict, but for decades - and we have long, extensive ties between our military and the Israeli military that have lasted for decades," Miller said.

He added that Israel is the main non-NATO ally of the United States, while Ukraine is in a different position.

"We did not have such an agreement (on the status of a major non-NATO ally - ed.) with them (Ukrainians) a few months before this conflict," the spokesman said.

He added that the United States provides Ukraine with the equipment necessary to protect its skies, and this includes air defense systems, in particular Patriot.

"Given that we are not in an armed military conflict with Russia, which would require American aircraft to be in the skies over Ukraine responding to Russian attacks. And we are not going to engage in direct armed conflict with Russia. The President of the United States has made that very clear," Miller emphasized.

The spokesman noted that it is in the interests of the American people to prevent a direct armed conflict between the United States and Russia, because they "do not want World War III."

"If you want to ask what else we can do, then this question should be asked to the United States Congress, because we have an additional spending bill that will allow us to provide Ukraine with more equipment. And we hope that this bill will be passed," Miller added.