“We have elevated our work to a more advanced level through the technology base we established two years ago within our Ministry of National Defense R&D Center,” Turkish Defense Minister Yaşar Güler said during a press conference on Thursday.

“Our Yıldırımhan Long-Range Missile represents a significant technological milestone as Turkey’s first liquid-fueled rocket missile system, capable of hypersonic-speed flight and possessing the country’s longest range,” he added.

According to information provided by the MND, the Yıldırımhan missile uses unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine as fuel and dinitrogen tetroxide as the oxidizer. The ministry stated that the missile is capable of carrying a 3-ton warhead to a range of 6,000 kilometers.

The country has been working on hypersonic technologies and liquid-propellant propulsion systems for nearly a decade, the director-general of the Turkish Ministry of National Defence’s R&D Center, Nilüfer Kuzulu, told Turkish broadcaster NTV Türkiye.

Kuzulu stated that after initially producing small quantities of the propellants in laboratory conditions, the ministry eventually transitioned to serial production and integrated the technology into the Yıldırımhan missile program.

The development of the propellant technology represented a major technical challenge because the chemicals had not previously been produced domestically in Turkey.

“Developing this fuel is extremely difficult, and it was not something previously manufactured in Turkey,” she said. “What began as small-scale laboratory work years ago has now been transformed into serial production. We now have both the production capability and the associated production facility.”

MND sources said the Yıldırımhan Missile System has successfully completed laboratory testing and will enter field or ground testing in the coming period. Work on the field-testing campaign is continuing according to the planned schedule.

“As part of the National Technology Initiative, our Ministry will continue with determination to support the development of our defense industry, develop indigenous and national systems, and enhance Türkiye’s strategic deterrence capability,” the ministry stated.

In stationary concentration, a soldier moved only his fingers as he steered a small device through plastic pipes arranged into a makeshift obstacle course built to qualify soldiers on a tool that has quickly changed the course of modern warfare: drones.

Unmanned aircraft shape nearly every part of the battlefields today, from reconnaissance and artillery spotting to precision strikes and surveillance.

As the U.S. Army moves to integrate drones into each formation, units across the force are figuring out how to teach, train and test soldiers on rapidly evolving technology.

At Fort Stewart, that effort has morphed into a homegrown schoolhouse that is designed to push drone operators beyond their comfort zone and into a stressful state of sweaty palms and elevated heart rates.

The Marne Unmanned Center of Excellence, which became operational in March, moves soldiers through academic instruction, virtual simulators and increasingly challenging flight tests.

The classroom

The center starts with classroom instruction on airspace rules and flight controls. Before soldiers can send a drone into the air, they spend time at a desk, fiddling with controllers hooked up to laptops. For weeks, instead of shooting rifles, soldiers become engrossed in virtual reality scenes reminiscent of video games.

They learn to toggle the controllers to send their virtual drones through windows and under sallyports. They learn to navigate when the line of sight is lost or video quality diminished. They learn to attack.

Soldiers spend 40 to 50 hours operating virtual drones before touching a real unmanned aircraft.

Fort Stewart also hosts a 60-seat collective trainer, where each individual operates their own laptop while a battlefield view is plastered across a massive screen at the front of the room.

Drones then become a part of the fight and operators must interact with other capabilities, such as artillery and armored vehicles.

The flight line

Once soldiers can send a virtual drone through a gauntlet of obstacles, they go outside to try the real thing under the watchful eyes of an expert.

In a parking lot near the building, one student stood next to his instructor as she looked on.

Spc. Tyler Lee stared at his controller in deep concentration, periodically looking up to check his drone’s location as he maneuvered it down from the sky. A satisfied smile danced on his face after a successful landing.

Lee grew up playing video games, listing first-person games, like Call of Duty, among his favorites. Those games, he said, helping him pick up operating first-person view, or FPV, drones like the one he was flying. He even bought a commercial drone to improve his skills.

Despite completing the academic training and simulators, Lee was modest about his abilities.

“I’m nowhere near proficient,” he said. “I would still consider myself a beginner even though I’ve flown a lot and I’ve got my own [drone].”

Staff Sgt. Nway Nway Lwin, Lee’s instructor, said maneuvering a drone around was just the beginning of becoming an expert.

For individual qualification training, Lwin said she would have a student focus on basic maneuvers: moving right, left, up, down and through, gathering basic information about the surroundings as they go.

Once they master that, Lwin makes things complicated with real-word scenarios.

“You are doing the recon mission,” she’ll tell students. “This is your [Named Area of Interest] and this is where you are setting up — show me the flight plan.”

The sky

Drone operators who have learned basic maneuvering can advance to complicated obstacle courses that are graded on time standards.

They also go into the woods, pushing their skills by flying without being able to see the drone in the sky.

Because of that, Fort Stewart’s drone center has a unique relationship with its air traffic controllers and range control officials. Many drones can reach heights that intersect with crewed aircraft, requiring constant monitoring.

Other drones are built to explode. Some units use Fort Stewart ranges to practice with one-way attack drones designed to carry explosive payloads that detonate when they crash into a target.

One-way drones are already in use in theaters across the world, according to the base’s range control, and are just another unmanned aircraft skill to master.

Chief Warrant Officer 5 Jonathan Morrison, who helped spearhead the base’s drone training program, said his goal is not just to qualify operators.

“You can be qualified, but can you be well qualified?” he asked.

“Can you be super confident with your system? And can you be confident enough to go out there and perform any mission at any time, anywhere at a moment’s notice?” Morrison speculated.

The U.S. fired at Iranian missile- and drone-launch sites, command-and-control locations, and intelligence and surveillance hubs after “unprovoked” Iranian attacks against Arleigh Burke-class destroyers USS Truxtun, USS Rafael Peralta and USS Mason.

“CENTCOM does not seek escalation but remains positioned and ready to protect American forces,” CENTCOM said.

No U.S. vessels were struck as a result of the attacks.

Pentagon says Iran ceasefire holds despite exchanges in Strait of Hormuz

Despite the uptick in military activity, President Donald Trump told ABC News on Thursday that U.S. strikes against Iranian targets were just a “love tap” and that the ceasefire was still in effect.

On Monday, the U.S. destroyed six Iranian small boats, as well as cruise missiles and drones, that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps launched against ships the U.S. was escorting through the strait as part of Project Freedom, which has since been paused.

On Wednesday, Trump said the war would “be over quickly” at an event for Georgia Republican gubernatorial candidate Burt Jones.

The U.S. and Iran are reportedly deliberating over a peace memorandum that would end the war and halt Iran’s nuclear program.

The paper identified ten key areas where Europe faces strategic capability gaps, including command and control, autonomous systems and deep strike. Reaching defense autonomy would cost an estimated €150 billion to €200 billion by 2030, and €500 billion over the next decade, according to the paper published by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy.

Germany and Europe depend on the United States across the entire military-effect chain, from satellite-based reconnaissance to battlefield fire control, according to the paper dubbed Sparta 2.0. Current plans by European countries for significantly higher defense spending only provide “modest” gains in European independence, the authors said.

“A high degree of European independence can be achieved within a few years, at a cost that can be financed through the planned budget increases,” President of the German Council on Foreign Relations and former Airbus CEO Thomas Enders, one of the authors, said in a statement on Thursday. “Ukraine shows us that this does not take decades.”

In addition to Enders, the paper was signed by Jeannette zu Fürstenberg, president of venture-capital firm General Catalyst; economist Moritz Schularick, the president of the Kiel Institute; Airbus Chairman and former Deutsche Telekom CEO René Obermann; and security analyst and former defense staffer Nico Lange.

“A substantial part of the identified capability gaps can be addressed within a few years, provided that the appropriate political prioritization is in place,” the authors wrote. “The prerequisite is that Europe understands the strategic dimension of its defense challenge as its ‘Manhattan Project.’”

Substantial progress toward autonomous European capacity to act is realistic within three to five years, while “far-reaching autonomy” is achievable within five to 10 years, on condition that goal is pursued as a political priority within a joint European effort, the paper said.

Financing Europe’s sovereignty is achievable with around 10% of total European defense spending, with the expenditure required over the next decade corresponding to about 0.25% of GDP, according to the five authors.

The paper identified “ten central capability gaps” Europe needs to plug to be able to act autonomously. Cost estimates for programs proposed in the paper are “necessarily subject to considerable uncertainty,” with deviations in the range of 20% to 30% to be expected, the authors said.

Establishing a European command-and-control capability could take three to four years and would cost anywhere from €10 billion to €20-plus billion, according to the paper. Europe lacks a counterpart to U.S. defense-technology company Palantir, and building a sovereign European C2 and battle-management system is a priority, using Ukraine’s Delta system as a reference.

Europe has largely missed Ukraine’s paradigm shift to drone-dominated warfare, and building sufficient capacity in scaled autonomous systems could take three to five years, with a price tag of €30 billion or more.

Action points include setting up mass-production capacity for several million drones and loitering munitions per year, according to the report. Another line of action would be to set up a major development program for unmanned ground vehicles involving the German automotive industry, land-systems makers and AI startups, and designed for serial production.

Ground-based deep precision strike is another capability gap that could be filled in three to five years, within a cost envelope of €20 billion to €30 billion. Sixth-generation air combat systems would take 10 years or more and cost at least €200 billion, with that estimate including funding for two parallel sixth-generation development programs.

Europe has a gap in air defense, particularly in affordable, large-scale counter-drone and short-range capability at the level of brigades, assets and infrastructure, according to the paper. Ballistic missile defense “remains an equally critical gap.” Initial operating effectiveness in air defense could take three to five years, while “full build-out” that includes next-generation autonomous interceptors might require five to 10 years, for a total cost envelope of €50 billion.

The paper also mentioned satellite reconnaissance, communications as well as positioning, navigation and timing as a capability gap, with the number one priority to build a European equivalent to Starlink.

Other identified priority capability gaps are space launch; persistent airborne intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance; military cloud, software and AI; strategic airlift and military-operational support; as well as electronic warfare and suppression of enemy air defenses.

Implementation should run through lead coalitions of countries, rather than a “new European super-structure,” according to the authors.

Europe further needs a paradigm shift in areas such as procurement, with prototype competitions rather than starting with hundreds of pages of specifications, the paper said. Contracts should reward outcomes rather than provide input specifications, focus on production capacity rather than number of units procured, while barriers to new entrants should be low, according to the authors.

“Ukraine shows that a broad supplier landscape combining established and new actors is more resilient, faster and more cost-effective than relying on a few large prime contractors,” the five authors wrote.

Europe has the financial means, industrial base and technology to overcome its strategic dependencies, and the bottleneck is political will to coordinate, prioritize and break with “decades of fragmentation.”

“We are convinced that Europe’s security will be decided by technological superiority and by the willingness to invest massively where it counts,” the authors said. “If we build the central capabilities at the right place, Europe can protect itself against aggressors and produce credible deterrence.”

Although details of the units affected by the order have not been confirmed, the 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment — the only permanent brigade combat team in Germany — based at Rose Barracks in Vilseck is expected to go.

“The consequences would be dramatic,” said the town’s new mayor, Thorsten Graedler, who took office this week facing the prospect of thousands of job losses in a rural area where the base is one of the biggest employers for miles around.

Over the years, he said, the presence of the base, with its thousands of well‑paying jobs for local people and steady stream of customers for local businesses, had produced a situation of dependence whose risks were now being felt.

“Our entire town of Vilseck relies largely on the military training area for its livelihood — pubs, restaurants, garages, supermarkets,” he said.

U.S. wants Europe to spend more on defense

The decision to withdraw troops came amid increasing pressure from Washington on European countries to raise defense spending, and accusations that reliance on U.S. forces had allowed them to neglect their own militaries.

During Trump’s first term there was already talk of withdrawing the 2nd Cavalry Regiment, a brigade‑sized combat formation built around Stryker wheeled armored vehicles, but the plans were reversed under former President Joe Biden.

“It’s important to say that it hasn’t been officially confirmed yet that the Strykers will actually be withdrawn. So I haven’t given up hope yet,” Graedler said.

The government in Berlin, which has sharply increased spending to rebuild the German military after years of underinvestment, said the announcement of a troop withdrawal came as little surprise.

But beyond the economic effects, the cultural shock from the news would be profound for a town whose 6,500 inhabitants are outnumbered by U.S. personnel and their families.

Although numbers have declined since the height of the Cold War — when as many as 250,000 U.S. troops, as well as tens of thousands of civilian staff, were deployed to face off against the Soviet Union — their presence was an enduring reality for generations of West Germans.

By the time the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, 60% of all U.S. overseas bases were in Germany, with hundreds of other sites, most in southwestern towns like Vilseck. Many were ‘little Americas’ with their own on‑base housing, stores and facilities, but their presence left a deep mark on local communities.

“I’ve never known Vilseck any other way than living side by side with the Americans,” Graedler said.

Many U.S. soldiers enjoy life in Germany

Only around 35,000 American troops now remain in Germany, the largest U.S. contingent in Europe. But even today, soldiers and their families leave a visible mark on Vilseck and nearby areas, eating at steak restaurants, shopping in local supermarkets and joining local sports and car clubs.

“I’ve been here since 2022, so about four years now. And there’s nothing to dislike about Germany,” said 31‑year‑old culinary sergeant Robert Moore, who lives about 20km north of Vilseck. He said people were friendly and respectful and “it’s very, very safe”.

Many in Vilseck said there would be an emotional sense of loss if the Americans left.

“When the Strykers arrived, we were worried they’d be a bunch of roughnecks, but they’re actually really nice,” said 66‑year‑old Albin Merkl, a pensioner who rents apartments to U.S. personnel.

“We’ve always done good business with the Americans,” he said, adding that trains to nearby Nuremberg were filled in the evenings with younger soldiers heading out for off‑duty entertainment.

Vilseck resident Judith Georgiadis, 63, who worked in base administration for 17 years, said life grew quieter following the drawdown of U.S. forces after the Cold War.

“Back in the eighties, life here was brilliant. There was a lively nightlife, with bars and pubs,” she said. With the latest news, many were apprehensive. “People who work for the Americans are afraid. There is a lot of worry.”

“The city government should have taken action long ago to address our dependence on the Americans. When you’re young, you either work for the Americans or leave,” she said.

Local businesses that provide services to the base are also exposed.

“A lot of us here — business people, I mean — built our businesses around 100% American clients,” said 64‑year‑old Robert Grassick, whose company, Vilseck Military Auto Sales, sells cars to troops and their families.

For some older residents, however, the worry that the U.S. presence would eventually end is nothing new.

“Having grown up here, I can say it’s always been a talking point: ‘They’re leaving and closing down,’” said 61‑year‑old Brenda Hutchinson, whose parents were among the many mixed couples produced by decades of close contact.

“It was already a talking point back when my father was in the army,” she said.

The C-UAS Close-In Kinetic Defeat Enhancement project focuses on aided target recognition, or AiTR. This uses concepts such as AI, machine learning and computer vision to create a system that can detect threats — and distinguish them from non-threats such as birds — faster than a human operator can.

The first phase of the project is aimed at remote weapons stations, and specifically the ubiquitous Common Remotely Operated Weapon Station, or CROWS, turrets fitted to a variety of military vehicles.

“The primary objective is to accelerate the engagement timeline, initially focusing on Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS), with a secondary focus on other threats like vehicular and man-sized targets,” explained the Defense Innovation Unit solicitation. The deadline is May 15.

Prototypes must “demonstrably improve” the ability of current remote weapons stations to detect, track and engage Groups 1 and 2 — targets with a weight of 55 pounds and under.

Detection should be at ranges greater than 600 meters, and engagement at a minimum of 100 meters. The system should be effective against drones moving at speeds of at least 30 meters per second, or 67 miles per hour, per the solicitation.

The second phase of the project seeks to boost C-UAS capabilities on “both moving and stationary platforms, including ground and maritime environments,” the solicitation said.

Specifications include the ability to hit a Group 1 drone — under 20 pounds — moving at 7 meters per second, or 16 miles per hour, at a range of 50 to 200 meters. Weapons should be able to engage targets while depressed to minus 10 degrees or elevated directly overhead to 90 degrees, the document stated.

This requires contractors to provide a prototype that can “be fired in land and maritime environments,” the solicitation says, “rather than just a laboratory setting at time of pitch.”

Most noteworthy, meanwhile, is the third phase of the project: adding aided target recognition to small arms carried by dismounted troops.

“Desired solutions include systems capable of deflecting or self-aiming standard-issue rounds to increase hit probability against manually selected, transient targets, while integrating networked sensor and small arms fire control systems,” DIU said.

The system must be capable of engaging drones moving at least 7 meters per second, and “must be adaptable to dismounted legacy small arms, scalable across calibers and configurations, and maintain baseline weapon performance in the event of system degradation or failure,” the document states. “A semi-automatic, live-fire capable prototype is required.”

The final phase of the project seeks to improve integration between sensors and weapons.

“A commercial wireless edge network architecture that bridges to military systems and the reverse is essential across all stages of this effort to manage data transfer from sensors and weapon/fire control systems,” the DIU wrote.

The U.S. military is beginning to embrace aided target recognition. The Army is already testing small UAVs equipped with AiTR to help infantry squads control drones.

But the Pentagon is also aware that AI and targeting is controversial.

The DIU project specifies that there must be a human in the loop. Solutions must strictly adhere to DOD’s AI Ethical Principles. Non-compliance “will result in immediate disqualification,” DIU warned.

Both sides had proclaimed a ceasefire surrounding the important celebration marking the capitulation of Nazi Germany, but said that it was incumbent on the other side not to break the truce or there would have to be a response.

Russia officially declared a ceasefire for 8 and 9 May, timed to coincide with the Victory Day celebrations, though it added that should there be any strikes on Russia during that period, the response would be a “massive missile strike on the center of Kyiv.” On its Telegram channel, the Russian ministry of defense issued an evacuation warning, telling residents of the Ukrainian capital and embassy staff to leave the city.

Ukraine countered the Russian proposal with its own unilateral ceasefire declaration that was supposed to start at midnight on 6 May, with Zelensky adding that he had not received any form of official proposal from the Russian side. Ukraine would, however, have to mirror Russian actions should there be any breach of the likewise unilateral ceasefire.

The ceasefire collapsed almost immediately, with Russia launching 108 combat drones and three missiles overnight between 5 and 6 May, striking major cities including Kharkiv. By 10:00 a.m. on May 6, Zelenskyy reported 1,820 ceasefire violations by Russian forces, including nearly 30 assault operations and more than 20 airstrikes using over 70 guided glide bombs. A kindergarten in the Sumy border region was struck, reportedly killing two people.

The dueling, one-sided declarations of ceasefires are by now an established pattern and a key play in the information warfare that both Kyiv and Moscow are engaged in surrounding the war. Authorities in both capitals are able to use them to prove that the other side isn’t serious about peace. A 32-hour ceasefire surrounding Orthodox Easter collapsed similarly, with Ukraine accusing Russia of 2,299 violations and Moscow accusing Kyiv of 1,971 by the end. Kyiv has since revised its number up to 10,721 violations by Russia.

The Victory Day parade in Moscow, which takes place annually on May 9 on the city’s iconic Red Square, will go ahead but in a much reduced format. For the first time, armored vehicles, tanks and missile carriers will be absent, and even the participation by military academies will be scaled back. Russian authorities said this was due to the “operational situation” and “terrorist threats.” An aircraft flyby will still take place.

The parade in St. Petersburg has similarly been scaled back.

Last year, 29 heads of government came to Moscow to marvel at the parade, including Xi Jinping of China, Lula da Silva of Brazil, and Nicolas Maduro, the now-deposed Venezuelan president. This year, so far, only a handful of leaders are expected to attend. Robert Fico, the Russia-friendly premier of Slovakia, an EU and NATO member, is confirmed to travel to Moscow, although he contradicted earlier Russian statements in saying he will not attend the parade. Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus is also confirmed to attend.

Meanwhile, internet restrictions, anti-drone systems and heightened security measures have gone up around Moscow in an attempt to shield the highly symbolic parade from any possible Ukrainian interference.

Zelensky has said that Russia “cannot hold a parade in Moscow without Ukraine’s goodwill.”

U.S. Central Command military forces observed the M/T Hasna transiting in the direction of the Gulf of Oman and issued multiple warnings before taking action, according to a U.S. Central Command post.

“After Hasna’s crew failed to comply with repeated warnings, U.S. forces disabled the tanker’s rudder by firing several rounds from the 20mm cannon gun of a U.S. Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet launched from USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72),” the post read.

The U.S. Navy instituted a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz on April 12 after President Donald Trump announced on Truth Social that the U.S. would intercept vessels attempting to enter or exit Iranian ports.

U.S. Central Command began supporting Project Freedom on Monday, a military operation aimed at defending commercial shipping vessels passing through the Strait of Hormuz.

On Monday, the U.S. destroyed six Iranian small boats, as well as cruise missiles and drones, that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps launched against ships the U.S. was escorting through the strait.

Despite the attack, the four-week-old ceasefire remains intact, according to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine, who spoke to reporters on Tuesday in Washington.

Project Freedom, however, was short-lived.

President Donald Trump announced on Truth Social Tuesday that the operation was paused for a “short period of time” as the U.S. worked toward an agreement with Iran.

The U.S. and Iran are reportedly in talks to sign a memorandum that will end the war, as of Wednesday.

There is currently an armada of Navy warships, Army attack helicopters, Air Force fighter jets and 15,000 service members stationed around the Strait of Hormuz.

Fresh exchanges of fire on Monday underscored the stakes as the U.S. and Iran struggle for control of the narrow waterway, a vital artery for global energy and trade, shaking a fragile four-week-old truce and reinforcing rival maritime blockades.

“The reason why we must make a renewed effort today is simply that the blockade of Hormuz continues, the damage to the world’s economy is therefore becoming more and more pronounced, and the risk of a prolongation of hostilities is too serious for us to accept it,” a French presidency official told reporters in a briefing after the army announced the strike group’s deployment.

Franco-British proposal in planning

France and Britain have been working on a proposal for several weeks that aims to lay the groundwork for safe transit through the Strait once the situation stabilises or the conflict is resolved. It would need coordination with Iran and a dozen countries have indicated a willingness to take part in the mission following several preparatory meetings.

The French army said in a statement that the Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier group, which is accompanied by an Italian and Dutch warship, was en route to the southern Red Sea.

The deployment aims to assess the regional operational environment, expand crisis‑management options to strengthen security, enable the integration of partner countries’ assets within a defensive framework consistent with international law, and help reassure maritime trade stakeholders, the military said.

“What we are proposing is that Iran gains passage for its ships through the Strait and in return commits to negotiating with the Americans on issues of nuclear materials, missiles, and the region, and we propose that the Americans, for their part, lift their blockade of the Strait of Hormuz and, in return, obtain Iran’s commitment to negotiations,” the French presidency official said.

“Under these conditions we could deploy the multinational force to secure the convoys crossing the Strait of Hormuz and this obviously requires that the Iranians not fire on the ships.”

Hormuz is Iranian leverage

It was not clear why Iran would consider such a proposal given its control over the Strait has been a key element of leverage in its discussions with Washington to end the war.

“We collectively want to send the signal that not only are we ready to secure the Strait of Hormuz, but that we are also capable of doing so,” the French official said.

“The question now will be to obtain Iranian consent, American consent.”

European states have been largely onlookers in the conflict between the U.S., Israel and Iran, but with shipping lanes in the Middle East impacted and the price of oil fluctuating around $100 a barrel, ​European powers are grappling with the issue of how to defend their interests.

Their refusal to support U.S. President Donald Trump’s blockade has drawn sharp criticism from Trump against countries he accused of failing to align with U.S.-led efforts and the move to send assets to the region may be a way to assuage those concerns.

The Commercial Engine Replacement Program will swap the bomber’s eight Pratt & Whitney TF33 turbofans for Rolls-Royce F130 engines on each of the 76 B-52Hs in the active fleet.

As the original TF33s from the early 1960s continue to wear down and spare parts become increasingly scarce, the Air Force says the engines will be “unsustainable” beyond 2030. The new engines offer better fuel efficiency, longer range, lower sustainment costs and additional electrical power for modern weapons and sensors.

The Air Force launched CERP in 2018 and selected the F130 in 2021 after a three-way competition that also included GE Aviation and Pratt & Whitney.

The F130, built in Indianapolis, is derived from Rolls-Royce’s BR725, the engine that powers the Gulfstream G650 business jet and has accumulated more than one million flying hours since entering service in 2012.

The upgrade underpins the Air Force’s plan to shrink its bomber force to two types, the B-52J and the B-21 Raider, with the B-1B Lancer and B-2 Spirit retiring as B-21 deliveries ramp up.

The B-52, a key part of the U.S. nuclear triad’s air leg, is expected to fly into the 2050s, which would push some individual airframes toward 100 years of service.

“This CERP critical design review is the culmination of an enormous amount of engineering and integration work from Boeing, Rolls Royce, and the Air Force that will enable the B-52J to remain in the fight for future generations,” Lt. Col. Tim Cleaver, the program manager within the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center’s Bombers Directorate, said in the release. “It’s that point that you go from having a concept turned into a design, to then turning that design into something physical.”

Boeing, the integration prime contractor, will perform the modification work at its San Antonio facility, the release said.

“CDR is a milestone that showcases the kinds of complex systems engineering, propulsion integration, structural analysis and electrical architecture challenges our teams get to dive into every day,” Jamie Burgess, vice president and general manager of Boeing Mobility, Surveillance & Bombers, said in a statement. The work, he said, “puts us one step closer to modifying the first two B-52H aircraft into the B-52J configuration in San Antonio later this year.”

The milestone arrives years behind the original schedule.

The CDR was originally scheduled to occur three years earlier, Air Force Life Cycle Management Center confirmed to The War Zone. Integration work on the first aircraft is now set to begin in fiscal 2027, with modification of the second aircraft starting in fiscal 2028. Ground and flight testing follow in fiscal 2029. The Air Force is targeting fiscal 2033 for initial operational capability, three years later than originally planned.

The Pentagon awarded Boeing a contract worth more than $2 billion in December 2025 to finish integration work and to modify and test the first two aircraft. The total program is now expected to cost roughly $15 billion, and the Defense Department inspector general estimates that a dozen B-52 modernization programs combined will run $48.6 billion.

A 2023 Director of Operational Test and Evaluation report warned that the program’s buying strategy carries significant risk.

Two of the 76 B-52s will serve as test aircraft. The Air Force plans to award low-rate production contracts for 51 of the remaining 74 before operational testing finishes in fiscal 2032. That concurrency could make problems discovered late in testing considerably more expensive to fix.

The engine swap is only part of the B-52’s enduring story. The BUFF also gets new generators, modernized subsystems and a new radar under a separate program already in testing at Edwards Air Force Base, California.

Fleet readiness has slipped in recent years: the B-52’s mission capable rate fell from 59% in 2021 to 54% in fiscal 2024, according to Air Force data analyzed by Defense News. The engine swap and broader B-52J upgrades are expected to reverse that trend.

After overseeing rapid growth at the state-controlled firm following his appointment in 2023, Cingolani was released last month when the Italian government decided not to give him a second three-year mandate, surprising industry experts.

Instead the top job was given to Lorenzo Mariani, a former co-general manager at Leonardo and effectively Cingolani’s former number two, who moved a year ago to run MBDA’s Italian operation.

In an online press briefing on Wednesday “to say goodbye” to journalists, Cingolani recalled how Leonardo had added 20,000 staff and grown its share price from 10 to 64 euros on his watch.

Growth at the firm had been “unprecedented”, he said.

On Wednesday, Leonardo reported a 33% year-on-year rise in first-quarter core earnings.

Cingolani, 64, said the firm’s industrial plan was “rolling”, adding, “The strategy is built, capitalized and contracted. The job now is execution not strategy. Deviation from the plan could be detrimental to the success of Leonardo in the future.”

As an example of a new product roll-out, Cingolani cited the Michelangelo Dome, an air-defense system designed with open architecture to allow partner countries to link existing assets and make them interoperable.

The system will be tested in Ukraine against drone attacks in November, he announced.

Cingolani defended his “bullets and bytes” strategy which focused on turning Leonardo “from a defense company to a global security company” specializing in cyber, energy and infrastructure security.

Some experts have suggested that Cingolani fell out of favor in government circles because he was seen as not prioritizing the mass production of munitions and hardware needed as war rages on Europe’s border.

Cingolani however took pride in his focus on digitalizing operations at Leonardo. “We were a non-digital company. Now we have one terrabyte of memory per employee,” he said, adding, “We were creating a digital brand.”

Despite seeing his time at Leonardo truncated by the Italian government, Cingolani said he approved of government stakes in defense firms.

“I believe that you cannot consider a defense company to be 100 percent independent of the state,” he said. “If we pursue only profit and we are independent of public institutions we could decide to sell assets to an enemy country. A state stake in a defense company is justified in ensuring the firm behaves according to the alliances the state approves of,” he added.

“I might not be happy to not be renewed on the one hand, but on the other I understand the state supervises such a delicate issue as defense,” he said.

That said, Cingolani said he believed five-year rather than three-year mandates would be better at the top of Leonardo.

“Three years is too short because this is a mid-term or long-term strategy industry. It is not beneficial for the company. It could be beneficial to extend the mandate,” he said.

Asked why his mandate had not been renewed, Cingolani said, “It is not necessary that I understand. The state can do whatever is needed.”

He added, “Sometimes good results are not enough.”

During his mandate, Cingolani created alliances with Germany’s Rheinmetall and Turkish drone maker Baykar, helped by his friendships with top managers at the firms. Asked if those alliances could suffer due to his departure, he said, “There is a risk but a multi-national company like Leonardo cannot depend on an individual. Those alliances were facilitated by personal relationships built on shared knowledge, vision and strategy. Once that is written in the industrial plan and approved by the board it is no longer a personal point of view.”

He added: “Governance avoids a personalization of the company.”

Asked what he plans to do next, Cingolani said, “I am getting on my motorbike and will travel around Europe for a while.”

The French nuclear aircraft carrier and its escorts will transit the Suez Canal on Wednesday on its way to the southern Red Sea, the ministry said, following a nearly two-month deployment in the eastern Mediterranean. France emphasized that the movement of its only aircraft carrier is separate from the military operations initiated in the region.

France and the United Kingdom are leading a group of more than 40 countries that is drawing up plans to help restore navigation in the Strait of Hormuz, which has been blocked due to the hostilities between the United States and Iran. French President Emmanuel Macron has said any multinational initiative to secure Hormuz would only happen once the hottest phase of the conflict subsides.

“Faced with the evolving international context in the Strait of Hormuz, the carrier strike group is now heading toward the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden,” the French Joint Staff said in a post on X. The pre-positioning is “aimed at reassuring and strengthening regional security” and is a “resolutely defensive initiative, fully in line with international law,” the joint staff said.

European countries have so far sought to keep their distance from the American-Israeli attacks on Iran, rejecting calls by President Donald Trump to support the U.S. in securing the Strait of Hormuz. Trump responded by calling European allies “cowards,” before saying the U.S. doesn’t actually need help and downplaying the role of allies.

Trump said Sunday the U.S. would start Project Freedom to ensure safe passage for commercial shipping through the strait, before saying Tuesday the military operation had been temporarily halted.

The French aircraft carrier is relocating to reduce the delay implementing the multinational Hormuz initiative as soon as circumstances permit, according to the ministry in Paris. France and the U.K. have said the international mission would be strictly defensive and operate in consultation with relevant countries.

The deployment will allow the carrier group to assess the regional operational environment before the initiative kicks off, integrate contributions from partner countries, as well as help reassure commercial shippers, the ministry said.

The Charles de Gaulle was deployed in the Mediterranean with an air wing of 20 Rafale jets and two E-2C Hawkeye airborne early warning aircraft as well as three helicopters. France is the only country besides the United States to operate a nuclear aircraft carrier with catapult launch systems, allowing the French Navy to operate fixed-wing airborne early warning as well as enabling heavier fighter payloads.

The Netherlands said the air-defense frigate Evertsen, which was part of the carrier group, has left the deployment and is steaming back to its home port of Den Helder.

While officials say that extra $2.1 billion will allow the Army to “keep a technological advantage,” congressional leaders have expressed concern that it could come at the expense of accountability.

During the Army’s congressional budget hearing, Rep. Betty McCollum, D-Minn., the ranking member of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, noted that while R&D spending is increasing, funding for financial management and audit readiness is declining.

McCollum said that although much of the budget is aimed at “applications, infrastructure, data and transport,” it provides less detail on how those investments will be tracked. She added that the number of budget lines dedicated to auditing has been reduced from 41 to four.

“It has an unintended consequence when you compress these activities to make it easier for the Army to move funds without keeping Congress involved,” she said. “We might have a discussion about what you’re going to do, but without the lines, we don’t have the accountability for both of us.”

While the accountability concerns are clear, they also raise a practical question: where will the R&D money go?

According to the Army’s budget highlights, R&D spending will increase from $16.6 billion in 2026 to $18.7 billion in 2027. Of that, $2.9 billion will be set aside for a general science and technology fund, which officials say will be “dedicated to developing the next-generation systems and platforms that will support the Army of 2040 and beyond.”

The budget highlights also include a variety of procurement items, such as loitering munitions, Infantry Squad Vehicles, Next Generation Squad Weapons (with ammunition) and advanced night vision goggles.

Other specific investments include:

• $904 million for Next Generation Command and Control (NGC2), an initiative to modernize the Army’s communications and networking technologies. Last year, Anduril Industries developed a prototype for $99.6 million. The finished system integrates technologies from a range of industry partners, including Palantir and Microsoft, to support real-time decision-making. The proposed R&D funding would be used to deliver the system at scale.
• $2.1 billion for the MV-75 Cheyenne II tiltrotor aircraft, which the Army describes as “a revolutionary platform” capable of providing the speed and range needed for future conflicts. Introduced last year, the aircraft is intended to supplement — and eventually replace — the Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk, which has been in service for more than 50 years.
• $474 million for Abrams M1E3 modernization, part of a yearslong effort to upgrade the Army’s main battle tank. In 2023, the Army announced plans to move beyond the M1A2 upgrade package and develop the M1E3, with fielding targeted for 2030. The modernized platform is expected to include a hybrid-electric drive, improved armor, advanced munitions and enhanced networking and artificial intelligence capabilities.
• $1.1 billion to transition the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, or THAAD, from the Missile Defense Agency to Army control. The Army began developing the system in the early 1990s to intercept ballistic missiles inside or outside the atmosphere, and it became operational in the mid-2000s. According to the Congressional Research Service, the transition is intended to simplify “integration and oversight.”

In response to McCollum’s questions, Army Secretary Dan Driscoll acknowledged that the service has struggled in the past to manage taxpayer dollars effectively.

“We have a history of spending money in a way that didn’t defend taxpayers’ right for their dollars,” he said, adding that lengthy acquisition timelines often mean new systems are outdated by the time they are fielded.

He argued that the increased budget, and the flexibility that comes with it, is necessary to keep pace with rapid technological change.

“The purpose, from our perspective, for something like the Next Gen C2 is the speed of innovation requires us to shift dollars between back end systems,” he said. “The speed of these innovations doesn’t allow us to stay as predetermined where the dollar will go.”

In the end, Driscoll suggested that technology — specifically, the Army’s Vantage dashboard by Palantir — might be the compromise they need because it “basically gives us a lot more visibility into where the dollars are going and [gives] your team access to run their own reports.”

But McCollum still wanted the audit, saying that budget discussions “needs to be a two-way conversation.”

The Turkish Efes-2026 exercise marks the second instance in a short period in which Libya’s rival factions have participated in the same multinational exercise, an indication of accelerating rapprochement between the two sides.

Coordinated by the Aegean Army Command, the exercise’s Computer-Assisted Command Post Phase, conducted between 11–17 April, included Distinguished Observer Day activities in Istanbul and Izmir. The live phase of the exercise is scheduled to take place here between April 20 and May 21.

“The fact that eastern and western Libyan elements have, for the first time, come together under the same exercise framework is being viewed as a critical milestone for the vision of a ‘single and unified Libya,’” reads a defense ministry statement.

The MND said 331 personnel from eastern Libya and 177 personnel from western Libya, along with the fast-attack craft Shafak, are participating in the Efes-2026 drill.

“This development marks an important step not only in military cooperation, but also in strengthening unity, cohesion and institutional alignment in Libya,” the Turkish MND said.

Turkey continues to pursue its approach to Libya under “One Army, One Libya,” supporting the country’s unity, cohesion, peace and stability across both its eastern and western regions.

Both Libyan factions recently took part in the Flintlock-2026 Multinational Special Forces Exercise, held in the city of Sirte, Libya, and the exercise was successfully completed. Flintlock is U.S. Africa Command’s premier multinational training event.

Held April 13-30 in Libya and Côte d’Ivoire, the this year’s iteration of the exercise saw participation from Turkey, the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, Chad, France, Italy, Libya, Hungary, Egypt and Tunisia.

In a statement, AFRICOM said that for the first time Libya was hosting an operating location with joint forces training alongside one another. These efforts are supported by a committee supporting Libyan joint forces efforts, known as the 3+3 Libyan Joint Military Committee.

A ceremony to commission the attack submarine called Hangor was held in the Chinese city of Sanya on April 30 in the presence of Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and navy chief Naveed Ashraf as well as senior Chinese military officials, according to a Pakistani statement. Sanya, a port city, hosts a major submarine base of the People’s Liberation Army.

The diesel-electric Hangor-class submarine is an export variant of China’s 039A Yuan-class submarines. It has a displacement of approximately 2,800 tons. Armed with advanced sensors, torpedoes and anti-ship cruise missiles that can strike surface warships, submarines and land-based facilities, these Air-Independent Propulsion (AIP) conventional boats aim to enhance the Pakistan navy’s undersea warfare capability. The AIP submarines can remain under water significantly longer without needing to surface.

The deal for the eight Chinese submarines, struck in 2015, is estimated at $5 billion. Four boats are being built in China and the remaining four will be built in Pakistan under a technology-transfer agreement. All four Chinese-built boats are scheduled to be inducted by 2028.

Pakistani President Zardari described the commissioning of the first Chinese attack submarine as a “historic milestone” in the South Asian country’s naval modernization. Until now, Islamabad operates a fleet of eight submarines including three mini ones.

After dillydallying, Thailand proceeds with Chinese-built submarine

Pakistan’s navy chief Naveed Ashraf said that the Hangor submarines, equipped with state of the art weapons “will play a pivotal role in deterring aggression and ensuring security of vital sea lines of communication across the Arabian Sea and wider Indian Ocean region.”

India, Pakistan’s main rival, is also upgrading its submarine fleet as the Indian Ocean, a vital global sea lane, becomes a strategic domain where China is increasing its influence — Beijing’s close partnership with Islamabad helps it gain access to the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean. New Delhi is expected to seal a deal with Germany to buy six AIP submarines in the coming months.

China’s defense supplies are playing a key role in Pakistan’s military build-up and modernization, as both countries nurture a close partnership with an eye on India, with which both have fought wars triggered by long-standing border disputes.

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute’s global arms transfer database, China supplied approximately 80% of Pakistan’s arms imports between 2021 and 2025. Pakistan also serves as Beijing’s top arms customer, buying as much as 60% of its defense exports.

Chinese weapons also boosting Pakistan’s aerial capabilities — the Chinese J-10C and the JF-17, which is jointly made by China and Pakistan, are the main combat jets in the Pakistan air force. These jets were combat-tested for the first time during a four-day conflict between India and Pakistan last year. Pakistan claimed that it had shot down Indian fighter jets including Rafale aircraft with the J-10. Both India and Dassault Aviation, the French company which manufactures the jets, denied the claim.

The guarantee comes a day after U.S. Naval Forces Central Command issued a security warning regarding maritime explosive devices to vessels passing through the strait.

“Transit via or in close proximity to the traffic separation scheme should be considered extremely hazardous due the presence of mines that have not been fully surveyed and mitigated,” a memo with the warning read.

The U.S. instructed vessels to travel through an enhanced security area south of the traffic separation scheme in Oman territorial waters and coordinate with Oman authorities to ensure safe passage amid anticipated heavy traffic.

The traffic separation scheme refers to two lanes in the Strait of Hormuz that were previously deemed safe.

“Any follow-on effort if there are mines identified, would be something that some of our units could undertake or the world could undertake,” Hegseth said. “But right now we know we have a lane of safe passage that commercial shipping can flow through.”

Iranian naval mines have proven a constant threat throughout the Iran war.

Minesweeping technology in the Middle East is ‘a very good package,’ Caudle says

While the U.S. military has destroyed a number of Iran’s mine-laying boats and storage bunkers for naval mines, the country has been previously assessed to have a stockpile of around 6,000 as recently as 2025, according to Congress.

CENTCOM announced April 11 that it had began “setting conditions for clearing mines” with the assistance of Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers USS Frank E. Peterson and USS Michael Murphy.

The U.S. Navy currently has several options to identify and neutralize mines, including Avenger-class minesweepers and lndependence-class littoral combat ships with a mine countermeasures mission package.

The Navy retired all four minesweepers home-ported in Bahrain, the only in the Middle East, in 2025.

The remaining four Avenger-class minesweepers are home-ported in Japan, with two on their way toward the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility as of April 20, according to Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Daryl Caudle, who confirmed the transport to reporters at the 2026 Sea-Air-Space exposition.

All three of the LCS with the MCM mission package are home-ported in Bahrain, but two of them — the USS Santa Barbara and USS Tulsa — left the CENTCOM area of responsibility and arrived in Singapore for scheduled maintenance in March.

U.S. Central Command began supporting Project Freedom on Monday, a military operation aiming to shepherd commercial shipping vessels attempting to pass through the Strait of Hormuz.

The U.S. Navy instituted a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz on April 12 after President Trump announced on Truth Social that the U.S. would intercept vessels that paid a toll to Iran for passage and begin destroying mines.

The nearly four-week-old ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran remains in effect, despite an exchange of artillery fire that saw the U.S. military destroy six Iranian small boats, as well as cruise missiles and drones.

Currently, the 32 countries that make up the alliance share commercial data through exceptions and workarounds, said Lynch, NATO deputy assistant secretary general for intelligence.

NATO needs new data-use policies, security classification guides, contract frameworks and releasability rules — “unglamorous work” that would have a big impact on military decision-making, he said.

“This past year has made one thing crystal clear: The security environment remains contested, and the advantage belong to those who combine unity of purpose with the speed of action,” Lynch said Monday at the annual GEOINT Symposium, hosted by the U.S. Geospatial Intelligence Foundation.

The symposium attracted companies, many of the U.S. military vendors, that among other things track Russian military activity in the Bering Strait, monitor China’s military exercises and last year provided the technology to determine the extent of the damage to Iranian nuclear facilities following Operation Midnight Hammer.

Lynch urged the intelligence professionals present Monday to help NATO update its framework for data-sharing.

Governing commercial intelligence becomes “significantly more complex” when it comes to data processed by artificial intelligence, he said.

“Then, it’s not simply asking who can share what, it’s asking whose model to use on what training data with what documented assumptions with what confidence threshold in what context,” Lynch said, adding that there needs to be one common AI model and interface to be used by commercial and national partners across NATO.

NATO has previously established hundreds of standardization agreements creating common standards for things like air defense, maritime awareness and data formats.

“NATO is quite good at governance,” Lynch said. “The question is whether we apply that same rigor to AI before the technology outpaces the frameworks or after, and the answer will be decided in the next few years.”

Last year, under pressure from President Donald Trump, European NATO members and Canada hit their goal of spending 2% of gross domestic product on defense. It marked a 20% increase in overall defense spending, Lynch said, and was the first time the members had met the goal since it was established in 2014.

At the NATO summit in The Hague last year, allies pledged to spend 5% of GDP on defense by 2035.

“Three years ago, that would’ve been considered science fiction,” Lynch said of the spending goal. “The alliance is now actively investing in its own security at a pace and scale we have not seen in a generation.”

However, investing in defense without also putting more money toward intelligence is “capability without awareness,” he said. “More is useless unless information generated gets to the right person in the right form at the right time.”

The new company is designed to act as an opposing force, or OPFOR, against troops training at the Joint Multinational Readiness Center in Hohenfels, testing the capabilities of U.S. and allied troops by using a combination of infantry tactics with new technology modeled on modern conflict.

It is unclear if the unit will remain — or have enough troops to train — after the Defense Department’s drawdown takes effect.

The Pentagon said it planned to remove 5,000 troops from Germany over the next 12 months as a rift between U.S. President Donald Trump and Europe over the Iran war continues to fester.

Eerie Company, 1st Battalion, 4th Infantry Regiment, was stood up in December 2025 and focuses on playing the enemy force against training formations with short- to long-range reconnaissance.

The company often uses drones that simulate those used in the war in Ukraine, where the technology has become a constant fixture shaping how units fight.

“The rate at which modern warfare is moving, and due to current conflicts, this company was established to help bridge that gap and be the eyes and ears of the battalion,” Capt. Luther Salmon, the new unit’s commander, said in a release.

Hohenfels’s training center frequently hosts large multinational exercises designed to test units against complicated, high-threat situations that can mirror war.

The establishment of Eerie company — and the removal of troops from Europe — comes amid growing concern that the U.S. is lagging behind in adapting its military to this new form of warfare that involves cheap drones and electronic warfare.

Lessons from Ukraine have shown that those systems change combat by making even basic resupplies much more dangerous. Kyiv, meanwhile, is now exporting hard-fought lessons in drone warfare to Western militaries — like the U.S. — that have studied the concepts but are new to facing them in combat.

As drones have become integral to war, the Army has begun pushing the skillset across formations. Anyone in the service can learn about or become a drone pilot, regardless of specialty or job.

One of the main drones used by Salmon’s company is the Neros Archer FPV, or first person view, which the Army said can be configured in many ways and helps replicate conflict situations like those observed in Ukraine.

Spc. Ryan Hatcher, an infantryman who has become an expert on the drone, said the Archer Neros has been helpful in training.

“It’s pretty good for an FPV,” he said. “Other FPVs we’ve flown here in Hohenfels, Germany — we’ve only been able to max out at eight to 10 minutes of battery life.”

The pilot purchase, made without competitive bidding, follows earlier Merops deployments and training with Polish and Romanian forces along NATO’s eastern flank.

The system is an example of a new crop of drone countermeasures marketed under an ultra-low-cost mantra that promises to even out a longstanding imbalance in air defense: Intercepting aerial threats like drones is exponentially more expensive than launching them.

It’s a brave new world for arms vendors, especially in the West, nursed on lavish defense budgets over decades. A price point advantage is no longer measured in millions of dollars below the competition, but in mere thousands.

Merops is “capable of intercepting Shahed, Gerbera, and other similar targets,” Lithuanian Defense Minister Robertas Kaunas said, according to national broadcaster LRT – a claim the manufacturer, Perennial Autonomy, confirmed to Military Times, saying Merops has already successfully engaged both target types in combat.

The American-made system saw its first official combat confirmation last month, when Army Secretary Dan Driscoll told Congress that Merops had been used to down Iranian Shaheds aimed at U.S. troops in the Middle East.

The Army bought 13,000 Merops interceptors in eight days after Iran began launching drones at U.S. positions in late February, Driscoll said in April 16 testimony.

The Pentagon turned to Merops after burning through hundreds of Patriot missiles defending against Iranian Shaheds – each Patriot costing more than $3 million, drawing down stockpiles Ukraine has long depended on for its own air defense.

“They protected U.S. troops,” Driscoll told lawmakers, defending the $15,000 unit cost as a fraction of what a Shahed costs to produce. “We will make that trade all day long.”

Merops is built by Perennial Autonomy, the secretive defense startup former Google chief executive Eric Schmidt launched in 2023 as White Stork, according to Forbes.

The company rebranded to Project Eagle in February 2024, and again to Perennial Autonomy, and pulled in former Pentagon innovation chief Will Roper alongside engineers from Apple, SpaceX and Google.

Merops’s closest peers are Ukrainian drones – which are cheaper, have been in combat longer, and are already winning NATO buyers of their own.

Schmidt set out to build attack drones, but was soon convinced by his Ukrainian hosts that defensive interceptor drones – built to take out incoming drones mid-air, minimizing ground damage – were the best investment. Ukrainian forces first deployed Merops as a Shahed interceptor in June 2024, and Poland and Romania have since fielded it along NATO’s eastern flank.

Ukrainian air defense, which averaged roughly 90% interception rates of incoming Russian drones and 80% of cruise missiles in March, has taken the spotlight worldwide as Iranian Shaheds and other unmanned air and ground vessels have caused hundreds of American casualties and billions in damage to US military assets since the war in the Middle East kicked off over two months ago.

Typical Ukrainian-built interceptors run $1,000 to $3,000 a unit and have downed thousands of Russian Shaheds since 2024, with kills logged through Ukraine’s Mission Control battlefield system.

Merops has logged more than 1,000 Shahed-type intercepts in Ukraine since combat testing began in mid-2024, Militarnyi reported. The Pentagon has yet to disclose a Middle East engagement count or per-target success rate.

No interceptor system holds a clear edge, said Stanislav Gryshyn, co-founder of Ukrainian interceptor maker General Cherry.

Their drones ranked first among Ukrainian producers in enemy kills in March, with units logging 11,473 confirmed hits – 5,800 more than the previous month – the highest absolute growth in effectiveness of any tracked system in the period, according to Militarnyi.

The company’s jet-powered Bullet interceptor recorded 3,296 visually confirmed kills in February alone, verified through Ukraine’s Delta battle-management system, Gryshyn told Military Times.

“Anyone claiming one product is better in all respects is either lying or misunderstanding the market,” Gryshyn said.

Four Ukrainian-built interceptors dominate the Shahed-killing fleet: SkyFall’s P1-SUN, Wild Hornets’ Sting, the Ukrainian-British Octopus, and General Cherry’s Bullet.

The Army has deployed roughly 20 Merops complexes to one Middle East site staffed by more than 100 soldiers, about 10 complexes to a second site, and 1,000 armed and unarmed interceptors across the two locations, according to Business Insider. The Surveyor interceptor is flown with an Xbox controller, the publication reported.

Perennial Autonomy also makes the Bumblebee V2, a multirotor FPV interceptor already deployed in Ukraine, on a separate $5.2 million Pentagon contract, according to Calibre Defence.

Bullet works differently. The jet-powered interceptor tops 300 kilometers per hour, climbs to 6,000 meters, and runs on a four-person crew – driver, operator, navigator, communications – Gryshyn told Military Times.

“The guidance system predicts the target and reacts at high speed,” Gryshyn said. “The operator confirms via FPV goggles, and the system completes the intercept.”

Production is the bottleneck. Ukraine has scaled interceptor manufacturing through three parallel channels, with output in the first four months of 2026 already surpassing all of 2025, Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov said April 27.

“Our task is to ensure a stable supply of interceptors to the military and to protect Ukrainians from Shahed attacks,” Fedorov said.

General Cherry can currently scale to 100,000 drones a month and is still expanding its manufacturing capabilities, Gryshyn told Military Times.

The company signed production deals in March and April with New Hampshire-based Wilcox Industries and Croatia’s Orqa, seeding distributed NATO production lines.

The Pentagon has committed more than $600 million to counter-drone procurement since the Iran war opened, including $350 million for CENTCOM in the first 30 days, DefenseScoop reported.

Drone spending will run “conservatively, $54 billion” in fiscal 2027 – “closer to $74 billion” once counter-drone programs are added, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told the House Armed Services Committee on Wednesday in his first congressional appearance since the Iran war began.

Competition for those dollars is fierce – and Ukrainian manufacturers are already strong players.

SkyFall’s Shrike 10 Fiber, submitted through U.K. partner Skycutter, took first place in the opening round of the Pentagon’s $1.1 billion Drone Dominance program – a four-round competition of strike drones between 25 companies at Fort Benning, Georgia, aiming to field more than 300,000 low-cost drones for U.S. forces – with two of the top six finishers Ukrainian-designed.

No equivalent open competition exists for interceptor drones like Bullet. Merops side-stepped the traditionally slow procurement process by getting fast-tracked through the Army’s G-TEAD program, which aims to provide troops with “combat‑credible capabilities at the speed of war,” the U.S. Army said last month.

Now, Merops has been flagged as a transition candidate for a program of record under Project Manager Close Combat Systems, the step from prototype to sustained acquisition.

Even at scale, the Pentagon’s floor is Ukraine’s ceiling.

Merops could drop to $10,000 a piece at scale, Driscoll said. Ukrainian-built interceptors are already well below that price point.

The directive from Kyiv, Fedorov said in an April Telegram post, is to defeat Russia by “degrading its economic capacity” – and price asymmetry is the lever. Russia launched a record 6,663 drones at Ukraine in April, averaging 222 a night, according to the air force.

A defense engineered for that volume cannot run on $15,000 systems, a lesson Ukraine has learned and is now beginning to sell abroad.

“When you need to shoot down 60 Shaheds at once, you need $2,000 systems, not $15,000 complexes,” Gryshyn told Military Times.

Ukraine asked the Pentagon last August to help scale interceptor manufacturing. Washington declined.

Kyiv is opening the market on its own.

Zelenskyy unveiled an arms-export framework April 27, citing up to 50% surplus capacity in parts of the defense industry and naming the Middle East and Persian Gulf, Europe and the Caucasus as target markets. Ukrainian forces get first claim on production; surplus goes abroad.

“The export of Ukrainian weapons will become a reality,” Zelenskyy said last week.

Local officials say they believe the remaining months of 2026 are a realistic timeframe for the first export contracts.

We have “discussed in detail with the Minister of Defense of Ukraine the launch of arms exports, specifically the regulatory steps intended to support our state’s agreements and weapons production,” Zelenskyy wrote in an April 29 social media post.

Ukraine’s arms makers have touted their products as having been successfully used in an intense land conflict not witnessed in Europe since World War 2. At the same time, the Ukrainian defense industry is required by law to deliver its entire output to the country’s armed forces.

Vadym Ivchenko, a Ukrainian lawmaker for the Batkivshchyna party, told Defense News a political consensus on the need to allow Ukraine’s defense industry to launch export sales has emerged across party lines.

“Meeting the needs of the defense forces as a top priority is a fundamental condition for all sides. Only after that can the sale of surplus be considered to attract investment,” Ivchenko said.

The lawmaker said that, as Ukraine’s president has already approved the so-called Drone Deals framework, Ukraine is now officially coordinating export details at the state level.

“Therefore, 2026 can be considered a realistic timeframe for launching the first contracts. Of course, delays are possible, but it is important to understand that this would lead to idle production capacity, which is an unacceptable luxury during wartime,” according to the politician.

Ivchenko said drones of various types are expected to become the Ukrainian defense industry’s flagship export products.

“From reconnaissance to strike systems, particularly those already tested in real combat conditions. In addition, Ukraine could offer missile systems and software solutions, including battlefield management technologies,” the lawmaker said. “Naval drones, software integrations, and other technological solutions are also highly likely. We may also offer our unique experience in countering modern navigation and communication systems, as well as various aviation components.”

Facing threats similar to those of Ukraine, the Gulf region’s officials have shown interest in the Ukrainian defense sector’s output, creating a momentum for its industry’s expansion across the Middle East.

“Many countries could potentially become buyers of Ukrainian products, especially those currently facing elevated security risks. In this regard, Gulf countries can be considered likely customers due to their strong interest in proven solutions,” Ivchenko said.

Iran’s parliament speaker, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, said in a social media post on Tuesday breaches of the four-week-old ceasefire by the United States and its allies had endangered shipping and energy transit through the vital waterway.

“We know well that the continuation of the current situation is unbearable for the United States, while we have not even begun yet,” he said.

The fresh volleys of missiles and drones came after U.S. President Donald Trump launched a new effort to get stranded tankers and other ships through the strait, the vital energy-trade chokepoint that has been virtually closed since the U.S. and Israel began attacks on Iran in February, a war that has killed thousands of people across the region.

On Monday, several merchant ships in the Gulf reported explosions or fires, the U.S. said it had destroyed six small Iranian military boats, and an oil port in the United Arab Emirates, which hosts a large U.S. military base, was set ablaze by Iranian missiles.

Trump gave scant details about his new effort, which he called “Project Freedom,” to assist stuck ships in getting through the strait when he announced it on social media, two days after a legal deadline under U.S. law for him to get authorization from Congress for the war.

Trump told Congress the war was “terminated” and the deadline was moot, a claim disputed by some lawmakers.

It was the first apparent attempt to use military force since last month’s ceasefire announcement to unblock the world’s most important energy shipping route, which Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has said can only happen with its permission.

The cost of shipping insurance has also skyrocketed. For weeks, the U.S. Navy has blockaded Iran’s trade by sea, which Iran says is itself an act of war.

But Trump’s latest move, at least initially, appeared to have backfired, bringing no surge of merchant ship traffic while provoking a promised show of force from Iran, which has threatened to respond to any escalation with new attacks on its neighbors hosting U.S. troops.

Major shipping companies said they were likely to wait for an agreed end to hostilities before trying to cross the strait.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said Monday’s events showed there was no military solution to the crisis. He said peace talks were progressing with Pakistan’s mediation while warning the U.S. and the UAE against being drawn into a “quagmire by ill-wishers.”

“Project Freedom is Project Deadlock,” he wrote on social media.

Nonetheless, the U.S. military said two U.S. merchant ships made it through the strait, without saying when, with the support of Navy guided-missile destroyers.

While Iran denied any crossings had taken place in recent hours, Maersk said the Alliance Fairfax, a U.S.-flagged ship, exited the Gulf via the Strait of Hormuz accompanied by the U.S. military on Monday.

The commander of U.S. forces in the region said his fleet had destroyed six small Iranian boats, which Iran also denied. Admiral Brad Cooper said he “strongly advised” Iranian forces to keep clear of U.S. military assets carrying out the mission.

Iranian authorities released a map of what they said was an expanded sea area now under their control, extending far beyond the strait to include long stretches of the UAE’s coastline.

South Korea reported one of its merchant ships, HMM Namu, in the strait suffered an explosion and fire in its engine room, though no one aboard was hurt, and a spokesman said it was unclear if the fire was caused by an attack or originated internally.

The British maritime security agency UKMTO reported two ships had been hit off the coast of the UAE, and the Emirati oil company ADNOC said one of its empty oil tankers was hit by Iranian drones.

IRAN SETS UAE OIL PORT ABLAZE

After reported drone and missile attacks inside the UAE throughout the day, including one that caused a fire at Fujairah, an important oil port, the UAE said Iranian attacks marked a serious escalation and it reserved the right to respond.

Fujairah lies beyond the strait, making it one of few export routes for Middle East oil that does not require passing through it.

Its government also said that it was implementing remote learning for school students for safety reasons.

Iran’s state television network said military officials had confirmed they attacked the UAE in response to the “U.S. military’s adventurism.”

Earlier, Iran said it had fired on a U.S. warship approaching the strait, forcing it to turn around. An initial Iranian report had said a U.S. warship was struck, but the U.S. denied this and Iranian officials later described the fire as warning shots.

Reuters could not independently verify the full situation in the strait on Monday as the warring sides issued contradictory statements.

Iran’s unified command has told commercial ships and oil tankers that they needed to coordinate with its armed forces.

“We warn that any foreign armed forces, especially the aggressive U.S. Army, will be attacked if they intend to approach and enter the Strait of Hormuz,” it said.

The U.S. and Israel suspended their bombing of Iran four weeks ago, and U.S. and Iranian officials held one round of face-to-face peace talks. But attempts to set up further meetings have failed.

Iranian state media said on Sunday that the U.S. had conveyed its response to a 14-point Iranian proposal via Pakistan, and Iran was reviewing it. Neither side gave details.

The Iranian proposal would postpone discussion of Iran’s nuclear energy and research programs until after an agreement to end the war and resolve the standoff over shipping. Trump said over the weekend he was still studying it but would probably reject it.

The latest U.S. intelligence shows limited damage to Iran’s nuclear program, which Iran says is a purely peaceful civilian nuclear program, since the war began, officials told Reuters.

Iran’s nuclear facilities were bombed by the U.S. and Israel in attacks last year. Trump wants to remove Iran’s stockpiles of enriched uranium to prevent Iran from processing it further to the point where it could make a nuclear weapon.

Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, speaking Monday in Munster, Germany, after a major Bundeswehr combined-arms exercise, said the reported decision meant Germany would be left with a capability gap.

“That was an agreement between Joe Biden and Chancellor Olaf Scholz at the time − as a temporary bridge, until we as Europeans had developed our own systems,” Pistorius told reporters, referring to the former U.S. and German leaders “That this may now not happen in the way we had assumed tears this capability gap open again. We have to look at how we can compensate for that.”

“There are ideas, but no solution yet,” said the defense minister.

The Biden administration announced in July 2024 that it would temporarily station a Multi-Domain Task Force in Germany equipped with the Typhon ground-launched system, which can fire Tomahawk cruise missiles and SM-6 interceptors, in what officials described as a bridging measure ahead of European alternatives coming online.

That plan is now in doubt following fresh reports that the Trump administration intends to withdraw approximately 5,000 U.S. troops from Germany, with President Donald Trump suggesting the actual figure could be significantly higher.

At the government’s regular press conference on Monday in Berlin, Defense Ministry state secretary Kornelius Müller laid out Berlin’s three-pronged response to fielding a long-range missile capability.

The first thrust involves modernizing existing Taurus cruise missile stocks and accelerating development of the Taurus Neo successor, a program approved by the Bundestag’s budget committee in late 2025. The second pillar − the purchase of market-available systems, with a formal Letter of Request for Typhon launchers submitted to U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth last July − remains officially “in process,” though Müller declined to say whether Washington had responded to the ask.

The third pillar is the European Long-Range Strike Approach, or ELSA, a joint program involving six European nations − France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Sweden and the United Kingdom. Berlin and London are also separately co-developing deep-strike capabilities beyond the 2,000 kilometer range under the bilateral Trinity House framework, and Pistorius indicated that France intends to join that effort as well.

The timeline, however, remains uncertain. When pressed on whether ELSA-derived capabilities would be ready before 2030, Müller declined to commit to any date. “I cannot say anything about a timeline,” he told reporters, citing dependence on industrial availability and technology development.

In Munster, Pistorius pointed to the ongoing European effort. “We began in 2023, together with the British, and now the French want to join, to develop the precision-strike systems ourselves as Europeans − as fast as possible,” he said. “At the same time, we need an instrument − with U.S. help or via other paths − to close the capability gap in that bridging period as quickly as possible.”

The admission underscores how dependent Germany’s defense planning remains on American cooperation at a moment when that bond is increasingly uncertain. It also suggests that both of Berlin’s planning scenarios for obtaining Typhon launchers – by way of a U.S. Army formation stationed in Germany, or through a Bundeswehr purchase for use by national forces – are now deemed dead ends.

Müller sought to downplay the operational implications, insisting that NATO’s defense plans account for capability contributions across allied nations and that no gap would emerge at the alliance level. “It is not Germany’s deep-precision-strike capabilities alone on which the deterrence and defense capability of Europe hangs,” he said.

Pistorius has previously warned, including as far back as 2023, that European NATO members would need to adapt to a reduced U.S. footprint on the continent as Washington pivots toward the Indo-Pacific.

Editor’s note: This story was updated to correct a description of European-based, long-range strike efforts in which Germany partakes.

Col. Dennis Hernandez of the Philippine Marines told Defense News the cruise missile was launched at around 12:10 a.m local time on May 5 and landed at the impact area within Fort Magsaysay, the Army’s main battle camp, in Laur, Nueva Ecija, roughly an hour later.

“The missile was very precise. Let’s say if you want to hit a window from a far distance, it lands directly into that window,” Hernandez said. “This skimming missile traveled all the way from Tacloban to the target in Laur.”

Exercise officials meant for the Tomahawk missile to support ground troops in a night land maneuver exercise led by the 25th Infantry Division in Fort Magsaysay, part of the ongoing Balikatan annual joint drills between American and Filipino troops.

China bristles at US Army’s Typhon missile launcher in Japan

This year’s Balikatan drill involves roughly 17,000 troops from Japan, Australia, France, Canada and New Zealand.

The Typhon launcher’s presence in the Philippines, let alone a test-firing of one of its variable munitions, has irked Chinese officials because of its long-range capability, especially when loaded with Tomahawks.

Philippine officials said training on the Typhon missile system will help guide future acquisitions.

There was some back-and-forth earlier in the exercise about whether the Typhon launch would happen at all. Local defense officials initially announced it for May 4 or May 5, but U.S. military officials suggested it could be canceled because of unspecified “obstacles.”

In the end, the launch was timed ahead of a joint maritime strike in Ilocos Norte, according to exercise planners. That event will feature the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force’s Type 88 anti-ship missile system and the U.S. Marine Corps’ NMESIS weapon, a mobile, shore-based missile launcher designed to sink ships.

An April 27 navigational warning issued by the Philippine Coast Guard in Eastern Visayas, where Tacloban City is located, urged locals to take precautionary measures from May 5 until May 7 due to activities in the waters off San Pedro Bay during the Balikatan exercises.

Later, another notice was issued to warn residents of a missile-related activity involving the Tomahawk Land Attack Missile system (TLAM).

“Using the Tomahawk was planned — but it depended on the scenario on the ground. There’s a control group that controls the scenario and the exercise and if it is needed, then it is fired,” Hernandez explained.

“It just so happened that the scenario last night required using the Tomahawk to support ground troops,” he added.

Gordon Arthur contributed to this report.

Editor’s note: This story was updated the correct the distance traveled by the Tomahawk missile and the exact launch time.

The April 23 decision authorizes a $219 million contract for the first 14 aircraft, along with spares, support equipment and training, the Air Force announced Monday. The service is targeting initial operational capability in 2027.

The approval means the aircraft cleared Milestone C, a point in the defense acquisition process that marks the transition from development to manufacturing.

“Reaching Milestone C is a testament to the dedicated government and industry teams who have worked diligently to overcome complex technical hurdles,” William Bailey, who’s performing the duties of the assistant secretary of the Air Force for acquisition, technology and logistics, said in a statement. “The T-7A is a pivotal program for the future of our combat air forces.”

For Air Education and Training Command, the urgency is generational.

“Our mission is to train the next generation of combat aviators, and the T-7A Red Hawk is the tool we need to do it,” said Brig. Gen. Matthew Leard, AETC director of plans, programs, requirements and international affairs. “Replacing our 60-plus-year-old T-38s is a top priority. The T-7A’s advanced systems will give our students a far more realistic training environment, ensuring they are prepared for the cockpits of the future.”

For Boeing, the production green light comes after years of schedule delays and a fixed-price development contract plagued by ejection seat deficiencies, flight control software issues and supply chain problems. Flight Global reported last year that Boeing’s losses on the program had surpassed $1.8 billion.

“Boeing is honored to work with our U.S. Air Force partner in achieving this historic milestone in the T-7A Red Hawk’s journey,” Andy Adams, vice president and program manager for Boeing T-7 programs, said in a statement. “Getting this pathfinding digitally designed, built and tested advanced trainer into the hands of Air Force instructors and students remains our focus, and Milestone C positions us to start low-rate initial production this year.”

Despite the production approval, the Air Force is proceeding cautiously. Each of the first three low-rate production lots will be green-lighted separately, allowing officials to apply lessons from ongoing testing before committing to subsequent batches.

The full program calls for 351 T-7A aircraft and 46 ground-based training simulators across five AETC bases. Boeing secured the original $9.2 billion contract in September 2018 in partnership with Sweden’s Saab, which builds the aircraft’s aft fuselage.

The aircraft, named in honor of the red-tailed fighters flown by the Tuskegee Airmen in World War II, first arrived at Joint Base San Antonio-Randolph on Dec. 5, 2025. It is being integrated into the 99th Flying Training Squadron, which traces its lineage directly to the original Tuskegee unit.

American forces are actively assisting efforts to restore commercial shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, U.S. Central Command said on the social media site X on Monday.

Some 20% of the world’s oil passed through that vital maritime chokepoint prior to its virtual closure following the U.S. and Israeli war with Iran.

Trump says US operation will aid ships stranded in Strait of Hormuz

“As a first step, 2 U.S.-flagged merchant vessels have successfully transited through the Strait of Hormuz,” CENTCOM said Monday on X, adding that U.S. Navy guided-missile destroyers are operating in the Gulf under a directive called “Project Freedom.”

Maersk said the transit of the Alliance Fairfax was completed without incident and that all crew were safe and unharmed.

Maersk bought Virginia-based Farrell Lines in 2007, the U.S. vehicle carrier operator said.

The Alliance Fairfax was among hundreds of ships stranded in the Gulf with the virtual closure of the Strait of Hormuz in early March.

At least one other U.S.-flagged vessel remains in the Gulf area.