The extent of the drone war is underestimated, with Ukraine and Russia each using roughly 10,000 drones a day, the former CIA director and onetime commander of U.S. Central Command said, speaking at an American Primary Aluminum Association event in Washington.

“This is an unmanned systems war,” Petraeus said. “Tanks aren’t survivable there anymore.”

For Ukraine, drones and unmanned weapons have become central to how the country has leveraged a smaller, outgunned force against a much larger, better-financed adversary for almost five years.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy ordered the creation of a new Unmanned Systems Forces military branch in 2024, and the Defense Ministry has said time and again that developing more autonomous weapons is a top priority.

But for the rest of the world, Petraeus said, the fighting in Ukraine is a window into the future and a warning about the dangers of being underprepared for the battles to come.

“Really, no NATO country and not even the United States is undertaking yet the urgent revolutionary institutional change that should be taken based on what we see in Ukraine, which is the future of war,” he said.

The U.S. needs a new concept of warfare that runs through force structure, training, procurement, personnel policy and bases, the general said, replacing much of the legacy, heavily manned equipment with unmanned systems that are cheaper and far more numerous.

“What’s going to happen is we’ll see the introduction of autonomous systems really for the first time in warfare,” Petraeus said.

Washington is making “some commendable steps” toward developing these weapons, according to Petraeus, including establishing a new Autonomous Warfare Command that requires each military branch to stand up its own component command.

“But my hope is that they will not just create an unmanned systems force in terms of force structure, but that they will also spur the initiation of true institutional change,” Petraeus said.

That includes how the U.S. buys weapons, Petraeus said, calling for “very, very substantial manufacturing capacity but not necessarily producing all the time.”

“You want it to be able to make software changes every week, hardware changes every few weeks, which is what’s going on in Ukraine because the enemy continues to evolve and Russia’s been innovating very substantially as well,” he said.

Ukraine will produce as many as 20 million unmanned systems this year, Zelenskyy said in a July speech, with a shortage of trained operators and the acquisition of some weapons components — including optics, gimbals, brushless motors and fiber-optic cable — becoming the domestic industry’s production bottleneck.

The general also rejected the idea that the U.S. war with Iran has hurt Washington’s ability to help Kyiv, though he acknowledged the U.S. has used “a fair number of missile interceptors,” which “makes it more difficult to share those with others around the world.”

The war has consumed between one-half and two-thirds of the U.S. inventory of certain missile-defense interceptors, according to a Congressional Budget Office estimate released in September.

“We can help the Ukrainians in any way in which we decide to assist them,” Petraeus said. “These are policy decisions.”

The Russian satellite, Cosmos 2612, spent more than two weeks maneuvering toward ICEYE-X36, a radar satellite operated by the American arm of Finnish company ICEYE that supplies imagery to Ukraine’s military through some of its spacecraft, then shadowed it from as close as a third of a mile through the weekend of Oct. 17.

U.S. Undersecretary of State Thomas G. DiNanno called the Russian satellite’s behavior “threatening,” and said the country had been “intentionally maneuvering dangerously close to a commercial satellite, behaviors consistent with on-orbit weapons operations.”

Space historian and former NASA astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell said that he believed it is the first rendezvous in low Earth orbit between two active satellites without one owner’s approval.

The close encounter came weeks after Air Force Secretary Troy Meink publicly confirmed that the U.S. has weapons in orbit and the Space Force picked two companies to build space-to-space reconnaissance satellites. It also followed reports that trillionaire Elon Musk — under White House orders — slowed the military-grade Starlink that Ukraine relies on, rendering some of the country’s essential air defense weapons useless.

The operation fits a wider Russian campaign of intimidation against Europe and the U.S. that lets Russian President Vladimir Putin “poke the West in the eye and watch the West do nothing,” according to Clayton Swope, deputy director of the Aerospace Security Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“They prove a point – the West can’t stop me,” Swope added Wednesday during a CSIS panel on the encounter.

As the U.S. and its allies increasingly rely on commercial capabilities for national security, key assets like satellites have “become vulnerabilities that can be exploited by our adversary,” according to Greg Gillinger, senior vice president of strategy and development at Virginia-based Integrity ISR, who also spoke on the CSIS panel.

The impact of a possible satellite attack could reach well beyond one company or country, since commercial satellites now carry much of the imagery and connectivity militaries fight with, experts said. Musk’s Starlink slowdown in Ukraine showed how quickly a military force can suffer when that access is throttled without notice — and how easily local geopolitical conflicts can explode into global security crises.

On Oct. 12, commercial trackers feeding the U.S. military’s Joint Commercial Operations cell flagged the possible rendezvous when Cosmos 2612 slid into ICEYE-X36’s orbit roughly 345 miles above Earth, according to Integrity ISR’s newsletter.

On Oct. 15 and 16, the Russian satellite moved from more than 200 miles behind ICEYE-X36 to roughly 3 miles away before moving in closer and holding position through the weekend, tracking firm LeoLabs said in a statement reported by CNN.

Both satellites travel at roughly 4 miles (7 kilometers) per second, so getting two objects “within a hundred meters or even a kilometer” of each other is “the equivalent of flying in a very tight formation in an aircraft,” Gillinger said.

“Russia didn’t accidentally get within a kilometer of X36,” he said. “It is an indication of intent that they’re sending a message.”

ICEYE, whose radar satellites see through clouds, smoke and darkness, expanded cooperation with Ukraine’s military, pledging continued imagery “on tactical timelines,” according to a January statement. However, the company has not confirmed which of its satellites serve Kyiv.

Moscow has warned since the first year of its full-scale invasion that Western commercial satellites helping Ukraine could become legitimate military targets.

ICEYE said it is “aware of the situation and tracking it closely” and that its “constellation architecture is designed for continuity and resilience,” a spokesperson told Air & Space Forces Magazine earlier this week.

Russia’s intent behind the satellite maneuvers remains unclear. According to LeoLabs, an American space technology company, possible aims range from intelligence collection and close inspection to coercion and groundwork for future operations against satellites.

The maneuvers demonstrated capabilities that could be used to “inspect, characterize, shadow, or potentially interfere with another spacecraft,” though they “do not establish hostile intent,” the company said.

Analysts could not yet say whether Moscow planned an attack and then reversed course, or was orbiting nearby for another purpose entirely.

Russia could have been doing “a dry run” for a future attack, or the satellite could have been carrying a weapon, from a jammer to a laser to a projectile, Swope explained.

“Was the intent to blow up the satellite? No,” he said. “Was the intent to put some type of energy on the satellite? Probably… I don’t know why you’d need to maneuver in this way, this close, unless you wanted to do something that involved putting energy on that satellite.”

The Russian satellite has since pulled back, but not far.

It was again flying at ICEYE-X36’s altitude on Wednesday, holding roughly 250 miles (400 kilometers) behind it, and could “easily close that gap again at the time and place of their choosing,” Gillinger said.

Russia could try to approach another ICEYE satellite within weeks, as two more satellites from the same launch will soon line up with the orbit of a second satellite, ICEYE-X37, according to Integrity ISR.

If they move in, “we could see another scenario where another commercial satellite is closely trailed by one of these Russian satellites,” Gillinger said.

The retreat began Oct. 18, two days after President Donald Trump signed an executive order waiving tariffs and most economic restrictions on Russia.

Swope said Trump’s move to ease sanctions “could have been a reason why Putin said, ‘You know, now’s not the time to exacerbate tensions specifically with the United States. Maybe we should pause this operation.’”

“If you’re getting close to a deal on something, why jeopardize that?” he said.

The potential for a conflict in space has been growing in recent months.

Washington “appears to lack response options” if Russia threatened U.S. military and commercial satellites with a nuclear weapon in orbit, according to the conclusions from a 2025 war-game scenario where fictional Russian space objects threatened American interests.

There is no public indication that Cosmos 2612 carries a nuclear weapon, but Swope said that there is also still no internationally recognized rule for determining if a maneuver like this one should be considered hostile — or what international standards should be followed in a response.

“Even though we all can make a good case on why this was [hostile], there’s no norm that you could point to,” he said.

Without a clear response plan or real consequences for aggression, menacing satellite moves like this one are “literally just a spigot that Russia could turn on and off” to increase pressure on adversaries, Swope said.

Russia, he added, “is going to turn it on again.”

The French and British fighter jets flew a joint mission on Tuesday during the exercise Rummy, the French Armed Forces Ministry said in a statement on Friday, calling the drill a show of growing cooperation in the framework of an agreement last year for closer nuclear cooperation and coordination between the two countries.

France is working with several European allies on a concept of “forward deterrence” amid uncertainty around United States security guarantees for Europe in the face of an aggressive Russia. While both France and the U.K. operate strategic ballistic-missile submarines as a nuclear deterrent, France has an airborne component, which the U.K. lacks, in the shape of Rafale jets carrying nuclear-tipped cruise missiles.

“Having independent nuclear forces doesn’t exclude coordination,” French Armed Forces Minister Catherine Vautrin said. “By coordinating, our nuclear forces demonstrate that they can contribute even more significantly to the overall security of the alliance and the peace and stability of the Euro-Atlantic zone.”

The British aircraft operated alongside those of France’s Strategic Air Forces over the Mediterranean, with Typhoons escorting Rafale fighters, according to the ministry. While the Rafale jets performed a simulated nuclear strike, the exercise didn’t involve any actual nuclear weapons, the ministry said.

In addition to Eurofighter Typhoon and Rafale jets, the exercise included A330 MRTT tanker aircraft, French Armed Forces Chief of Staff Gen. Fabien Mandon said in a post on the social network X. The French and British crews took off from Saint-Dizier air base in northeastern France, and showed a “very high level of interoperability and a capability to coordinate,” he said.

Mandon’s post included a picture showing three taxiing Eurofighters, as well as a Eurofighter under a hard cover with the markings of the RAF 29 Squadron.

“This is a revolution for the Strategic Air Forces, which have always operated in complete autonomy since their creation in the 1960s,” said Etienne Marcuz, a senior analyst at the Fondation pour la Recherche Stratégique, in a post on X. He called the involvement of at least three British Eurofighter aircraft “quite significant.”

The exercise was an important step in the implementation of the Northwood Declaration, showing a determination to deter common threats together, the ministry said. France and the U.K. last year agreed to deepen nuclear cooperation and coordination, stating in the declaration that they agreed there was no extreme threat to Europe that would not prompt a response by both nations.

The exercise Rummy took place on Oct. 20 and 21, according to the ministry. France’s Air and Space Force regularly holds simulated nuclear-strike exercises called Poker.

The U.K. and France maintain sovereign and independent nuclear forces, and decision-making regarding their use isn’t shared, the ministry said. The countries would only consider using nuclear weapons in “extreme circumstances of legitimate defense,” the French ministry said.

The orders are for the supply of the A2CS combat vehicles and the new-generation MBT tanks and are part of Italy’s wider military modernization program, the Italian financial daily added.

Rheinmetall declined to comment.

Leonardo CEO Lorenzo Mariani said he could not confirm whether the contract had been signed “as any communication on the matter must be coordinated with our clients.”

Leonardo and Rheinmetall launched their 50-50 joint venture in 2024.

“The programme is ready to enter production from our side. We are actively working on both the tank programme and the Future Combat System (FCS), and are progressing on both in close cooperation with Rheinmetall,” Mariani said in Rome.

Speaking on the sidelines of the annual meeting of the state-backed Fondo Italiano d’Investimento, he stressed the importance of tanks for the modernization of Italy’s defense, for exports and for the broader partnership with Rheinmetall.

The shopping list includes the Kongsberg-made Joint Strike Missile, which F-35 fighter aircraft can carry, and the Anthem missile by U.S.-based company Covenant as a ground-launched option, Defense Minister Jeppe Bruus said.

Officials released few details, leaving open the question of when the armed forces would receive the missiles, how many of them and at what cost, broadcaster TV2 reported in a live blog of a defense ministry press conference about the planned acquisitions.

Long-range missiles are very much en vogue in Europe at the moment, as countries are equipping themselves as a deterrent against Russian aggression. Governments here consider the capability to strike back on their own all the more urgent because U.S. assistance with such weaponry in case of a conflict is considered uncertain under the presidency of Donald Trump.

The ranges of strike missiles labeled as long-range are a bit of a guessing game, as manufacturers and governments keep performance information close to their chests so as to avoid tipping off adversaries. Typically, they fall in the range of 500 kilometers to 1,500 kilometers, depending on engine and warhead configurations.

Danish officials cite a NATO contribution target as a key motivator for the envisioned weapons class, which would constitute a qualitatively new capability for the small country, according to TV2. Copenhagen is on the hook to offer the alliance a long-range strike capability by 2030, according to the defense ministry.

“These acquisitions represent a significant step toward improving Denmark’s self-defense capabilities, strengthening NATO, and enhancing our capacity to strike back,” Defense Minister Bruus was quoted as saying in an agency statement.

According to TV2, the envisioned Anthem missiles for Denmark, which have never seen combat, are to be produced in Germany. Manufacturer Covenant announced a new production site in Leipzig, Germany, last month, claiming it could churn out missiles there beginning in early 2027.

The German defense ministry has so far said only that there are talks with Covenant about buying the weapons to plug Germany’s long-range strike gap.

The manufacturer’s pitch is that Anthem missiles will be cheaper than products available on the market now. Reuters has previously reported a mid-six-figure target price per unit set by company executives during serial production.

Hubbard was serving a roughly seven-year sentence after being accused by Russia in 2022 of working with Ukraine as a mercenary. American President Donald Trump announced his release from prison on social media, saying it was out of respect for the president and nothing was asked of the U.S. in return.

“This release was not part of an exchange — and we extend our thanks to President Putin for releasing him on President Trump’s request,” Special Envoy Steve Witkoff said on social media after he retrieved Hubbard in St. Petersburg.

Hubbard, 74, was an active-duty airman beginning in March 1974, an Air Force spokesperson told Military Times. He was an Airman 1st Class as an apprentice administration specialist, with his last duty station at Mather Air Force Base, California. He separated from the service in March 1978.

Mather closed as a military base in 1993 and is now operational as the Sacramento Mather Airport.

After active duty, Hubbard served in the Air National Guard, but due to the age of the records, information regarding his role as a guardsman in the force’s system is sparse, the spokesperson said.

The National Guard did not return a request for comment.

Although Trump said “no swap” was necessary for Hubbard’s release, he told reporters outside the White House and in a subsequent social media post that if he placed sanctions on Russia, Hubbard’s release would not have occurred.

He said that people who “don’t know how life works” questioned his decision to waive sanctions on Russia during the negotiations to release Hubbard.

“If I would’ve done that, you would not have Mr. Hubbard coming back,” he told reporters.

“If you would’ve put those sanctions on, or whatever you want to call them, you could forget about him, you’d never see him again,” he continued. “He’d be back in jail for 25 years.”

Hubbard’s release comes less than a week after Trump prevented new sanctions on Russia, which were intended to target the country’s largest buyers of oil and gas, drawing criticism from members of Congress who support the legislation and Ukraine.

Alongside Hubbard, the administration has negotiated the release of other Americans from Russian custody since returning to office last year, including Robert Gilman, Ksenia Karelina and Marc Fogel, Witkoff said.

The Royal Navy currently has only five Type 23 frigates for anti-submarine warfare in service, compared with a stated requirement of eight, and analysis suggests the number of frigates equipped with a towed array sonar could remain as low as five for the next three years, the Defence Committee wrote in an inquiry report published on Thursday.

Anti-submarine warfare frigates are “critical” to helping locate Russian submarines, both in the High North as well as in British home waters, including to protect the U.K.’s ballistic missile submarines that provide the country’s nuclear deterrent when entering or leaving their base in Faslane, Scotland, according to the report.

“Although new frigates will eventually join the fleet in sufficient numbers, the current fleet readiness picture raises doubts about whether the U.K. could sustain the maritime tasks required in the High North by 2030,” the committee said.

Citing the critical role of anti-submarine operations in the High North, the committee recommended the government ensures no further Type 23 frigates equipped with towed sonar leave Navy service until they’re replaced on a one-on-one basis by the future Type 26 frigates.

The U.K. has ordered eight Type 26 frigates from BAE Systems for the anti-submarine warfare role, with the lead vessel scheduled to enter service in 2028, and Minister of State for Defence Luke Pollard said in June that the program remained on track. Norway said in August 2025 it would buy five Type 26s, with delivery to start in 2030.

Should two of the Type 26 frigates being built for the U.K. instead go to Norway to meet the delivery deadline, the Royal Navy would take until 2037 to meet its requirement for a fleet of eight frigates equipped with a towed array sonar.

“Export success must not come at the expense of the Royal Navy’s own Type 26 frigate delivery timelines,” the committee said. “The government must ensure that naval exports expand industrial capacity and allied capability, rather than competing with U.K. requirements for scarce ships, systems and skilled labor.”

The High North, which the committee defined as the greater Arctic and parts of the North Atlantic, “has become central” in U.K. defense and security concerns, with climate change increasing access to the region, according to the report.

As melting ice sheets and sea ice expose Russian bases that were previously mostly inaccessible, Russia is seeking both to defend those bases as well as project force into the Atlantic and U.K. territorial waters, according to the committee. That threatens NATO supply lines from the United States to Europe, as well as undersea and onshore infrastructure, including the U.K.’s nuclear deterrent.

Lack of a credible under-ice capability means the Navy is less able to contest Russian freedom of action in the High North, which risks forcing the U.K. into a more defensive posture, according to the report. The Defence Committee asked the government to brief panel members on progress towards re-establishing an under-ice capability for at least some of the country’s Astute-class nuclear-powered attack submarines.

The Navy’s ASW frigates and nuclear-powered submarines offer the greatest deterrent against the threat posed by Russian submarines and underwater sabotage, though “unfortunately, they are either aging or too often unavailable due to maintenance issues,” the committee report said.

For the U.K. to lead an effective coalition would require the country to address “glaring gaps” in the availability of its maritime forces, and an agreed plan with European allies to deter and if necessary defeat any aggression in the High North from 2030, according to the report.

The committee asked the Ministry of Defence to provide a classified assessment of the capability gaps in case of a conflict in the High North in 2030 in which the U.K. and allies would operate without U.S. support.

“Royal Navy equipment readiness and platform numbers in particular are currently far worse than the government’s stated requirements,” the report said. “With 2030 identified as a key date by which to be ready to deter or defeat any Russian threat, dramatic progress is required before the end of the decade to improve the availability and capabilities of the U.K.’s Armed Forces for operations in the High North.”

The Royal Navy has a requirement for 13 frigates and six destroyers, but has struggled to meet those numbers, the committee said, with only the five Type 23 frigates and six Type 45 destroyers in service.

With the Northern Sea Route becoming more accessible, Russia may try to turn control there into a monopoly, and the government should prepare options for a U.K. state-owned vessel to transit the route to support freedom of navigation, the committee said. Sailing from Shanghai to Rotterdam takes about 14,900 kilometers via the northern route, compared with 19,500 km via the Suez Canal.

The report raised questions about the U.K.’s Hybrid Navy program to combine crewed and uncrewed vessels, saying the High North is “an exceptionally demanding environment” for autonomous systems, and the concept should not become a substitute for crewed capability before unmanned systems have been proven in harsh Arctic conditions.

The committee recommended the government explain within a year how it will test the Hybrid Navy’s main uncrewed systems in High North conditions before relying on them for operational tasks, looking at issues such as cold-weather performance, resistance to jamming and protection from capture.

“It provides Ukraine with the ability to have a more structured framework to leverage a broad range of capabilities that we offer: procurement expertise, support services and access to established industrial base,” the NATO Support and Procurement Agency (NSPA) director of support to operations, Jacqueline Borsboom, told the FT.

The deal comes amid worsening U.S.-Ukraine relations since U.S. President Donald Trump announced a diesel export deal with Russia this month to lower U.S. fuel prices.

Ukraine has complained of disruption to some intelligence sharing and its use of the Starshield satellite system, though Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said a meeting in Oslo on Tuesday had agreed to resolve those issues.

The service said the course — which included on-site field evaluations at eight Danish dairy facilities currently approved for U.S. military procurement — aimed to ensure military members and their families overseas receive dairy that meets or exceeds U.S. standards.

In the U.S., commercial milk must be processed according to the Food and Drug Administration’s Pasteurized Milk Ordinance. Because commercial pasteurization methods are “udderly” different across the world, the course gives officers the skills to evaluate pasteurization technology in different regions, the Army said in a Monday release. The course has been taught and revised since 2004.

Military auditors from around the world, including Public Health Command Pacific, Area Support Group Kuwait and Public Multinational Force and Observers Egypt, trained to improve their pasteurization skills. Public Health Command Europe is unique, the service said, because it offers military inspectors the chance to see more than 65 pasteurizer setups.

During the course, led by Chief Warrant Officer 4 Clayton Davenport, the command food safety officer for Public Health Command Europe, the Army said officers gained realistic experience assessing equipment in operation.

“The primary training objective was to provide progressive and sequential auditor development training in pasteurizer operations that enhances understanding of the public health controls of various pasteurizers,” Davenport said in the release. “Maintaining specialized auditing capabilities remains essential to force health protection, particularly amid budgetary pressures.”

The report’s findings point to a potentially broader threat than German military security specialists had previously anticipated. Their concerns had centered on installations training Ukrainian troops, alongside naval bases and shipyards. The new assessment says authorities can no longer geographically confine specific sites deemed vulnerable, warning instead of an all-around deterioration in the security situation, with concrete actions possible in the near term.

The reassessment follows the discovery of an apparently crashed drone near Wunstorf air base in northern Germany in September. Investigators found a can containing explosives a few meters away, according to the report. They suspect the aircraft may have targeted military planes rather than civilian cargo aircraft.

WDR and Süddeutsche Zeitung reported that investigators believe the Wunstorf drone had lain near the base for about two years, citing technical analysis by Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Office. Its construction resembled an explosives-equipped drone used in a failed attack at Leipzig/Halle Airport in early August, the outlets reported, though it would have significantly predated the Leipzig incident.

The military analysis draws a distinction between the two incidents: While Leipzig presented an indirect threat to German forces, targeting Ukrainian aircraft instead, Wunstorf likely involved the Bundeswehr itself as the target. The assessment describes Russia as almost certainly possessing the capability, and very likely an increased motivation, to act against German forces and facilities, as well as Ukrainian partners in Germany.

It also concludes that Russia’s use of drones as weapons crossed a previously anticipated “red line” involving an intention to cause physical damage or potentially lethal effects.

The German government has publicly attributed the Leipzig drone attack to Russia following a month-long investigation.

The analysis links the suspected campaign to efforts to weaken political and public support for Ukraine in Germany. At the operational level, it assesses that Moscow seeks to disrupt equipment deliveries and training, undermining Ukraine’s ability to defend itself.

An Operational Command spokesperson told WDR that the Bundeswehr currently considers the sabotage risk “substantial” because of the increased threat. This places it at the second-highest level of the military’s risk assessment scale, SZ reported.

The military is strengthening protective measures at its installations to safeguard personnel and facilities, the spokesperson said.

The warning follows suspicious drone flights over sites associated with Germany’s Arrow 3 missile-defense system and Patriot maintenance facilities. German security authorities suspect Russian involvement in those and other surveillance incidents, WDR reported.

Russia has consistently denied involvement in sabotage and hybrid attacks, and has blamed Germany for staging incidents to whip up anti-Russian sentiment. Moscow’s ambassador to Berlin previously dismissed Germany’s allegations over Leipzig as “absurd” and described the incident as a “provocation.”