Aircraft

Trump says he believes negotiations with Iran will be ‘successful’ as he confirms USS Gerald R Ford deployment.

President Donald Trump says that he is sending a second aircraft carrier to the Middle East as the United States increases pressure on Iran over its nuclear and ballistic missile programmes.

Speaking at the White House on Friday, Trump confirmed that the USS Gerald R Ford would be leaving the Caribbean for the Middle East “very soon” as tensions remain high following indirect talks in Oman last week.

“If we need it, we’ll have it ready, a very big force,” said Trump, adding that he believed negotiations would be “successful” while warning it would be a “bad day for Iran” if the country failed to make a deal.

Later, Trump said a change of government in Iran would be the “best thing that could happen”.

“For 47 years, they’ve been talking and talking and talking. In the meantime, we’ve lost a lot of lives,” he said, in an apparent reference to Tehran’s crackdown on recent antigovernment protests that left thousands dead.

The imminent departure of the Gerald R Ford is part of an ongoing buildup of military hardware in the region, with the Abraham Lincoln carrier, several guided-missile destroyers, fighter jets and surveillance aircraft sent in recent weeks.

Trump’s comments come days after he met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington, with the latter saying a “good deal” was expected while voicing reservations if any agreement did not also curb Iran’s ballistic missile programme. Tehran has publicly rejected US pressure to discuss the missiles.

Netanyahu has repeatedly called for further military action since Israel’s 12-day war against Iran in June, which the US briefly joined by attacking three Iranian nuclear sites, in a military operation dubbed “Midnight Hammer”.

Trump at the time said the US attacks had “totally obliterated” the nuclear facilities.

The indirect US-Iran talks were the first to be held since the June conflict, which halted previous rounds of negotiations between Tehran and Washington over potentially replacing the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which Trump ditched during his first term in office.

Risk of escalation

The JCPOA, a deal reached between Iran, the US and several European powers, saw Tehran curtail its nuclear programme in exchange for sanctions relief.

Following Trump’s unilateral withdrawal in 2018, Tehran subsequently began enriching uranium beyond the limits set out in the agreement, though it has repeatedly denied Western claims it is seeking a nuclear weapon.

Upon taking office for a second time in January, Trump initially sought a new nuclear deal with Iran, but soon adopted a zero-enrichment policy long dismissed by Iranian negotiators as a non-starter.

As the latest attempts at negotiations continue, United Nations nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi has had trouble getting Iran to agree on inspections of sites targeted in the 12-day war.

Grossi, who heads the International Atomic Energy Agency, told the Munich Security Conference that inspectors had returned to Iran after the 12-day war but had not been able to visit any of the sites targeted.

Grossi said dialogue with Iran since the inspectors’ return last year had been “imperfect and complicated and extremely difficult, but it’s there”.

The US president’s comments on Friday confirm his earlier indication that he was considering sending the Gerald R Ford, which has a nuclear reactor on board and can hold more than 75 military aircraft, to the region.

Gulf Arab nations have warned any attack could escalate into another regional conflict in a region still reeling from Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.

US President Donald Trump says a second aircraft carrier strike group will deploy to the Middle East, increasing pressure on Iran as negotiations over its nuclear programme continue.

Jan. 30 (UPI) — President Donald Trump on Thursday night said he was decertifying all Canada-made aircraft and threatened a 50% tariff on all planes sold to the United States, further deepening the fissure in U.S.-Canada relations created under Trump’s second term in office.

Trump made the threat in a post on his Truth Social platform, stating the threat was in response to Canada’s alleged refusal to certify several Gulfstream jet series.

“We are hereby decertifying their Bombardier Global Expresses and all Aircraft made in Canada, until such time as Gulfstream, a Great American Company, is fully certified, as it should have been many years ago,” Trump said.

“Further, Canada is effectively prohibiting the sale of Gulfstream products in Canada through this very same certification process. If, for any reason, this situation is not immediately corrected, I am going to charge Canada a 50% Tariff on any and all Aircraft sold in the United States of America.”

By law, aircraft certification, which includes safety and airworthiness determinations, is governed by the Federal Aviation Administration, and it was not clear if the president has the power to decertify already approved aircraft by presidential action.

UPI contacted the FAA for clarification and was directed to speak with the White House, which has yet to respond to questions about decertification and its process.

Bombardier, the Montreal-based aerospace company, said it has “taken note” of Trump’s social media post and is in contact with the Canadian government.

“Our aircraft, facilities and technicians are fully certified to FAA standards and renowned around the world,” Bombardier said in a statement.

Bombardier said it employs more than 3,000 people across nine facilities in the United States and creates “thousands of jobs” there through its 2,800 suppliers. It said it is also “actively investing” in expanding its U.S. operations.

Relations between the United States and Canada have precipitously dropped since Trump returned to the White House in January 2025.

Trump’s threats to annex Canada, impose unilateral tariffs and take Greenland — territory of a NATO ally — by force if needed has prompted Ottawa to pivot toward Europe and Asia.

The announcement comes on the heels of reports stating that the Trump administration has been in talks with the Alberta Prosperity Project separatist organization.

According to The Financial Times, the first to report on the development Thursday, separatist leaders in the western Canadian province met with U.S. officials in Washington three times since spring.

The APP has said that its leadership has taken “several strategic trips” to Washington, D.C., to foster discussions on Alberta’s potential as an independent nation.

Jeffry Rath, a separatist supporter who participated in the talks, said U.S. officials are “very enthusiastic about Alberta becoming an independent country,” according to the APP.

The meetings were swiftly and widely condemned in Canada.

“I expect the U.S. administration to respect Canadian sovereignty,” Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada told reporters on Thursday.

“I’m always clear in my conversations with President Trump to that effect, and then move on to what we can do together.”

Premier David Eby of British Columbia called the meetings “treasonous activity.”

“I’m not talking about debates that we have inside the country among Canadians, about how we order ourselves, our relationships between the federal government, the provinces, referenda that might be held. I’m talking about crossing the border, soliciting the assistance of a foreign government to break up this country,” Eby said during the same press conference.

“And I don’t think we should stand for it.”

As both sides in the war in Ukraine continue their campaigns of long-range drone attacks, the Ukrainian government’s internal security agency has released a compilation of strikes directed against Russian airbases. The video, published by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), records drone strikes against Russian military aircraft by its special forces unit, the “Alpha Group,” also known as “A” Special Operations Center.

“The enemy is used to feeling safe in the deep rear. But for the special forces of “Alpha,” distance has long ceased to matter,” the SBU wrote in a post accompanying the video on social media.

The footage shows several Russian aircraft being targeted, from the perspective of the attacking drones. It appears that most, if not all, of these strikes were previously claimed, and some have been previously seen in the form of video stills. But the end result is certainly impressive, presuming all of the targeted aircraft were damaged or destroyed — which is far from clear from these videos.

The SBU claims that the total value of the damage was more than $1 billion, although it’s far from clear how this was calculated, especially since some of the airframes in question are decades old and no longer in production. It’s also notable that the SBU figure includes damage inflicted on ammunition and fuel depots at the airfields in question.

Regardless, the 15 aircraft claimed targeted by the SBU appear to comprise:

From what can be seen, the An-26 appears to have been damaged beyond repair, while one Su-24 seems to have had at least its tail section damaged; available satellite imagery may show a destroyed Su-24, but the quality of the imagery means that it can’t be determined for sure.

These aircraft were targeted at five different airfields, the SBU stated, without disclosing their exact locations.

However, based on open-source analysis, it seems that the targeted bases included Belbek, Kirovskoye, Saky, and Simferopol, all in Russian-occupied Crimea.

The growing threat of attacks like these on airbases has prompted Russia to build new hardened aircraft shelters and embark on additional construction to help shield aircraft from drone strikes and other indirect fire. This is part of a broader push by the Russian military to improve physical defenses at multiple airfields following the launch of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The highlighted airfield raids in the video are part of a wider Ukrainian drone campaign carried out last year, in which the SBU also targeted Russian air defense systems, radar installations, and critical energy infrastructure.

As far as air defense systems are concerned, the SBU claims that it destroyed Russian equipment worth an estimated $4 billion last year. These included S-300, S-350, and S-400 surface-to-air missile systems, as well as advanced radar systems such as the Nebo-M, Podlet, and Protivnik-GE.

In 2025, Ukraine also carried out the spectacular Operation Spiderweb, a large-scale Ukrainian drone strike against airbases across Russia in June. This targeted Moscow’s fleet of strategic bombers and saw a reported 117 drones launched against at least four airfields.

New footage from Ukraine’s Operation Spiderweb hitting Russian bombers

Notable also is the fact that the specific Ukrainian campaign against Russian airfields is something that was brought up by U.S. President Donald Trump in a telephone call with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, last summer. The timing of that call suggests that Operation Spiderweb prompted that discussion.

Lots of people are reposting this Trump Truth Social post as if it’s recent (in part because Ukraine just released another video of hitting parked Russian warplanes), but it is in fact from last summer. pic.twitter.com/8jodT8bm7H

— Yaroslav Trofimov (@yarotrof) January 29, 2026

Ukraine’s ability to strike high-value Russian targets at considerable range has been bolstered through the addition of long-range cruise missiles, as well as an expanding inventory of attack drones, both large and small.

Meanwhile, SBU is continuing its long-range drone strikes.

Overnight on January 13, the security agency teamed up with the Ukrainian Navy to attack a drone production facility in Taganrog, where several production halls appear to have been destroyed, based on satellite analysis.

Ukrainian Defenders destroyed several warehouses of Atlant Aero plant in Taganrog, Russia. Combat drones and their parts were produced there.

Glory! pic.twitter.com/P6RcfpXtbl

— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) January 16, 2026

The facility in question, the Atlant Aero factory, is responsible, among others, for producing Russia’s Molniya loitering munition, widely used in Ukraine.

Ukrainian forces reportedly hit a Russian drone factory in the city of Taganrog tonight, setting it ablaze.

Multiple explosions were reported at the Atlant drone company, manufacturer of the Molniya-series attack drones. pic.twitter.com/yr3SA3b7gV

— OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical) January 13, 2026

Drones being used to strike enemy facilities producing drones is very much indicative of the path the war has taken, when it comes to the increasing use and diversity of uncrewed systems across all fronts.

For its part, Russia employed a BM-35 loitering munition to attack what was claimed by some observers to be a Ukrainian F-16 fighter at Kanatove Air Base in Ukraine’s Kirovohrad region, on January 26. In fact, the target was either a decoy or a ground-instructional aid, something that even Russia’s Rubicon Drone Operations Center attested to.

This is not the first time that a Russian drone strike has claimed a Ukrainian aircraft mock-up, but again demonstrates the potential vulnerability of airfields to these kinds of attacks.

Notably, too, the BM-35 drone used in the strike is reported to use satellite connectivity via Starlink, allowing operators to control it in real time over long distances.

The SBU’s latest ‘greatest hits’ compilation underscores how drone attacks on Russian military aircraft are one of its highest priorities and one that we will certainly see targeted again in the months to come.

Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com