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Defense News
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[l] at 8/26/26 8:55am
Seeing two wounded fighters stranded on the battlefield — one of them still strapped to a land drone immobilized by a Russian strike — Ukrainian commander Vladyslav Polskyi knew he had to do something.The 29-year-old — a former science teacher who joined the army in 2023 — was watching the soldiers on a screen in his command post around 15 km (9 miles) away.Between them stretched the “kill zone,” riddled with mines and swarmed by aerial drones ready to attack anything that moved.Polskyi, whose military call-sign is “Teacher,” hopped into his grey pick-up truck and raced past scorched fields and the charred husks of other vehicles left on the battlefield of northern Ukraine. He had no helmet or body armour.“If it had happened to me, I would’ve wanted them to come take me away, and not just leave me there,” the junior lieutenant told Reuters, recalling his Aug. 15 mission to save both men, who were members of another battalion.His feat captured the country’s attention and earned him its highest military honour, Hero of Ukraine, days later. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy presented him with the award at Independence Day celebrations in Kyiv on Monday.“People must be taken care of. Thank you, Vladyslav!” Zelenskiy said, announcing the award.STRANDED DRONE SHOWED LIMITS OF BATTLEFIELD TECHSpeaking to Reuters less than a week after the operation, Polskyi described speeding toward the men while planning how he would load them onto the flatbed of the truck.The two Ukrainian soldiers had been wounded during a combat mission in the Kharkiv region and were being evacuated atop an unmanned ground vehicle when it was struck by one of Russia’s small, agile helicopter drones loaded with explosives.Kyiv’s forces have been using remote-controlled unmanned vehicles to help limit human involvement in dangerous tasks like evacuations inside the “kill zone”, seeking an edge against Moscow’s bigger army.Russia’s successful attack cast light on the limits of the relatively slow and rudimentary vehicles. The Russian drone knocked out the land drone’s Starlink terminal, severing the link with its pilot and leaving it immobilized.One of the wounded soldiers had managed to crawl into a ditch off the road and hide in the vegetation; the other lay helpless on the four-wheeled vehicle under an open sky, his right foot dangling from the bone.Ukraine has also made widespread use of attack drones on the battlefield, and says it is killing or wounding around 30,000 Russian soldiers a month — a figure Moscow dismisses as exaggerated.Both sides frequently post videos of drones hunting down each other’s soldiers in the “kill zone.”Surveillance drone footage, obtained exclusively by Reuters from Polskyi’s unit, the 475th Assault Regiment, shows his truck hurtling down a gravel road before turning and rapidly reversing toward the damaged drone.Reuters was able to verify the exact location of the rescue using the full-length footage. However, the regiment asked not to disclose where it took place for security reasons.At another nearby command post, drone-platoon leader “Malyi” watched as the rescue played out on screens in real time.“Everyone in the command centre was shocked,” said the 22-year-old, who asked to be identified by his call-sign. Just a single Russian drone or land mine could have killed all three men, he added.Polskyi — dressed in T-shirt and shorts — hoisted both men onto his truck and raced home, managing to evade the flying Russian drones that had been detected heading toward their new target.Looking back, he remembered the fear in the men’s eyes. He was afraid too. “But you need to know how to control it,” he said.

[Category: Global] [Link to media]

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[l] at 8/26/26 7:14am
VIENNA — With the United Kingdom passing classified blueprints for British-made components of the SCALP cruise missile to Ukraine, the country is now in possession of the intellectual property and permissions needed to build the high-tech European weapon domestically. France had already provided Ukraine with a production license for the Franco-British weapon, called Storm Shadow in its U.K. variant, back in July. New U.K. Prime Minister Andy Burnham announced his decision to allow sharing the sensitive design details with Ukraine during his first visit to Kyiv on Monday. The two countries are bound by close military cooperation and strong British support for Ukraine’s defense, and signed a 100-year bilateral partnership agreement in 2025. However, despite the highly symbolic and strategic nature of the SCALP move, it is unlikely that Ukraine will be able to produce large numbers of Storm Shadows in the near future, as it lacks specialized, high-precision manufacturing equipment at scale, complicated by the fact that the country is at war. Denmark to host Ukrainian missile fuel production in NATO firstFrance and Ukraine are seeking to set up a joint SCALP production line in Ukraine, but the effort has so far stalled due to a lack of authorization for British-made components. “The move follows the U.K. being the first to gift long-range strike weapons for defensive purposes to Ukraine in 2023 and will allow the French and Ukrainians to move forward with the Ukrainian assembly of the missile,” the British Prime Minister’s office said in a press statement ahead of Burnham’s public announcement. The British government said the decision came alongside Project Brakestop, which aims to quickly develop effective and cheap long-range weapons for Ukraine’s use. Moscow has not taken kindly to the announcement, with former Russian Deputy Foreign Minister and current Kremlin advisor Andrei Fedorov telling the BBC that the U.K. could see its factories involved in support for Ukraine face a “semi-military” response, “not by Russia, but from unknown sources.” Long-range strike abilities for Ukraine have been a sore point for a long time in the Kremlin, and with the humiliating Ukrainian deep-strike campaign targeting oil refineries and warehouses making the war tangible to the Russian public just ahead of elections this September, it’s an especially touchy subject. In response, hybrid warfare across Europe carrying Russian signatures, such as mystery drone appearances and sabotage, have increased. In May 2023, the U.K. became the first country to publicly supply long-range missiles to Ukraine in the form of Storm Shadow, although initially with a restriction against using them on Russian territory. Shortly after, France followed suit and provided SCALP to Kyiv. In the fall, the U.S. quietly began delivering ATACMS ballistic missiles, though again on the condition they won’t be used on Russian soil directly. A turning point came in summer 2024, when the Biden administration authorized the use of HIMARS rocket launchers across the border into Russia to help defend Kharkiv. Similar case-specific uses of SCALP and Storm Shadow against Russia followed later that year. Finally, in May 2025, new German Chancellor Friedrich Merz announced that Germany, the U.K., France, and the U.S. had lifted range restrictions, allowing Ukraine to strike deep across Russia with Western-supplied weapons.In parallel, Ukraine has been developing domestic deep-strike capabilities, most famously in the form of the FP-5 “Flamingo” cruise missile built by the private but state-supported Fire Point enterprise. In recent months, the country has also field-tested various homegrown ballistic missiles, including an incident when the Russian military shot down a Ukrainian ballistic missile just 40 kilometers from Moscow.

[Category: / Europe] [Link to media]

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[l] at 8/26/26 3:03am
VIENNA — The first-ever road bridge linking North Korea and Russia across the Tumen River appears close to completion, according to satellite imagery reviewed by Defense News, though construction on the Russian side lags behind Pyongyang’s finished part. It is a visible manifestation of the two countries’ tightening relationships, driven by Pyongyang’s military support for Russia in its war against Ukraine. Half-meter resolution Planet imagery captured in recent weeks shows the North Korean approach to the bridge fully built, including a customs building and a controlled entry point several hundred meters from the riverbank. Work on the Russian side, by contrast, is still continuing, with construction on border facilities and even the road itself still visibly ongoing. While the footprint for a large customs building and the gravel for a future highway have been laid, at present, the border is still far from opening to commercial traffic on the Russian side.Long-sought manufacturing gains are boosting North Korea arms buildupThe crossing sits at Tumangang, a longstanding rail hub on the North Korean-Russian border that handled Soviet-era bulk trade before falling largely dormant after 1991. Activity there has picked up sharply since 2022, coinciding with Pyongyang’s decision to supply Moscow with artillery shells and troops for its war in Ukraine, and Russia’s decision to turn a blind eye to the application of UN sanctions against the Kim regime that Moscow had originally helped to put in place.The border between North Korea and Russia is just 17 kilometers, or 11 miles, long, but increasingly geopolitically significant.“It’s clear that Kim Jong Un has decided, ‘Our way forward is with Russia,’ and this is emergent proof of it,” said John Ford, a research fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, who has tracked North Korean infrastructure and arms production for years. Ford noted that Pyongyang had sought a symbolic road bridge at the crossing for decades, only for Moscow to rebuff the idea until the diplomatic fallout from its full-scale invasion of Ukraine reshaped the relationship.According to Ford, in addition to the symbolic value, the bridge may aim to address a persistent bottleneck at Tumangang’s existing rail link, where North Korea’s lack of standardized ISO shipping containers has forced cargo to be transloaded by hand between rail cars − a slow process that has instead pushed much of the ammunition trade through the port of Rason, then by sea to Russia’s Dunai terminal.A functioning road crossing could let trucks bypass that chokepoint, though Ford cautioned it remains unclear whether it would primarily move Russian goods into North Korea, or North Korean goods, including munitions, out.“The most surprising thing is that it seems functional,” Ford said, pointing to the impractical location of the construction site. It sits far away from any major urban center in Russia’s far east, and even for North Korea, Tumangang is in a remote corner of the country. Existing transport options, primarily by ship from the nearby port of Rason, seem like the obvious choice. He also noted that Russian truckers are unlikely to drive deep into North Korea given the unpredictable and potentially hostile environment, making a river-adjacent transfer point more plausible to him than a true cross-border logistics route.What is for certain, though, is that Russia and the country officially called the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea have moved much closer together on the world stage since Putin’s 2022 decision to invade Ukraine. The two countries signed a “Comprehensive Strategic Partnership” in 2024, which includes a mutual defense clause committing both countries to defend the other in times of war, and many stipulations for cooperation ranging from nuclear to spaceflight.Ford also pointed to symbolic markers of the deepening alignment, including the restoration of Lenin and Marx portraits at North Korea’s Military Officers Political Academy and Kim’s 2023 visit to Vladivostok, as evidence Pyongyang is betting on a durable partnership with Moscow that could outlast the war in Ukraine.Whether the bridge meaningfully expands cross-border throughput, Ford said, will only become clear once construction wraps and analysts can watch for signs of actual truck traffic.

[Category: / Asia Pacific] [Link to media]

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[l] at 8/25/26 4:10pm
Ukraine appears to be slowly losing the war against Russia, ousted Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov told Reuters, warning that Kyiv has a window of several months to make key decisions needed to turn the tide in its favor.Fedorov, a young reformer whose dismissal last month sparked weeks of protests, said Ukraine lacked any overall vision for how to win the four-year-old conflict and was hobbled by its failure to innovate.Ingrained corruption and patronage networks, as well as a lack of political independence in government institutions, were also holding the country back, he said in an interview. “I think that there’s now a turning point which will determine our future trajectory, but it looks as though we’re gradually, slowly losing,” Fedorov said in a marked departure from Kyiv’s official rhetoric.Ukraine still had “every chance” to win but urgently needed a plan to end the war, he added.Ukraine’s presidential office said in response to Fedorov’s comments that he had been positive about the conduct of the war when he was at the ministry and the only thing that had changed was his personal status.LACK OF INTERCEPTORS HINDERS UKRAINERussia is hammering Ukrainian factories and warehouses with dozens of ballistic missiles a month, which Ukraine is mostly unable to take down as interceptors run low. Although Russia is gaining less ground than last year, it is still slowly crawling forward in the Donbas, while Ukraine’s sparse frontline infantry dugouts are manned mostly by unmotivated conscripts.Ukraine, in turn, has ramped up its own drone and missile attacks deep into Russia, hitting some key military factories, causing serious damage to oil refineries and creating nationwide fuel shortages.A poll conducted at the end of July found 82% of Ukrainians believed Ukraine would win, although most expected fighting to carry on into 2027 or later.Fedorov, 35, was fired six months after his appointment, having initiated reforms around procurement and mobilisation that put him on a collision course with the military establishment and political rivals. Last week, he rocked Ukrainian politics by becoming the first major political figure to demand wartime elections, decrying a “systemic” crisis of governance.In an interview on Monday, he emphasised the importance of developing autonomous drones guided by artificial intelligence, cheap interceptor missiles to stop Russia’s air attacks and Ukraine’s own ballistic missile program to turn the tide of the war.Ukrainian manufacturers are already working on those technologies, but Fedorov said the country needed a joined-up strategy to maximise their effect once deployed.He laid out a vision for a frontline covered by electronic sensors to detect enemies, with drones on land and in the air to minimise human presence.“Technologies exist already which could completely stop the Russians, but our absence of vision ... means we do not apply them,” he said.Fedorov criticised the wasted potential and inefficiency of the Ukrainian state, which he said was operating at “5% effectiveness.”BUDGET DEFICIT BLAME GAME Fedorov says he was a driving force behind a drone campaign this year targeting Russia’s fuel and military logistics in the occupied part of southern Ukraine, causing problems for Moscow’s forces on the frontline.He said there was still a window of opportunity of a few months to press ahead with that operation, seeking to isolate Russian-occupied Crimea, before Russia works out how to respond to Ukraine’s tactics. This strike campaign was a significant factor in shifting narratives about Ukraine’s prospects.Fedorov previously said the campaign’s success was aided by his decision to front-load spending, which had been earmarked for the second half of 2026. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy — Fedorov’s former political patron turned rival — said at the weekend that bringing spending forward had left a $27 billion hole in the ministry’s budget, for which donor-dependent Ukraine does not have a solution.Fedorov said he had no idea where Zelenskiy got this figure, arguing his ministry devised a spending plan that relied on savings from new procurement tenders and international support.Fedorov alleged that when he arrived at the defense ministry, he found department heads appointed at the behest of Ukrainian defense companies to lobby for their interests. “By the end of the year, the budget deficit under our planning was around five billion dollars, and we knew where we would get it,” he said. “Perhaps the plan changed and new projects emerged that require such a budget.”ELECTION CALLFedorov’s call for elections was met with dismay from many Ukrainians and polls have consistently shown low enthusiasm for wartime elections.Zelenskiy condemned Fedorov’s election call, arguing it could destroy Ukraine as it fights off Russia. Ukraine has, since Russia’s February 2022 invasion, been under martial law which bans elections for security reasons.The president said Fedorov may be being pushed by outside forces to call for elections. Fedorov staunchly denied this.While there are enormous logistical challenges to holding wartime elections, Fedorov said that Ukraine would find innovative solutions. However, he said it was too early to say if he would run for the presidency.In the meantime, Fedorov plans to split his time between his push to restore Ukraine’s elections and ventures focused on innovative military technologies, including an investment fund for which he plans to raise capital during an upcoming trip to the U.S.

[Category: / Europe] [Link to media]

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[l] at 8/25/26 1:30pm
The Navy is exploring two options for its Silent Anvil Air-Launched Torpedo and is seeking contractors that fit the bill.The first is a new torpedo launched from an aircraft or drone that glides into the water and acoustically homes in on the target.The other is a glide kit affixed to an existing torpedo. The concept seems similar to the Navy’s existing High Altitude Anti-Submarine Warfare Weapon Capability system, which added a glide kit to regular Mark 54 torpedoes that can be launched from P-8 Poseidon patrol planes flying as high as 30,000 feet. Or, the Air Force’s highly successful Joint Attack Direct Munition, which added fins and GPS to turn iron bombs into cheap guided munitions.Silent Anvil would extend the concept to a wider “range of manned and unmanned aircraft platforms capable of executing ASW missions,” according to the Navy Request for Information. The deadline is Sept. 29.The Navy seeks a weapon that can be carried internally or externally, and is compatible with a standard BRU-61/A bomb rack. The torpedo should have “compact, lightweight form factor similar to the GBU-39 Small Diameter Bomb (SDB) to maximize aircraft carriage options across multiple manned and unmanned platforms.” This means a weight of no more than 268 pounds, a length of no more than 70 inches and a diameter of up to 7.5 inches. The RFI does not specify the range of Silent Anvil (the Mark 54 has a range of about 5.7 miles). “The Government is seeking industry input on the maximum standoff glide range achievable,” the Navy said.The RFI included launch speed and altitude bands: Mach 0.25, 0.50, and 0.85, at altitudes from 10 feet up to 60,000 feet. This is far higher than the P-8’s maximum altitude, and closer to the ceiling of an MQ-4C Triton high-altitude drone.“SAA-LT shall maximize aerial flight endurance while minimizing aquatic immersion time, restricting water residence strictly to the minimum duration required for successful mission execution,” the Navy said. For the glide-kit version, the torpedo must enter the water at an angle of 45 to 90 degrees and at a velocity of 40-120 feet per second.The SAA-LT timeline calls for a prototype within 18 months after an agreement award. This would be followed by 180 all-up-round prototypes within three years after a successful demonstration.SAA-LT comes as China expands both the size and sophistication of its submarine fleet, including large, long-range robot subs. For its part, the U.S. Navy is also developing the Long Range Antisubmarine Warfare weapon, which will extend the reach of rocket-launched ASW torpedoes fired from vertical launch tubes on surface ships.

[Category: / MilTech] [Link to media]

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[l] at 8/25/26 9:59am
The aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln will dock in Thailand next week, a Thai official said on Tuesday, following a prolonged deployment in the Middle East and reports of mental health concerns and deteriorating conditions on board.The Lincoln, which left the Middle East on Saturday, has not made a port call in over ​200 days, setting a modern-day record for consecutive ​days at sea, according to Democratic lawmakers.The ship, which has roughly ​5,000 sailors and Marines aboard, will be in Thailand for “rest and recreation after their long sea journey,” the official said, asking not to be named.Thailand’s Navy confirmed a U.S. Navy carrier strike group would make a brief stop in eastern Thailand, with no exercises taking place. It did not name the three vessels or provide a date for the visit, citing security concerns. “The stop is a routine port visit intended to allow personnel to rest and recuperate ... as well as to receive logistical support,” the Thai Navy’s spokesperson said in a statement.The U.S. Embassy in Bangkok did not immediately respond to a request for comment.The Lincoln left its home port of San Diego in November and was ​later redirected ​to the Middle ⁠East to support U.S. military operations in the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran.Military Times spoke to family members of Lincoln sailors this month, who said that multiple sailors had attempted to go overboard at sea amid declining morale on the ship. U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the reports “completely misrepresented” the conditions on board.Thailand is the United States’ only treaty partner in mainland Southeast Asia, having been a treaty ally since 1954 and a major non-NATO ally since 2003. Both countries’ militaries maintain strong relations.

[Category: / Asia Pacific] [Link to media]

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[l] at 8/25/26 9:39am
Within the Defense Department’s ongoing efforts to revitalize the industrial supply chain across the military branches, the U.S. Navy announced it is standing up a new defense industrial base office to “expand the domestic manufacturing ecosystem, mitigate supply chain vulnerabilities, and integrate dual-use commercial technologies to enhance the lethality of the Navy-Marine Corps team,” according to a Monday release. Andrew Magliochetti, who previously served as the director of the Navy’s Office of Small Business Programs, was tapped by Acting Secretary of the Navy Hung Cao to become the first deputy assistant secretary of the Navy for the defense industrial base.As the principal civilian advisor to William F. Mahan, the assistant secretary of the Navy for Research, Development, and Acquisition, Magliochetti is “charged with driving the revitalization of the maritime industrial base, fostering supply chain resilience, and accelerating the transition of innovative technologies from the private sector to the Fleet,” according to the release.Magliochetti is tasked with expanding the at times sluggish shipbuilding and U.S. manufacturing and mitigating “supply chain vulnerabilities” that have plagued the Navy in recent decades. Last March, the Government Accountability Office released a report detailing nearly two decades of lackluster progress in U.S. shipbuilding. According to the GAO, not enough ships have been built, newly constructed ships are failing to function as expected and ships are being delivered up to three years later than ordered.Overall, the service aims to increase its number of ships dramatically, according to President Donald Trump’s $1.5 trillion fiscal 2027 defense budget.The document states that the Navy currently has over 290 battle force ships, though Navy requirements by law call for 355. The service intends to have 395 vessels in fiscal 2027 and 450 vessels by the end of fiscal 2031.“I am deeply honored to serve as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy for the Defense Industrial Base,” said Magliochetti. “An agile, secure industrial base is the cornerstone of our combat readiness. I am committed to accelerating the delivery of resilient supply chains and cutting-edge, dual-use technologies directly into the hands of our warfighters to ensure our sailors and Marines are ready for any high-end fight.”

[Category: Industry] [Link to media]

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[l] at 8/25/26 9:18am
WARSAW, Poland — Poland, Norway, Lithuania and Latvia have signed a framework agreement to buy Piorun (Thunderbolt) man-portable air defense systems from Polish state-run defense group PGZ under a deal worth more than 8 billion zloty ($2.2 billion).The acquisition covers “several thousand missiles and several hundred launch units,” PGZ said in a statement. Deliveries of the group’s flagship weapon are to be completed by 2030, with Poland serving as the consortium’s leader.On Poland’s side, the procurement will be financed from the European Union’s Security Action For Europe (SAFE) scheme which foresees around €43.7 billion ($50.9 billion) in low-cost loans for Warsaw. More than 80% of the acquired gear is to be delivered to the Polish military.“Not only are we implementing this agreement through the Polish defense industry, but our partners from Lithuania, Latvia and Norway have also decided to make purchases in Poland,” Deputy Defence Minister Magdalena Sobkowiak-Czarnecka said. “For the first time, the Armament Agency is making purchases not only for the Polish Armed Forces, but also for the armed forces of our allies.”Building on the weapon’s successful use in Ukraine and the resulting international demand for the Piorun, PGZ officials say that, over the past several years, the group has increased its dedicated missile production capacity from 300 to 1,500 units annually, with plans to reach a capacity of more than 2,000 missiles per year.Amid the weapon’s increasing popularity among European allies, PGZ has also sold the Piorun to numerous countries outside Europe, including the United States, Japan and Indonesia.The current generation of the MANPADS is able to hit targets at an altitude of up to 4 kilometers (2.5 miles), and it has a range of up to 6.5 kilometers (4 miles), according to data from the producer. PGZ’s subsidiary MESKO, the group’s leading maker of ammunition and rockets, manufactures the Piorun at its plant in Skarżysko-Kamienna, in central Poland.Meanwhile, PGZ is also working on a new version of the product, the Piorun New Generation (NG). The weapon is to be enabled with a longer range, additional features, and improved portability, company representatives said.

[Category: / Europe] [Link to media]

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[l] at 8/25/26 7:40am
KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine’s latest domestically-made ballistic missile will be ready for combat by the end of next month, the country’s biggest defense company said, providing Kyiv with a new offensive option to combat what Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy calls Russia’s “ballistic terror.” The president discussed the missile shortage as he repeated his call to allies to help bridge the gap in Ukraine’s air defenses and weapons production capabilities during his annual speech commemorating 35 years of Ukrainian independence on Monday. “A solution to [Putin’s] ballistic terror must be found, and this gamble of his must not pay off,” he said.Dubbed a lower-cost analogue of the U.S.-made ATACMS, Fire Point’s FP-7 ballistic missile can strike targets up to 186 miles (300 kilometers) away, depending on the size of its warhead, which can weigh up to 331 pounds (150 kilograms), according to company representatives. The missile was previously expected to be combat-ready no earlier than the end of 2026. Showing what Ukrainian defence tech looks like when its built for real war ? pic.twitter.com/sCZtUkFEfy— Fire Point (@FirePointUA) August 19, 2026Its accelerated debut comes as Kyiv seeks solutions to its shortage of ballistic interceptors and it doubles down on its “long-range sanctions” campaign of strikes on oil refineries and missile launchers across Russian territory.“The FP-7 is currently undergoing final tests in order to also receive certification and proceed to combat trials. So we expect its first combat use at the end of September,” CEO Iryna Terekh said at the DALO Industry Days arms show in Denmark last week, according to UNN. “We are ready for this; not much preparation remains,” she said.Producing ballistic missiles could offer Kyiv three forms of relief at once: a way to strike the launchers it can no longer reliably intercept, a way to hold Russian cities at the same risk Ukrainian ones now face and fresh leverage in any return to negotiations, according to Ukrainian officials and military strategists.With interceptors running low globally, destroying launchers on Russian soil cuts the number of ballistic and cruise missiles that Ukraine has to take down in the air, swapping a small mark racing through the sky for a truck-sized target sitting stationary on the ground.“Advocates of a more offensive approach argue that the country should be aiming to ‘shoot the archer, not the arrow,’” according to an Atlantic Council brief published earlier this month.Fielding both missiles would “significantly enhance Kyiv’s ability to strike Russian missile launch and production sites, while also potentially boosting deterrence,” according to the analysis.The ballistics would also put pressure on Moscow’s war infrastructure more broadly, a coercive deterrent that mirrors the strikes Russia has aimed at Ukraine’s since 2022.Ukrainian officials and company spokespeople have also said that they hope that bringing ballistic warfare to Russian soil will help push Moscow back to the negotiating table.“The Russians must be brought to the negotiating table. There finally must be sanctions that will make them howl,” Zelenskyy said during Monday’s address. “Ukraine must be given everything that will force [Russia] to end the war. And this is possible.”Fire Point will debut its next-generation missile, the larger FP-9, by late autumn, company representatives told Reuters earlier this month. Traveling at speeds up to 2,200 meters per second, the FP-9 will be capable of carrying a 1,764-pound (800 kilogram) warhead as far as 531 miles (855 kilometers) — putting Moscow well within range, according to United24.

[Category: / Europe] [Link to media]

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[l] at 8/25/26 2:50am
PARIS — The Royal Netherlands Navy plans to equip its fleet with a new counter-UAS capability based on interceptor drones from defense firm Destinus to improve protection of its warships against drone attacks.Destinus will develop a kinetic counter-UAS capability for the Navy based on its Hornet B2 interceptor, the company said in an emailed statement late Monday. The program will include delivery of the interceptors, integration with several warships and support towards a possible initial operating capability, with the program slated for completion in the second quarter of 2027.“The threat of drones at medium range is increasing,” the Dutch Ministry of Defence said in a statement on Monday. “That’s clear from both operational analyses as well as the current threat picture during maritime operations. Sailing units therefore need additional means to effectively defend themselves in fleets.”Ukraine has been using low-cost interceptor drones to defeat one-way attack UAVs, offering a potential solution for Western navies that have found themselves firing expensive missiles at relatively cheap Houthi drones in the Red Sea. The U.S. Navy has already installed launchers for Raytheon’s Coyote interceptor on Arleigh Burke-class destroyers.The new system will be an addition to existing armaments, the Dutch MoD said. The system will consist of a base station and a launch platform that can fire a drone interceptor, and the C-UAS solution will continue to be developed through testing, the ministry said.“The program addresses the growing requirement for scalable naval protection against low-cost, high-volume aerial threats,” Destinus said.The company said an earlier version of the interceptor, the Hornet B1, is already in serial production. The system consists of an interceptor launched from a sealed canister by a rocket booster, before deploying its wings and transitioning to electric-powered cruise flight.The interceptor is designed to intercept one-way attack systems using electro-optical and infrared sensing and AI-based processing for the terminal phase, at a cost per engagement “far below that of traditional interceptor missiles,” according to Destinus.“Low-cost aerial threats have inverted the economics of naval air defense: no navy can sustainably trade multimillion-euro missiles against low-cost threats arriving at volume,” Destinus CEO Mikhail Kokorich said in a statement. “Hornet B2 answers this with a different architecture.”The Dutch Navy will contribute direct operational expertise throughout the development and evaluation process, shaping capability requirements and system specifications, Destinus said. That will reduce the need for adaptation after system development, according to the company.

[Category: / Europe] [Link to media]

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[l] at 8/24/26 1:05pm
The United States canceled a joint amphibious landing drill scheduled for next month with South Korea, Seoul’s Marine Corps said on Monday, after Washington cited constraints on the availability of U.S. forces due to the war in Iran.The U.S. Marine Corps formally notified its South Korean counterpart in June that force availability would be constrained for the division-level exercise, known as Ssangyong, a South Korean Marine Corps spokesperson told a press briefing.The allies remain in close consultations on resuming the drills, the spokesperson said. He did not specify what measures might be taken to prevent future cancelations or to make up for lost training opportunities.U.S. Forces Korea did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Later on Monday, the U.S. State Department said that Secretary of State Marco Rubio had spoken with South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Hyun about a “range of issues” in their alliance.Rubio told his South Korean counterpart that Washington and Seoul need to remain in close coordination on matters integral to their alliance, according to a State Department statement.The cancelation of the amphibious landing drill follows U.S. President Donald Trump’s surprise order to scale back a separate annual joint military exercise that ended last Friday, citing the cost and Seoul’s refusal to take part in the Iran war.Trump also wrote on his Truth Social platform that the Ulchi Freedom Shield drills sent “a signal that was totally inappropriate and hostile, to a Country that, as long as Donald J. Trump has been President, has been unthreatening and respectful.” Despite the reduction of the exercises, Pyongyang fired 10 short-range ballistic missiles last week and issued a statement denouncing the exercises.North Korea has long condemned such joint exercises as rehearsals for invasion.

[Category: / Asia Pacific] [Link to media]

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[l] at 8/24/26 10:12am
ROME — The Italian Air Force is mulling the purchase of U.S. technology that turns cheap unguided missiles into precision weapons, offering a low-cost option for taking out drones instead of using pricy air-to-air missiles.The potential deal was made possible by the U.S. Department of State’s approval of a Foreign Military Sale to Italy of 5,031 BAE Systems Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System (APKWS) II guidance systems.The APKWS, which can be inserted between the warhead of an unguided missile and its motor, features four fold-out wings which each carry a laser seeker, turning a missile that costs less than €100,000 ($117,000) into a guided weapon.The solution would allow the Italian Air Force to avoid firing missiles like the AMRAAM - which costs ten times that - to destroy cheaply produced drones.“The proposed sale will improve Italy’s capability to meet current and future threats by strengthening its homeland defense and serving as a deterrent to regional threats,” the State Department said.The FMS approval also covers launchers, warheads and rocket motors, as well as technical support, taking the potential deal to $364 million, the State Department added.Sources in Italy told Defense News no contract had been signed and the technology was still being evaluated. The likely recipient of the APKWS would be Italy’s Eurofighter jet, which is already guarding Europe’s borders against drone incursions.This month, an Italian Eurofighter taking part in NATO air policing mission in the Baltics shot down an unidentified drone which flew into Latvian airspace.In May, the Royal Air Force announced it was already using the system on its Eurofighters after a rapid acquisition which saw testing and deployment completed in two months.“The Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System (APKWS) gives RAF pilots a highly accurate option to destroy aerial targets and allows them to engage drones at a fraction of the cost of traditional air-to-air missiles,” the RAF said at the time.

[Category: / Europe] [Link to media]

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[l] at 8/24/26 8:45am
PARIS — Finnish defense company Patria is teaming up with Ukrainian drone maker General Cherry to jointly develop drones as well as start production of drones in Finland.The companies signed a letter of intent on Sunday to combine General Cherry’s expertise in small drones and Patria’s unmanned-technology expertise and defense-industry experience, which will allow them to jointly develop unmanned vehicles for Western European defense needs, they said in a statement on Sunday.The announcement is part of a broader wave of European defense-industrial cooperation with Ukrainian drone makers. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz in December announced plans to produce various Ukrainian drones in Germany, while Ukrainian UAV makers including Skyeton and Ukrspecsystems are partnering or investing in the United Kingdom to produce drones there.“Unmanned defense systems are central to the future of defenses,” said Mikko Leino, Patria’s executive vice president for defense and weapon systems, in the statement. “The partnership with General Cherry further reinforces Patria’s expertise in unmanned defence systems and drone development.”As part of the collaboration, Patria plans to start drone production in Finland, which would help build up Europe’s defense capabilities and support the Finnish firm’s aim to be an innovative product developer, the company said in a statement on Sunday.“Our unique battlefield experience, combined with Patria’s technological capabilities, can help drive a fundamental transformation of the European and global security architecture,” said Stanislav Hryshyn, co-founder of General Cherry, in the statement.Patria didn’t immediately respond to phone calls and emailed questions about the cooperation plans, including whether the Finnish company will produce existing General Cherry drone models or when Finnish production could start.General Cherry produces a range of drones, including one-way FPV strike drones and interceptor drones, and the company says its products are in use with more than 200 military units across the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

[Category: / Europe] [Link to media]

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[l] at 8/24/26 7:46am
UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham will visit Ukraine on Monday on his first overseas trip since taking office, and will announce British support to help Kyiv improve its domestic production of long-range missiles.Burnham will be in Ukraine to co-chair a meeting of the so-called Coalition of the Willing, a group of countries backing Ukraine, on Monday, when he is also due to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.He is set to announce that Britain has agreed to allow European missile manufacturer MBDA to release classified information on British-made components used in the SCALP long-range cruise missile, according to his office.That will help enable France and Ukraine to establish local assembly lines for the missile, which shares British and French technology, according to Downing Street.“Ukraine’s security is our security,” Burnham said in a statement, adding that Britain would stand by Ukraine “for as long as it takes.”Britain has been one of Ukraine’s strongest supporters since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, providing military support, economic aid and diplomatic backing.Britain was the first country to announce plans to supply Ukraine with Western-made battle tanks and long-range cruise missiles following the invasion and has pledged more than £25 billion ($34 billion) so far in military and civilian support.REASSURANCE OF UK SUPPORTMoscow warned London last week of “consequences” for supplying drones to Kyiv, accusing Britain of deepening its involvement in the war following a report ​that British-made drones had been used for long-range strikes against Russia ​for the first time.Burnham is expected to use his visit to reassure Ukraine and its allies that Britain would continue to play a leading role in efforts to strengthen Ukraine’s security under his government.The push to expand Ukraine’s domestic missile production comes as Ukraine increasingly relies on long-range drones and strike weapons to target Russian oil refineries and logistics facilities far behind the front lines.The visit comes weeks after Zelenskyy traveled to Britain in late July as Burnham’s first international guest, following the Labour leader’s election as prime minister a week earlier.

[Category: / Europe] [Link to media]

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[l] at 8/24/26 2:44am
Two U.S. tanker aircraft have left Bulgaria’s Bezmer air base, Bulgaria’s defense minister said on Saturday, nearly a month after their deployment in the Balkan country angered Iran.The United States, which has been at war with Iran since Feb. 28, requested their temporary deployment under an agreement governing the joint use of military facilities. Iran said at the time that their deployment would constitute complicity in “aggression and war crimes”, a charge that Sofia dismissed.The two U.S. Air Force KC-135 planes left Bulgaria on Friday, Defense Minister Dimitar Stoyanov told reporters.The U.S. authorities could not be immediately reached for comment. The deployment of the aircraft, approved by Bulgaria’s parliament on July 22, led to protests by nearby residents who feared the planes would be attacked by Iranian missiles and drones.Stoyanov said all the aircraft’s flights during their temporary deployment had been training missions over allied countries and that Bulgaria had “no information about direct threats to our national security.”“We are working in full coordination with the U.S. government and had prior information, which is why all our decisions were well-founded,” he said.

[Category: / Europe] [Link to media]

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[l] at 8/21/26 6:52am
NEW DELHI — With the race for sixth-generation combat aircraft gathering pace, India has opened talks with France on participating in its Future Combat Air System (FCAS) as it seeks a role in technologies that could shape air combat in the future.India’s Defense Ministry told parliament this month it had “initiated efforts in a concerted manner to co-join” the effort.The ministry stated earlier this year that India would try to join one of the two consortia working on a new generation fighter aircraft – at that time one involved France, Germany and Spain. The second includes the UK, Italy and Japan.In June, however, France and Germany abandoned their joint effort to develop the landmark combat fighter at the heart of the program, opening the door for Paris to collaborate with a new partner.India is exploring a potential partnership with France at a time when New Delhi lags behind in key fighter jet technologies, particularly engine development, and is also trying to beef up the fleet strength of its air force.At the moment, India’s most advanced fighter jets are its 4.5-generation French Rafales.The country is also pursuing a domestic project to develop a multirole fifth-generation fighter, with a prototype flight targeted for later this decade.However sixth-generation fighters are expected to incorporate technologies that go beyond the stealth and advanced radar capabilities of fifth-generation aircraft. The futuristic jets center on a core fighter jet supported by drones and powered by what has been described as a “combat cloud.” India’s objective in exploring a partnership with France, analysts say, is to gain access to advanced capabilities needed to develop the next generation of combat aircraft.“India still has to transition to fifth-generation technologies so it would be good to make a parallel start on a sixth generation program to bridge the serious gap we face. That is why it is a good idea to get in with a grouping or a consortia working on the next generation fighter,” retired Air Marshal Anil Chopra told Defense News. “And some of the sixth-generation technologies that we may acquire might also be helpful as we develop our fifth generation program.”In a report presented in Parliament on Aug. 9, a parliamentary committee which scrutinizes defense policies recommended that the defense ministry “step forward the planning process” for the development and acquisition of sixth-generation (6G) aircraft to enhance India’s air domain capabilities.Analysts say China’s rapid air modernization is a major strategic consideration for India as it initiates efforts to join a development program for a next-generation jet.“It has been a perpetual problem in Indian defense policy that India tends to lag almost one or two cycles behind what others are doing. But that space is no longer available given how rapidly air power is evolving and how quickly China is developing its capabilities,” according to Harsh Pant, the vice president of studies at the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi.Analysts say discussions with France are likely to focus on issues such as a role in industrial participation, design and development, and access to intellectual property.“At the moment India is engaged in exploratory discussions with France. We will want industrial workshare, but engine and radar technologies will have to come from French companies. So talks will center on what technology will be offered to India. France seems to be more open to sharing technology,” said Air Marshal Chopra.India has a longstanding defense relationship with France, particularly in the aerospace sector. Besides the Rafales already deployed by the Indian Air Force, the two countries are presently engaged in negotiations for 114 more Rafale fighters for New Delhi, whose purchase India has approved.“India needs a trusted partner as it tries to secure a place in the next generation technology cycle before it becomes too difficult or too expensive to catch up, and France is a good fit. It has been willing to engage in defense cooperation with New Delhi without the same political lens or considerations that some other suppliers have,” said Pant.Dassault Aviation CEO Eric Trappier has repeatedly said that France has the know-how and the technology to independently develop a next-generation fighter jet.The hiccup is that France’s public finances are under significant strain, with the country having one of the European Union’s highest debt burdens and largest budget deficits, complicating the funding of a future fighter project that may cost tens of billions of euros.France is currently the only country in Western Europe with a fully sovereign, end-to-end modern fighter ecosystem, centered around the domestically developed Rafale. The fighter is built by Dassault Aviation, with avionics and radar supplied by Thales, an after-burning turbofan engine developed by Safran, and a range of missiles supplied by MBDA.Rudy Ruitenberg in Paris contributed to this report.

[Category: / Asia Pacific] [Link to media]

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[l] at 8/21/26 2:14am
The Army is ending an experiment with a dedicated drone battalion less than a year after tasking the infantry unit to test how such a formation could operate, an Army official said on Thursday.In November 2025, U.S. Army Europe and Africa, in collaboration with the Department of the Army and U.S. European Command, charged the unit with learning from dedicated drone forces, including those fielded by Ukraine, and feeding those lessons back to the Army to support the Pentagon’s push for U.S. drone dominance. The official, who spoke on background, said in a statement that after the massive, multinational Exercise Saber Junction in August and September, the battalion will return to its airborne infantry mission. The statement did not include the unit’s name or the number of soldiers. The move, first reported by the Wall Street Journal, comes as Acting Chief of Staff of the Army, Gen. Christopher LaNeve, issued the Army’s strategic roadmap titled “The Army Azimuth.” In the public statement, LaNeve said the Army needed to “counter enemies who employ stand-off weapons, including unmanned systems and WMD.” For American troops, he emphasized, “the fundamentals of Soldiering, ensuring a strong grounding in warrior ethos, individual Soldier readiness, and small unit tactical skills.”The Pentagon has focused heavily on expanding its drone arsenal following a June 2025 executive order directing the U.S. military to enhance its unmanned aerial systems capabilities. Following that order, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth issued a July 2025 memorandum in which he said that “U.S. units are not outfitted with the lethal small drones the modern battlefield requires,” and pledged to revamp the military’s drone acquisition and fielding efforts.U.S. Central Command this month announced the creation of a multinational task force that will use one-way attack drones in the air, on the water and underwater alongside regional partners. CENTCOM’s task force follows its 2025 establishment of Task Force Scorpion Strike, which is based in the Middle East and outfitted with one-way attack drones.

[Category: Land] [Link to media]

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[l] at 8/20/26 5:20pm
Vague operational planning and a lack of transparency during U.S. actions in Iran have exacerbated the U.S. Navy’s longstanding logistics, maintenance and manpower issues — and sailors are feeling the effects, congressional leaders, retired military officials and deployed sailors have told Military Times.Following revelations from families about some U.S. service members aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln struggling with mental health after 250 days without a port visit, sailors, retirees and lawmakers told Military Times that troops were absorbing consequences of longtime flaws within the sea service that have been worsened by the current conflict.The Navy has struggled for years to meet high operational tempo demands, they said. Deployments are regularly extended, scheduled maintenance is missed and the shipbuilding pace remains glacial, leading to delays in delivery and an undersized fleet. The issues have spanned multiple presidential administrations but have been compounded by the handling of the Iran war and ensuing military operations, sources said, leading to dire circumstances for some sailors.Leaders have disputed the descriptions of deteriorating conditions aboard the Lincoln and denied reporting about quality-of-life concerns. Asked recently by reporters about families’ concerns over the length of the deployment, President Donald Trump dismissed the question, saying that it’s “not nearly long enough.”Asked about those same concerns, Adm. Daryl Caudle, the service’s chief of naval operations, told Military Times, “Sailors first is not a slogan — it’s a warfighting imperative.” “The sustained pace of operations in the Middle East has only reinforced that taking care of our sailors and maintaining combat readiness are inseparable,” Caudle said. ‘We need more ships’Following outcry about conditions aboard the Lincoln, the Navy moved the Nimitz-class carrier USS George Washington from the Indo-Pacific to the Middle East, where it arrived Wednesday. The ship is reportedly replacing the Lincoln, which will now steam toward its homeport of San Diego. The move temporarily leaves the western Pacific without a U.S. aircraft carrier, the presence of which is a key part of the U.S. military’s effort to deter China in the South China Sea and reassure regional allies. Operational tempo concerns, meanwhile, are nothing new for the service, according to retired Vice Adm. Fozzie Miller, who served as commander of U.S. Fifth Fleet and U.S. Central Command from 2012 to 2015.Miller joined the Navy in 1979. From his early days in uniform, the service’s goal, he said, was to operate at a level that was neither too harsh for the individual sailor nor too unbearable for the equipment vital to mission success. An adequate number of warships was integral to maintaining that balance.“We could use more carriers or less [operational] tempo,” Miller said. “It’s one or the other, but we’re a global Navy with global responsibilities, and so if we’re going to fulfill those, we need more ships.”Rear Adm. Thomas Moore, who led the Navy’s acquisition program and went on to become commander of Naval Sea Systems Command, told Congress in 2013 that the service is “an 11-carrier Navy in a 15-carrier world.” The demand is unlikely to dwindle, he said.Thirteen years since Moore’s statement, the Navy is still at 11 carriers. With the USS Nimitz scheduled to retire at the end of next year, that number may soon be 10. The USS Harry S. Truman and USS Gerald R. Ford are currently sidelined for maintenance after deployments, the latter of which notched a post-Vietnam record 326 days at sea in May after it was extended to support operations in the Middle East. The Nimitz-class USS John C. Stennis is undergoing a years-long overhaul.The USS Ronald Reagan, also a Nimitz-class, is expected to be deployable by the end of August after a 17-month repair period. The Nimitz-class USS George H.W. Bush is in the Middle East.“We just don’t have enough aircraft carriers right now in this rotation to sustain all the things we want to do, and I think this is a long-standing problem,” said Steven Wills, a Navy surface warfare officer who retired after 20 years.In 2014, the Navy began implementing the Optimized Fleet Response Plan, or OFRP, deployment model, which places maintenance, training, evaluations and a single eight-month deployment within a 36-month cycle. The service says the framework is intended to produce a more comprehensively manned and trained force while providing predictability to deployment schedules for sailors and their families.In 2016, however, the U.S. Government Accountability Office found that heavy operational demands led the Navy to increase ship deployment lengths and reduce or defer ship maintenance. Those decisions made deployments less predictable, ate into training time, contributed to declining ship conditions and increased the time ships required for much-needed maintenance.From fiscal 2014 through 2019, Navy ships spent more than 33,700 additional days in maintenance beyond intended scheduling, leading to fewer vessels available for training or operations.An upended supply networkWhile the Navy has long struggled with carrier availability, current U.S. leadership has created more operational tempo issues through poor planning and insufficient wartime support, according to lawmakers and a sailor who deployed in support of the Iran war.“Logistics was a complete failure the entire time out there — food, supplies, parts,” said the sailor, who served aboard an Independence-class littoral combat ship and was granted anonymity due to fear of reprisal.Iranian attacks damaged the Navy’s longstanding logistics hub in Bahrain in February, disrupting the regional supply network supporting ships operating in the Middle East.The Navy shifted the new logistics hub to Naval Support Facility Diego Garcia, an atoll in the Indian Ocean that sits more than 2,000 miles away from the service’s carrier strike groups in the Middle East.Diego Garcia’s distance proved to be problematic, the sailor said, with the hub requiring the LCS to place a food order 30 days in advance. Those orders were nearly impossible, however, with an influx schedule exacerbated by poor planning, the sailor added. Sailors were unable to resupply from the hub, instead grabbing whatever could be salvaged from replenishment-at-sea oilers.“There’s no excuse for why, if we’re at war, we can’t get an expedited food order,” the sailor said.Rep. Mike Levin, D-Calif., told Military Times that the logistical issues described by the sailor were due to preparation failures.“I’ve spoken to a lot of people who’ve been deployed, and you know, the basic problem seems to be that if they were going to use Bahrain as a hub to restock, to get food and to provide rest and all that,” Levin said. “If that was the idea, well, clearly that didn’t work out. After February, March — [the administration] should have thought of that.”‘People can break, too’ At least two sailors attempted to jump overboard from the USS Abraham Lincoln, families of Lincoln sailors previously told Military Times. While the individual mental circumstances of the incidents remain unknown, the frantic operational tempo of combat operations inevitably takes a natural toll on service members, according to one sailor who has deployed to the Middle East aboard an aircraft carrier during the current conflict. “Just like machines, people can break, too,” said the service member, who was granted anonymity for fear of reprisal from leadership. “They need rest.”Time to rest was not always available. Losing sleep was sometimes part of ensuring safety.If equipment broke, sailors would, at times, work well beyond normal shifts until it was fixed. In some instances, completion of the task could mean the difference between life and death. In a 2021 review, the GAO found that just 14% of Navy officers surveyed slept at least seven hours per night during a recent deployment, while 67% reported five hours or less. GAO also found that the Navy routinely assigned fewer sailors to ships than workload studies indicated were needed to safely operate them.By 2023, surface-fleet sailors were averaging 5.25 hours of sleep every 24 hours, below the Navy’s standard of providing at least 7.5 hours of sleep opportunity. GAO identified crew shortfalls and mattress problems as challenges to managing fatigue.For its part, the Navy has implemented measures to try to address the issue, including initiating a study involving about 1,600 sailors wearing Oura rings to monitor sleep and other biometric indicators while underway.But lack of sleep, according to personnel, has been just one detriment experienced during the conflict with Iran. Service members have also faced food shortages onboard the carrier, the sailor said, with quality that fluctuated between bad and horrible.“It was either undercooked, overcooked or unrecognizable at all,” the sailor said.As extensions piled on, a decline in morale took on a recognizable tone at the phone center or in conversations at the galleys. Humor darkened even more than usual, and port visits meant less and less.“These things have been happening on deployments for always,” said Parker Moore, a nuclear reactor operator who served aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln before its recent deployment. “It is bad, but it is always bad.”During Moore’s time on Lincoln, the stigma surrounding mental health remained prevalent. There were mental health professionals aboard the ship, but if a sailor sought help, the service member could be taken off their job.“They’re terrified to disappoint the people around them,” Moore said. “If I don’t do my job, there’s only 30 people who can do it, right? So now there’s only 29 people.”Following the report on mental health issues aboard Lincoln, the Navy said it had not observed an increase in suicidal ideation or suicide attempts. The service did note, however, that additional counselors and resources were being sent to the crew.Adm. Brad Cooper, commander of U.S. Central Command, visited Lincoln on Saturday and issued a statement claiming that the ship had the lowest number of mental health cases among the Navy’s 11 active aircraft carriers.Lack of transparencyThe Pentagon under the Trump administration has become increasingly tight-lipped over the information it provides to Congress. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth released a memo in October 2025 informing Defense Department personnel, including the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, that authorization was required for any communication to leaders on Capitol Hill.Hegseth also dodged several questions from lawmakers during a July Senate hearing on the Iran War. When Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., asked the Pentagon leader whether previous statements about Iran’s military being “destroyed” and “made combat ineffective” were true, Hegseth declined to answer.Hegseth has also not held a Pentagon press briefing about the Iran war for more than 100 days, with the last coming on May 5. To alleviate concerns over short-term problems with current military operations like those aboard the Lincoln, Congress must be able to carry out oversight, lawmakers said.Sen. Betty McCollum, D-Minn., told Military Times that the Pentagon should be sharing information that would allow political leaders to assess whether the president and defense secretary were deploying assets in the most mission-effective way.Invoking the War Powers Resolution would allow lawmakers to hold the current administration accountable, some Democrats have argued. The resolution requires the executive branch to notify Congress within 48 hours of deploying military forces and allows lawmakers to enforce the removal of military forces within 60 to 90 days unless Congress has declared war or authorized military force.Levin supports that approach, he said, and asked that his Republican colleagues stand up and ask tough questions.Republican members of the House and Senate armed services committees did not respond to Military Times’ requests for comment.“I think back to George W. Bush,” Levin said. “I disagreed wholeheartedly with Iraq, but you think about the steps that he took. You think about ... Secretary Rumsfeld, Vice President Cheney, others — their consistent engagement.”For the LCS sailor, planning deficiencies are already rearing their head. Though the ship did assist with the Navy’s blockade in the Strait of Hormuz, turning away more than a dozen vessels, it will now be sidelined longer than scheduled because of deferred repairs. It is one example, the sailor said, of there being no long-term plan for ship rotations.“‘We’re gonna keep you out here,” the sailor said of the impression made on them, “until your ship can’t operate or function anymore.’”

[Category: Naval] [Link to media]

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[l] at 8/20/26 2:23pm
The U.S. Navy is leading a multinational effort to develop a new version of the Evolved SeaSparrow air defense missile.The goal is to create a variant of the SeaSparrow that can be used by the 12 nations in the NATO SeaSparrow Project Office consortium, or NSPO, according to the Navy Sources Sought notice. The deadline is Oct. 19.The NSPO is looking for a weapon that can be employed against a wide variety of threats. The NSV SeaSparrow “should have capability against current and future threat classes spanning a variety of threat characteristics including velocity (low-speed to high-speed), altitude (sea skimming to high diver), maneuverability (non-maneuvering to high Gravitational (G)-Force maneuvers), and signatures,” the Navy said.The NSV is also meant to defend the fleet against massed salvos of missiles and function despite jamming. The weapon “should be able to work in complex natural, contested, Radio Frequency (RF), Electro-Optical (EO), and/or Infrared (IR) environments.”“The missile should have the capability to discriminate and resolve between multiple closely spaced targets and provide threat-track measurements to support missile guidance, navigation and lethality functions,” the Sources Sought notice continues. “The missile should have the capability to handle threat countermeasures.”The notice included a graphic that appeared to depict surface ships — including two aircraft carriers — being targeted by a dozen missiles and torpedoes, plus a hostile fixed-wing aircraft and a helicopter. The friendly ships appeared to be using active illumination to paint some threats, while the SeaSparrow used its on-board sensors to intercept others.NSPO seeks a modular, open-source design that would give the U.S. government “maximum rights in technical data, computer software, and computer software documentation (including source code), design artifacts, and interface specifications.”“This approach will simplify future upgrades, promote interoperability across consortium platforms, and outpace evolving threats,” the notice said. The NSPO wants contractors who can provide a complete missile system, including airframe, propulsion, guidance and software. The missile should have no more than a 10-inch diameter and fit inside a Mark 41 vertical launch tube.The Sources Sought notice emphasized that the missile and its technical data should be releasable to the entire NATO SEASPARROW Consortium: Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Greece, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Turkey and the U.S. Other users include Thailand and the United Arab Emirates.The Block II RIM-162 Evolved SeaSparrow is currently manufactured by Raytheon, which doubled production to more than 350 missiles in 2025. Amid naval operations in the Persian Gulf, where Iran has launched numerous missiles and drones against dwindling stocks of U.S. and allied interceptors, future demand for short-range air defense weapons is likely to be brisk.First fielded in 2004, the Evolved SeaSparrow is descended from the 1950s AIM-7 Sparrow radar-guided air-to-air missile. Though the original Sparrow had a mixed combat record as an aerial combat weapon in the Vietnam War, the Evolved SeaSparrow was intended as a low-cost defense against anti-ship missiles, aircraft, helicopters and fast attack boats. The current version has an estimated range of around 30 miles.

[Category: Air Warfare] [Link to media]

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[l] at 8/20/26 2:09pm
KYIV, Ukraine — Russia is racing to nearly triple its biggest missile barrage, from 77 missiles fired at once to as many as 200, a salvo built to overwhelm Ukraine’s air defenses in one shot rather than over days, the commander of Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces said last week.Russia has been ramping up both its barrages and the production lines feeding them: it launched a record 351 missiles at Ukraine in July, including 153 cruise and 198 ballistic and hypersonic, while its factories ran at 110% to 120% of monthly production targets – already reaching their annual production goals for Zircon and Oniks missiles by early August, according to Ukraine’s Defence Intelligence.“The enemy currently has the capability to launch more than 70 (77) missiles of various types from different launch systems, ships and aircraft,” Maj. Robert “Magyar” Brovdi wrote in an Aug. 10 Telegram post. “The enemy is working to increase the size of a single simultaneous salvo to as many as 200 missiles.”“Even if they only manage half of that, it will all be flying at us,” Brovdi told the Associated Press the same day.A mixed barrage struck Kyiv shortly after midnight local time on Thursday, with more than a dozen explosions heard across the capital – a fraction of the salvo Brovdi says Moscow is building toward. The strike killed at least 15 people and injured dozens across the capital alone, damaging several residential buildings, a school, a children’s hospital and a kindergarten, according to Kyiv officials. Magyar’s warning is that the country would likely face even higher numbers of dead in a combined attack of hundreds of Russian ballistic and cruise missiles. Ukraine’s air defense network can intercept most drones and cruise missiles with cheaper systems, but Patriot and a handful of similar European systems are among the few systems capable of reliably intercepting ballistic and hypersonic missiles. Those interceptor stocks are at their lowest levels in years. Ukraine fields two and a half times fewer interceptors than it did in 2025 while Russia fires twice as many ballistic missiles a month, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told CNN on Aug. 12, with allied deliveries this year running at one-third of last year’s levels.“Patriot systems capable of shooting down ballistic missiles are essentially on a ‘starvation ration,’” Air Force spokesperson Yurii Ihnat said in April after Russia fired more than 700 missiles over the winter, per Censor.NET.The shortage runs so deep that the Air Force decided in early August to stop publishing attack tallies for ballistic missile intercepts because of the negative impact on morale.“I understand that everyone already knows everything and sees that the topic is very sensitive, especially for the capital,” Ihnat wrote in an Aug. 13 Facebook post.“But when we put an official message - 28/0 (ballistic missiles intercepted) the result is that all our media write ‘The Air Force did not shoot down a single missile,’ and amplify it throughout the country. Meanwhile, enemy media will only copy all this and replicate it for themselves, giving a standing ovation!”The problem for Kyiv is that anti-ballistic interceptors remain the only immediate answer to the ballistic-missile threat, and they have been in short supply worldwide since the Iran war began. The United States has burned through roughly two-thirds of its combined Patriot and THAAD stockpile since that war started, from more than 2,700 missiles to fewer than 1,000 by late July, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Each PAC-3 replacement costs roughly $3.9 million and takes up to two years to build.“There are no good alternatives to Patriot and THAAD for ballistic missile defense,” the center’s experts concluded.Ukraine is working on several tracks to resolve the antiballistics shortage, negotiating Patriot co-production agreements with Raytheon and Lockheed Martin, though both makers have begun hedging, and backing Freyja, a cheaper European interceptor program led by Ukraine’s Fire Point. Experts put licensed Patriot production 24 to 30 months away, and Freyja’s first intercept is not planned until the end of 2027, leaving interceptors from allied stockpiles as Kyiv’s only immediate answer to protecting its cities from increasingly large missile attacks.“If [the United States] can sell us 5%, we will go through the winter and save people’s lives,” Zelenskyy said last week. “If they can sell us 10%, we will destroy all the Russians’ ballistic missiles. I have 1%.”

[Category: / Europe] [Link to media]

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[l] at 8/20/26 1:10pm
A U.S. Air Force flight enroute to Antarctica turned around to New Zealand after being notified of “potentially hazardous” space activity this week.New Zealand’s Civil Aviation Authority was aware the flight from Christchurch pivoted following the agency’s issue of a Notice to Airmen, or NOTAM, to the aircraft, a CAA spokesperson told Military Times.The Russian Air Traffic Management Corporation notified the CAA of the space activity, the spokesperson said, causing the authority to issue the NOTAM to the U.S. Air Force flight.In a follow-up statement, the spokesperson said that the CAA was made aware by the Russian air traffic agency of a planned missile launch and associated potential hazard to international airspace within New Zealand’s Oceanic Flight Information Region.“As a result, we put in place a danger area and issued a NOTAM to alert aircraft operators to the potential hazard,” the spokesperson said. “This does not prevent aircraft from flying through the area, operators make their decisions based on the information available.”NOTAMs alert aircraft operators of potential hazards to allow them to make operational decisions around flight planning.“Much of our Oceanic FIR is over international waters, where we have limited control over activities,” the spokesperson said, referring to the roughly 30 million square kilometers of international waters that spans across the South Pacific Ocean, Southern Ocean and Tasman Sea.“It is normal practice for Airspace Authorities and Air Traffic Service Providers, provided with such hazard notifications to issue NOTAMs,” the spokesperson continued.Flight-tracking data from Flightradar24 shows a U.S. Air Force C-17A Globemaster III took off from Christchurch International Airport, New Zealand, on Tuesday at 9 a.m. local time, with the call sign ICE28.The site shows the aircraft landed around 11:30 a.m. back at Christchurch. The flight was a routine resupply mission scheduled for this time of year, a U.S. Pacific Air Forces spokesperson told Military Times.“Christchurch is the gateway to Antarctica,” the PACAF spokesperson said. “Both the United States Air Force and New Zealand Defense Force conduct operations and logistical support out of Christchurch in support of our Antarctic science programs.”The turnaround happened during the U.S. Air Force’s annual Winter Fly-in period, or WinFly, which usually occurs toward the end of August and delivers teams, equipment and cargo to McMurdo Station and Scott Base, both in Antarctica, ahead of its research season.The PACAF spokesperson declined to comment on whether this flight was in direct support of the WinFly, but a 2012 Air Force release details that a C-17 delivered over 300 passengers and 230,000 pounds of cargo that year to Antarctica.“Using Christchurch International Airport, New Zealand as the base of operations, the mission of WinFly is to deliver advance teams and cargo to the remote research center in preparation for the main season of Operation Deep Freeze,” the release reads.Operation Deep Freeze provides support to the U.S. Antarctic Program, managed by the National Science Foundation, that allows for continuous scientific research in the region.Boeing’s C-17 Globemaster III is a cargo aircraft capable of fast delivery of troops and loads to main operating bases or forward bases in deployment areas. The aircraft can also complete tactical airlift and airdrop missions as well as aeromedical evacuations.

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As of 8/26/26 10:36am. Last new 8/26/26 9:23am.

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