drone

Ukraine hits Russia’s Afipsky oil refinery and gas plant in latest attacks targeting energy infrastructure.

A fire broke out at the Afipsky oil refinery in Russia’s Krasnodar region following a drone attack, local authorities have said.

At least two people were killed and two others were injured due to falling drone debris at the Afipsky railway station, Governor Veniamin Kondratyev said on Tuesday.

Ukraine has been targeting Russia’s oil refineries and ⁠other infrastructure, attempting to undermine ⁠Moscow’s war efforts and reduce financial revenue.

Ukraine’s General Staff said its forces struck facilities at Afipsky.

It said its forces also hit a gas processing plant in Russia’s Astrakhan region overnight.

Russia’s Ministry of Defence said its forces had struck a cargo vessel carrying goods for the Ukrainian army in the port of Pivdennyi near Odesa, as well as port infrastructure facilities used for unloading military cargo.

The ministry said Russian air defences shot down 148 Ukrainian drones overnight.

Ukraine has ramped up attacks on Russian energy infrastructure in recent months, escalating a fuel crisis in the country.

Amid the continuing attacks, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on Monday that would allow the state to take temporary control of critical infrastructure found to be inadequately protected from attack.

The attacks come after a meeting in Kyiv where Ukraine’s allies pledged to continue supporting the country during the ongoing war.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told the assembled leaders in an evening address that he wanted to “raise production” of drones and missiles to wage “more attacks” on Russia, matching its strikes on Ukraine.

The meeting was attended by 30 leaders of the so-called Coalition of the Willing, including British Prime Minister Andy Burnham, who called for negotiations with Russia, and French President Emmanuel Macron, who participated remotely and predicted that “NATO countries will be targeted and the provocations will multiply”.

Finnish President Alexander Stubb was also in attendance, urging Ukraine’s allies to help expand its ability ⁠to strike deeply inside Russia.

The Kremlin said on Tuesday that Burnham and Stubb belonged to the “party of war”.

Andrei Fedorov, an adviser to the Kremlin, says there might be a “semi-military” response against UK drone factories by “unknown sources” over the sharing military blueprints with Russia.

His comments on BBC Newsnight come as UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham says he plans to travel to the US next month with European leaders to lobby US President Trump on Ukraine’s defence needs.

In an interview with Bloomberg, Burnham said, “I’m looking forward to going to New York in September,” when the UN General Assembly will meet.

He said that while the details were not “fully confirmed”, it is “likely” he will go. The trip would be his first to the US since becoming prime minister in July.

“Leaving today, I’m quite clear what I need to do in the next few weeks,” he said following his official visit to Ukraine on Monday, during which he promised to continue pressuring Russia.

The UK has also agreed to hand over blueprints for British-made components for the Scalp missile, a French version of the UK’s Storm Shadow cruise missile. The blueprints will allow Ukraine to produce the long-range weapon domestically.

Fedorov, who is Russia’s former deputy foreign minister, said Putin was facing “serious” pressure “to undertake certain measures against UK”. Asked on BBC Newsnight where the pressure was coming from, Fedorov responded, “public opinion polls, it’s coming from journalists, from mass media”.

Asked what a “semi-military” response might look like, Fedorov said “it could take the form of something might happen with enterprises, with factories which are producing drones for Ukraine.”

“They could be attacked not by Russia, but by from unknown sources,” he said.

The comments are in line with those made by Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Monday, when he criticised the UK’s decision to share the missile blueprints. Peskov said it prevented “even the slightest progress” towards achieving peace.

He told reporters on Monday that the Russian military was already gathering data to locate any missile production sites to destroy them.

“Britain is involved in this war on the side of the Kyiv regime. Britain methodically and regularly adds fuel to the fire,” he added.

In response, Burnham said: “Who started the fire? That’s the question, isn’t it?”

Burnham’s visit to Ukraine was his first official international visit. He met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv and chaired his first meeting of the “coalition of the willing”, set up by the UK and France under his predecessor Sir Keir Starmer.

Burnham has been reaffirming the UK’s support for Ukraine in the wake of escalating Russian strikes in recent weeks – including one last week on a shopping centre that killed at least 16 people.

Ukraine has been relying on American supplies of the Patriot interceptor missiles, which are used to combat Russia’s ballistic missiles, but stockpiles are running low due to the war in Iran, leaving Ukraine vulnerable to Russian attacks.

Zelensky has said he is hoping to secure 300 patriot missiles ahead of winter, when Russia is likely to increase its attacks on energy infrastructure, as it has done in past years.

In the interview with Bloomberg, Burnham said that he felt “really confident” that the issue was “fixable”. But he pointed out that it wasn’t only the US who could supply Ukraine with Patriots.

“There are other players who could help in the mix who we have influence with,” he said. “It’s probably going to be a solution that involves a lot of layers and a lot of negotiation.”

In July this year, three weeks after offering Ukraine the right to produce Patriots itself, Trump backtracked, saying, “We have not agreed to that. We’re talking about it. But it’s a hard thing to give away, that kind of technology.”

“These weapons are incredible. We have to be very careful about letting somebody build them,” Trump told a cabinet meeting.

In a joint statement after the meeting in Ukraine, Burnham and co-chairs French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said the group would aim to strength Kyiv’s air defences “as a matter or urgent priority”.

They also condemned Moscow’s “systemic and escalating strikes against Ukraine’s cities, critical infrastructure and civilians” and pledged to “constrain Russia’s war chest through sanctions and actions against the “shadow fleet”.

In a statement ahead of the visit, Burnham said: “On Ukraine’s 35th anniversary of independence, the Ukrainian people should be in no doubt: the UK is behind you today and for as long as it takes.

“I am proud of the contribution our country has made to Ukraine and I want the Ukrainian people to hear it directly from me that our support will not waver. After all, Ukraine’s security is our security.”

He said the friendship Ukraine shared with the UK would “long outlast Russia’s illegal war”, adding: “Russia should be in no doubt of our resolve. We will not back down until there is a just and lasting peace.”

Syria condemns attack in southwest as a ‘flagrant violation of sovereignty’ and a ‘blatant breach of international law’.

An Israeli drone strike in southwestern Syria has injured several people, the country’s foreign ministry says, in the latest of near-daily Israeli incursions and attacks in the area.

Syria’s official Alikhbariya channel reported on Saturday that a man was wounded when an Israeli drone hit his truck near the town of Beit Jinn in the western Damascus countryside.

The Israeli military confirmed the strike, saying in a statement that it had targeted “a terrorist who advanced terror attacks in their final stages of preparation” in southern Syria. The activity “posed an immediate threat to our forces”, the military added.

Syria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates said in a statement that Saturday’s strike resulted in several civilian injuries.

It said it “condemns in the strongest terms” the targeting of a “civilian vehicle” by an Israeli drone.

“This attack constitutes a flagrant violation of the sovereignty of the Syrian Arab Republic and the integrity of its territory, and a blatant breach of international law, and comes in the context of repeated Israeli attacks on Syrian territory,” it added.

Israel sees southern Syria ‘as a security zone’

Saturday’s strike hit a small delivery truck on the main road between the Beit Jinn farmland and the town itself, said Al Jazeera Arabic correspondent Adham Abu al-Hussam, reporting from the area.

“Residents say [one of the victims is] a civilian who works as a driver, delivering goods and orders on this truck,” Abu al-Hussam said, adding that neighbours rushed a wounded man to hospital after hearing the explosion. He is in stable condition with an injury to his right hand, according to a medical source.

Abu al-Hussam said residents had reported Israeli reconnaissance drones flying over the area for four days. Beit Jinn, which lies near Jabal al-Sheikh and roughly 55km from Damascus, has been repeatedly targeted in the past year, including in a late November raid that killed 13 civilians, he said.

Muhsen al-Mustafa, a security and strategic researcher at the Omran Center for Strategic Studies in Damascus, told Al Jazeera that the attack could be Israel sending Syria’s government a message. “Israel currently treats Syria, particularly the south, as a security zone it is trying to fill any vacuum in.”

He said Israel had used a similar rationale days earlier when it struck Abu al-Duhur military airport in Idlib province, in northern Syria, saying the aim was to prevent a Turkish military presence there. That strike, he said, signalled that Israel’s declared security zone “isn’t limited to the south” but “extends even to Abu al-Duhur airport”, roughly in the middle of the country. “Israel’s security zone, it’s saying, extends further than that.”

Al-Mustafa suggested that Israel opted for a drone strike rather than sending in ground forces partly because of the November raid, when Israeli troops came under direct fire during the incursion into Beit Jinn, wounding six soldiers, three of them seriously. “Israel is always trying to apply pressure and ask for more in every round of negotiation,” he said.

A Syrian diplomatic source told Al Jazeera that Damascus remains committed to de-escalation and is pursuing a security arrangement with Israel through United States mediation, based on the 1974 disengagement agreement.

Saab has unveiled its roadmap for its Autonomous Collaborative Platform (ACP) program, a stealthy, supersonic ‘fighter drone,’ which could enter service in the 2030s with the Swedish Air Force and potentially other customers. The aerospace and defense company is already working on two uncrewed technology demonstrators and today presented a full-scale mock-up of an operational drone that those two aircraft could inform. This drone, compared to the U.S. Air Force Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA), for example, is a higher-end proposition, more advanced, larger, and with superior performance than those being test flown in the United States.

TWZ was among other members of the media who were briefed on the ACP program by Peter Nilsson, the head of Saab’s Advanced Programs business unit. He was talking at Malmen Air Base in Sweden, during an event to celebrate the Swedish Air Force’s 100th anniversary.

As for the name, Nilsson confirmed that, before settling on ACP, Saab had used the Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) and Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) nomenclature. Meanwhile, the ACP falls under Sweden’s overarching KFS project, which stands for Koncept för Framtida Stridsflygplan, or Concept for Future Combat Aircraft.

The most significant element of the announcement was the full-scale mock-up of what Saab is calling aircraft A3. The idea of this is to show how a potential high-end ACP could look, and the kinds of capabilities it might bring, provided the company is awarded a development contract.

Broadly speaking, aircraft A3 has a lot in common with a previous concept that the company released back in 2024.

The concept retains the same tailless, stealthy configuration, with significant internal capacity for fuel and internal stores. The stealthy, chisel-type DSI air intakes remain on either side of the fuselage, but the prominent bulge roughly above where the engine nozzle would be is removed. The overall geometry remains similar: a sleek, blended wing/body configuration with cropped wings and a prominent chine running around the arrow-like forward edges, giving it something of a resemblance to the Cold War-era Saab Draken fighter, with its distinctive double-delta wing.

In the meantime, Saab is working on aircraft A1 and A2, uncrewed technology demonstrators that are being funded by the Swedish Ministry of Defense.

The first of these, A1, is expected to fly within the next 15 months,” according to Nilsson. The defense ministry called upon Saab to “go from concept to first flight within 36 months,” providing what Nilsson described as a “quite challenging” timeline.

Aircraft A1 uses the same GE Aerospace F414 engine that powers the Saab Gripen E/F crewed fighter. The turbofan produces around 22,000 pounds of thrust and will ensure A1 has supersonic performance.  However, for Saab, the main goal of A1 is to demonstrate that the company can build and fly a low-observable drone.

Saab provided imagery of wind-tunnel models of the A1. Overall, it appears loosely similar to the A3 mockup, with the exception of the twin, outward-canted tailfins. Aircraft A1 will have capacity for an internal weapons bay, although it will not be used for stores release tests. The next test article, aircraft A2 will have an internal weapons bay, and will presumably be used to test ordnance. Otherwise, A2 will be used for tests of other advanced technologies, including new materials and sensors.

No artwork of aircraft A2 was provided, but Nilsson said it will be “not quite” identical to A1, in terms of appearance. It will also be powered by the F414.

The F414 was selected due to its availability and the fact that the company has plenty of experience with the engine due to the Gripen E/F program. Saab is looking at other potential powerplants for the A3, but acknowledged that, should Sweden buy a productionized ACP, the engine commonality would be a big advantage, including, for example, when an engine needs to be changed at a remote airbase. This kind of maintenance is central to the Gripen concept of operation and would be retained for the ACP.

Saab is contracted until 2030 to develop the A1 and A2 demonstrators. What happens next will depend on the Swedish Ministry of Defense, and there is currently no agreement for a follow-on ACP contract, which would see the design advanced to a production-oriented prototype like the A3.

“We have floated the view that this would be a great asset to the Gripen E, but right now there is no commitment,” Nilsson remarked. Saab envisages the Gripen E serving as a tactical mission commander for one or more ACPs, working in conjunction with the company’s GlobalEye airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) aircraft, a type also ordered by Sweden. Outside of Sweden, the drone could work with a wide variety of other crewed platforms, too.

Pending investment from the Swedish government, Saab may decide to use its own funds for early development of the A3. However, Nilsson noted that “if a customer does not come along I don’t know when my CEO will stop me spending — you need a customer to buy into this.”

Saab’s broader ACP vision is based on an advanced platform that offers both low-observable features and supersonic performance.

The resulting drone should be capable of undertaking “high-risk missions in heavily defended airspace.” As well as air-to-air combat, missions would include electronic warfare, suppression of enemy air defenses, and deep precision strike.

If Sweden buys into the idea, a development contract could be expected around 2030. Thereafter Saab thinks it could have the A3 aircraft in the air sometime in the early 2030s, leading to initial operational capability from the mid-2030s.

With the ACP program, Saab hopes to stake its claim as the “first-mover in the segment” for high-end ‘loyal wingman’-type aircraft.

But even if the Swedish Air Force isn’t swayed by Saab’s ACP offer, the company is seeing the related spiral development as fundamental to its future as a builder of crewed combat aircraft, too.

The same basic architecture now being developed for the ACP could provide a technological and conceptual base for a future (crewed) Gripen successor. This would be required by the Swedish Air Force sometime after 2055. If there is demand, Saab says it could start development of such an aircraft in the mid-2030s.

A rendering of a potential future crewed combat aircraft that appeared in Saab’s presentation reveals a slightly more detailed version of a concept shown in the past. Namely, a design apparently tailored for high speed, as well as low observability. Some of the same features found in the A3 concept — notably the overall blended wing/body and cropped wings — appear in the crewed combat aircraft, although this adds outward-canted tail surfaces, mounted on booms that project relatively far beyond the engine nozzle. The nose and forward fuselage bear a resemblance to the F-35, and, overall, the aircraft seems to be around the same size as the U.S. design, perhaps a little larger.

For its part, the Swedish Air Force is still weighing up whether it wants to pursue a crewed successor to the Gripen, if it will abandon crewed fighters altogether, or if it will seek to join a foreign sixth-generation fighter program. A decision on this is likely sometime between 2028 and 2030.

Speaking to journalists at Malmen today, Brigadier-General Niclas Magnusson, the deputy commander of the Swedish Air Force, called for closer collaboration between the service and industry as Sweden seeks to define its future air combat requirements.

“We have to research and find the limits of what we are able to do,” Magnusson said, adding that he expected the future Swedish Air Force to field both crewed and uncrewed platforms.

That decision is still to come but will also be informed by the relative costs of the Gripen (more of which may still be acquired), higher-end drones, and potential future crewed platforms.

When it comes to the ACP, Nilsson suggested that the life-cycle cost will be around a third that of the Gripen, although acquisition cost won’t be as low as that.

“The problem is that this bloody aircraft is too low cost,” Nilsson added, pointing to the Gripen E.

Ultimately, the cost of the ACP will depend on the degree of capability that the customer demands.

Potentially, a single ACP could cost half as much as a Gripen. Open-source reports suggest that the Gripen E typically comes with a flyaway cost of roughly $70-80 million.

If the ACP is to offer “high-end survival,” Nilsson explained, then a customer would likely be able to field two to three ACPs for each Gripen. The ratio “is not one to 10.”

While Saab also wants to offer the ACP to other Gripen E/F operators as a priority, the fate of the program remains heavily dependent on larger questions about the future of the Swedish Air Force.

The program gives Saab a solid, and potentially unique, entrance into the CCA space. As we’ve said for years, fourth-generation fighters can remain highly relevant when paired with CCAs — and with a drone as advanced as this, potentially even more so.

The ACP will still come with a significant cost, but that could be offset by reducing or eliminating the need for a fifth- or sixth-generation crewed fighter for certain air forces.

For now, Saab’s high-end loyal wingman remains a proposal rather than a committed production program, but the company is clearly positioning it as more than another experimental drone. The A1 and A2 demonstrators are intended to prove the technologies needed for a survivable, supersonic, low-observable uncrewed aircraft, while the A3 concept unveiled today illustrates where Saab believes those technologies could ultimately lead.

Whether Stockholm opts for a new Saab-developed crewed fighter, joins an international sixth-generation program, or moves toward a force built around a greater mix of crewed and uncrewed aircraft, the ACP work gives the country a way to explore those possibilities without committing to one of them yet.

Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com

Reporting from Washington — Five years ago, U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) was visiting a thinly guarded U.S. special operations base in a remote part of Afghanistan near the border with Pakistan. One of his hosts took him up to the roof, where he peered through binoculars at militants loading 122-millimeter rockets.

Those rockets soon will be raining down on this base, the officer told the congressman.

“What are you going to do about it?” Rogers asked with a note of concern, according to someone who was present.

“I can’t do anything about it,” the officer replied. “They are on the wrong side of the Durand Line” — the Pakistan side of the century-old British-decreed border between the two countries. Pakistan was off-limits.

Rogers and an aide were hustled onto a helicopter and flown out. The Afghan base indeed was rocketed. Rogers, whose resume includes a stint as an Army officer and another as an FBI investigator, returned to Washington determined to find out, as part of his role on the House Intelligence Committee, why the U.S. wasn’t doing more to strike Taliban militants in Pakistan.

The responses he received frustrated him, those close to Rogers say, and led him to mount a campaign to press the George W. Bush administration to do more. In a story known only to a small group of participants, Rogers played a role in convincing President Bush to issue a July 2008 order that dramatically expanded the scope of Predator drone strikes against militants in Pakistan, according to two former Bush administration officials close to the matter and two members of the House Intelligence Committee who were involved. The officials declined to be named speaking about secret deliberations.

Rogers’ unpublicized efforts as an advocate for that covert program, which has been expanded dramatically by President Obama, helped convince House Republican leader John Boehner last week to name Rogers incoming chairman of the intelligence committee.

“Mike went out and found out the ground truth on this stuff,” said U.S. Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R.-Mich.), who is retiring as the ranking Republican on the committee.

These days, unmanned U.S. Predator drones are raining Hellfire missiles on militants in Pakistan’s tribal areas at a rate of twice a week. But for much of his two terms, Bush used the drones sparingly. The State Department and some in the CIA opposed expanding the targeted killing program over fears it would destabilize the fragile Pakistani government, former U.S. officials said.

Military officials also argued that troops on the border already had authorization to call in airstrikes in Pakistan under “hot pursuit” doctrine.

But that wasn’t happening in practice, Rogers found, and front-line soldiers and spies were furious.

Rogers cut through a bureaucratic fog by confronting senior policymakers with anecdotes from his trips to CIA and special operations bases along the Afghan-Pakistan border, said a former senior U.S. intelligence official who played a key role in the debate.

Rogers also pressed the issue with senior U.S. diplomats and CIA officials in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and he worked back channels with junior CIA officers who shared his agenda but found themselves stymied by their cautious bosses, current and former U.S. officials said.

“I would say he played a unique role,” said the former official, who was involved in crafting the new policy. “There was no one who took this on like he did.”

Boehner spokesman Michael Steel would not discuss drone strikes in Pakistan, which are officially denied by the U.S. government. Rogers got the chairmanship, Steel said, in part because he “has traveled extensively to the real down-and-dirty areas, the front lines in our war on terrorism. And that’s gotten him a lot of respect from the intelligence community and a real hands-on feel for the challenges we face.”

Rogers declined to comment on the classified drone program. But he said his trips to remote corners of the U.S. war effort were grounded in basic investigative techniques he learned in the FBI: Go ask the people who actually know.

“Proper congressional oversight is a lot like the work of the FBI,” he said. “Especially in a business that is designed to be clandestine, you have to be a little more tenacious to get the whole story. You have to go to where things are happening.”

Rogers, 47, who is remarried with two teenagers, is an anti-abortion, down-the-line conservative from a solid Republican district in southern Michigan. As intelligence committee chairman, he can be expected to challenge the Obama administration aggressively over what he views as a law enforcement approach to terrorism. For example, he ripped the decision by federal authorities to read Miranda warnings to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian accused of trying to blow up a plane over Detroit last Christmas Day with a bomb sewn into his underwear. The priority should have been intelligence gathering, Rogers said, especially given the other evidence against Abdulmutallab.

Rogers also has blasted Obama’s decision to restrict CIA questioning of detainees to the strictures of the U.S. Army Field Manual, which he argues are more restrictive than the rules governing FBI agents when questioning criminal suspects.

And he made news when he said the death penalty should apply to Bradley Manning, accused of being the source of classified U.S. documents posted by WikiLeaks.

But Rogers has a knack for disagreeing without being disagreeable, a trait that has engendered warm feelings among at least some Democrats. CIA Director Leon Panetta, for example, said in a statement that Rogers “is one of Congress’ foremost experts on intelligence and the fight against terrorism,” and that “I have come to know him and respect his insights.”

Kansas Rep. Todd Tiahrt, a Republican who traveled with Rogers while he served on the intelligence committee, said Rogers is well-liked “because he’s very personable. He’s tough as nails, but he can do it with a way that’s not offensive.”

Rogers poked and prodded behind the scenes — and finally made a personal appeal to Bush — to force the U.S. military to better secure unguarded Iraq weapons and ammunition storage sites after the 2003 invasion, sites that were fodder for the burgeoning insurgency.

A 1985 graduate of Adrian College in Michigan, Rogers served three years in the Army and then joined the FBI, where he worked until he ran and won a state Senate seat in 1994. He served as Michigan Senate majority Leader from 1999 to 2000 and was elected to Congress that fall.

On the walls of his Capitol Hill office, Rogers displays a tomahawk made of metal from a Soviet tank given to him by Afghans, and a long knife given to him by Pakistanis.

There is also a framed Chicago newspaper front page about the biggest chapter of his FBI career. Rogers built the case that mushroomed into a massive public corruption prosecution in Cicero, Ill., just outside Chicago. The town that once hosted Al Capone’s gang was still, in the late 1980s, infiltrated by the mob. Betty Loren-Maltese, the town president, was sentenced to nine years in prison in 2002 after she and six others were convicted of stealing $12 million from the town.

It started with a telephone tip about a missing woman, Rogers said, which led him to set up surveillance on a Cicero strip club that fronted for a brothel. The place was under the protection of corrupt Cicero police officers, Rogers soon realized.

“I thought it was a few bad cops,” he said. It turned out to be a well-orchestrated conspiracy.

His biggest break came when he went to the hospital to see a woman who had been stabbed in the club, he said. She had previously refused to talk. But on this day, a mobster had just turned down her request to pay her medical expenses.

“She was upset,” Rogers said. “She asked, ‘Well, would you pay for my hospital bill?’ I said, ‘Yeah, sure,’ Then I said to myself, ‘Oh, my God, I hope the Bureau will pay for this.’ ”

Rogers showed her pictures, and she identified mob figures and police who frequented the club.

“That’s what really started the Cicero case,” Rogers said.

Rogers had a similar break in his effort to convince Boehner and other House leaders to press the Bush administration to expand drone strikes, according to some who were there.

One day in 2008, Rogers, Hoekstra and Boehner attended a meeting in the Capitol with a group of CIA officials. Some of the senior CIA officials expressed opposition to expanding drone strikes, say two of them who were there, and some argued that Rogers was overstating the targeting capabilities.

A junior CIA officer spoke up and acknowledged that there were targeting “packages” against militants in Pakistan that were viable but had not been used.

“The front-row guys, they didn’t have a clue what to say,” one meeting attendee said.

Not long afterward, then-CIA Director Michael Hayden briefed Bush on a series of more aggressive covert options in Pakistan, including drone strikes that went after Taliban networks, in addition to high-value al Qaeda targets.

ken.dilanian@latimes.com

Aug. 19 (UPI) — At least four people riding a minibus in Ukraine‘s frontline Kherson region were killed Wednesday morning after the vehicle was hit by a Russian drone.

Kherson Gov. Oleksandr Prokudin said in an online post that five women injured in the strike in the Korabelnyi district of Kherson city were being treated in the hospital.

“This morning, the Russians hit an ordinary minibus in Kherson with a First-Person-View drone. It is clear that the bus was civilian. The brutal Russian ‘safari’ against our people in Kherson has long gone beyond what any normal person can imagine,” said Prokudin.

He added that during the past 24 hours, nine other people had been injured in Russian strikes targeting critical infrastructure and residential areas in the province, damaging three apartment blocks, a restaurant and several cars.

“These are the realities of everyday life in Ukraine’s frontline regions. While partners hesitate over additional supplies of defense equipment, the Russians have gone long beyond the bounds of what is acceptable” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote on X.

The United Nations’ humanitarian chief, Tom Fletcher, just back from visiting Ukraine’s Mykolaiv and Kherson regions, told BBC Radio that Kherson was coming under attack from thousands of drones each week with civilians telling him they were the targets.

Moscow insists it only attacks legitimate military and military-related targets.

Russia overran and occupied Kherson province at the start of the war in Feb. 2022, eventually annexing the province by September, but Kyiv routed Russian forces in a fall 2022 counter-offensive, recapturing around a third of its territory, including Kherson, the provincial capital.

Ukraine’s Air Force said in an update on Telegram that it dealt with airborne attacks on the north, south and east of the country overnight involving two Iskander-M ballistic missiles and 65 drones and other munitions, of which 10 got past air defenses to strike their targets.

Falling debris from downed missiles and drones fell in another three locations.

Concern over the security of Europe’s largest nuclear plant has been rife since Russia launched its full-scale war on Ukraine nearly five years ago.

A drone strike close to the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in occupied southeastern Ukraine has killed one nuclear specialist and wounded 17, according to Russian reports.

Moscow asserted on Tuesday that the drone was launched by Ukraine. The security of Europe’s biggest nuclear plant has provoked significant global concern amid the full-scale war on Ukraine that Russia launched in February 2022.

Most of those injured by the strike were employees of the plant, according to a Telegram update by the Russian management of the nuclear facility. It asserted that the attack constituted one of the most serious incidents in the plant’s history.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) earlier confirmed reports that the strike hit staff members at a bus stop.

“No nuclear safety or security damage was reported,” the IAEA, the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, said on social media.

However, it called “on military commanders responsible for these actions as well as all others aiming on nuclear power plants and/or their staff to put an immediate stop to these unacceptable actions”, citing the “great risks to nuclear safety”.

The Zaporizhzhia plant was seized by Russian forces a month after Moscow launched its invasion. The facility has been under Russian management since.

The safety of the plant – and the potential consequences of a hit amid the hostilities – have been a concern since the start of the war.

Zaporizhzhia’s six reactors can produce nearly six gigawatts of electricity, and the plant was crucial to supplying power to Ukraine’s national grid. All of the reactors have been shut down since Russia captured the plant, but a strike could cause damage and potentially cause serious leaks of radioactive material.

Tuesday’s strike came ahead of a scheduled visit by IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi to assess nuclear safety. It’s not clear if that visit will still take place.

A Russian strike on a thermal power plant was reported in central Ukraine a few hours later, forcing a halt to operations, according to DTEK, Ukraine’s largest energy provider and the company that operates the plant.

No casualties were reported, but DTEK stated on social media that the attack caused “significant damage to equipment”.

Russia has attacked the company’s thermal plants 230 times since the start of the war, according to DTEK’s Telegram channel, as it wages a campaign to destroy Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.

Commercial satellite imagery shows Russia has been expanding the dedicated launch infrastructure for its long-range one-way attack drones, including newly constructed extended rails apparently intended to accommodate larger, newer Geran variants. The construction provides concrete evidence that Moscow is increasing its ability to stage and launch larger numbers of long-range strike drones from dispersed locations near Ukraine and Belarus. The launch sites also bring more NATO territory within the drones’ reach.

An investigation by The Telegraph, based on commercially available satellite imagery and analysis by drone-intelligence firm DroneSec, identified at least 10 Russian sites with newly constructed or expanded drone-launch infrastructure. The investigation counted at least 59 launch rails, roughly 20 of which were assessed to be long enough to support newer Geran-type drones. Open-source tracking data indicated that seven of the 10 sites had been used in Russian attacks on Ukraine.

Some of the facilities have been converted from existing military bases and civilian airfields, while others have been constructed in remote areas.

At Tsymbulova in Russia’s Oryol region, for example, commercial satellite imagery shows four launch rails, including two measuring roughly 280 feet. Construction of the extended rails was visible beginning in late 2025. Business Insider independently reported on the facility in April 2026, citing imagery from U.S. satellite-intelligence company Vantor.

More recent imagery reportedly shows the Tsymbulova facility with 16 launch positions, as well as dozens of drones and additional support infrastructure. Storage buildings and other structures have also been constructed at the site, consistent with an expanding ability to stage large numbers of drones before launch. Some of the facilities have storage capacity for more than 1,000 drones, The Telegraph reports.

The longer rails have been assessed as being associated with Russia’s newer Geran-4 and Geran-5 variants, which represent a further evolution of the long-range one-way attack munition concept. There is also the possibility that these rails will be used to launch other heavier types with less range, too. This would be of considerable utility for Russia, as they have worked to max out the effects of the warheads on the Shahed-136/Geran-2, and their destructive power is limited to certain target types. Harder-hitting drones with heavier warheads but less reach would reduce the need to expend far more expensive and less numerous ballistic missiles and cruise missiles to hit target types that lay outside of the capabilities of the Geran-2/Shahed-136.

Case in point, the Geran-4/5, these jet-powered drones are faster and more survivable. They are also able to carry substantially larger payloads than Shahed-136/Geran-2s. The exact performance of the newer systems remains difficult to independently establish from open-source evidence. According to the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense’s Main Directorate of Intelligence (GUR), the Geran-5 has a length of around 20 feet and a wingspan of approximately 18 feet. Overall, the drone’s payload weighs around 200 pounds, which is multiplied times that of a Shahed-136, and it is thought to have a range of around 620 miles.

While the heavier jet-powered one-way attack munitions may lack the range of the earlier propeller-driven Geran-2, which can hit targets at around 1,200 miles, this reach is not needed to strike targets even deep inside Ukraine, where payload maximization and reduced chances of interception are increasingly higher priorities. The jet drones allow for easier penetration, including at altitude, meaning they can operate outside the reach of lower-tier air defenses, ranging from SHORADS to drone interceptors. The Geran-4/5 can also be used at lower levels, depending on the area they are trying to penetrate.

The infrastructure expansion is occurring alongside a dramatic increase in Russian drone production. Russia adapted the Iranian-designed Shahed-136 into the Geran-2 and subsequently established large-scale domestic production. TWZ has reported that Russian output has reached thousands of Shahed/Geran-family drones per month, with production at the Alabuga complex potentially exceeding 50,000 annually in 2026. Earlier estimates put Alabuga production at roughly 2,000 drones per month, with plans to increase output to 5,000.

The expanding production capacity has transformed the Geran from a relatively limited weapon into the central component of Russia’s long-range strike campaign against Ukraine. TWZ has documented the progression from relatively small numbers of Shahed attacks over the winter of 2022-23 to barrages involving hundreds of drones and, by 2026, more than 1,000 in a single 24-hour period. The ability to manufacture the weapons in large numbers allows Russia to sustain repeated attacks and force Ukraine to expend scarce air-defense interceptors against comparatively inexpensive targets.

Satellite analysis indicates that Russia launched about 16,000 long-range drones against Ukraine in the period between January and March 2026, roughly 6,000 more than in the same period of 2025.

The attraction for Moscow is not simply range. Geran-type drones are sufficiently inexpensive to be expended in large numbers, and this cost-exchange reality forces Ukraine to balance the cost of defending against them against the much lower cost of Russia producing the drones in the first place. At the same time, the drones are critical to Russia since it cannot produce legacy standoff weapons at anywhere near the same scale, especially after years of sanctions and war.

Meanwhile, the expanded launch network also changes the geography of the threat. Some of the newly developed sites are close enough to Russia’s western borders that, depending on the actual performance of the newer drones, parts of Poland could fall within their theoretical reach. The entirety of the territory of the Baltic States would also be covered, placing a highly exposed and strategic part of NATO’s eastern flank under the potential threat of mass drone attacks.

While that does not demonstrate an intention to attack NATO, it does give Moscow additional options should the conflict broaden.

The development comes as NATO faces a wider range of Russian activity below the threshold of open warfare, including cyber operations, sabotage, GPS/electronic interference, drone activity and other “gray zone” measures on NATO’s territory. Earlier this month, Lithuania warned that Russia was considering a staged attack against that Baltic region, and the Baltic States, as well as Poland, have all stepped up security measures around dams, power plants and other critical infrastructure, amid fears of a false-flag operation, likely using drones.

A NATO official told The Telegraph that drones, more generally, have “fundamentally altered the character of modern warfare” and that the alliance is expanding its ability to produce, operate and neutralize drones at scale.

It’s worth considering that these Russian drone launch facilities are far from being invulnerable “secret bases.” Ukraine knows where many of them are and has attacked launch sites in the past. However, disrupting drone launch operations, in general, has proved difficult. In addition, by using mobile launchers mounted on pickup trucks, Russia can conduct launches from any location, employing “shoot and scoot” tactics to avoid attack, as seen in the video below.

When the general in charge of protecting American skies found out that drones had been swarming over Langley Air Force Base, he was hardly shocked. It was the kind of threat now retired Air Force Gen. Glen VanHerck said that he and his predecessors had been warning about for years. TWZ was the first to report the December 2023 incursions over Langley, one of a select few bases hosting F-22 Raptor stealth fighters, and a particularly important installation for supporting the United States Northern Command (NORTHCOM) and North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) missions to defend the U.S. homeland, including protecting the nation’s capital in Washington, D.C. For nearly a decade, we have been documenting drone incursions over sensitive U.S. military and civilian sites, warships and more.

VanHerck was in charge of both commands when drones of a still-mysterious origin began flying over the Virginian installation. He offered some lessons learned from that experience on Wednesday, during a panel at the Space and Missile Defense Symposium (SMD) in Huntsville, Alabama, attended by TWZ. VanHerck provided no new details about who was operating the drones. However, he did describe the frustration of knowing something like this could happen and the helplessness U.S. military installation commanders at the time were feeling about their inability to defend against such incursions.

“The first lesson I would tell you is there were no surprises, at least for myself and the team at NORAD/NORTHCOM and others,” VanHerck said of learning about the Langley incursions, which began on the evening of Dec. 6, 2023. “We’ve been articulating — my predecessors had been articulating — that this threat was here, it was real, it was now, and we weren’t ready for it.”

VanHerck said that two years before the Langley incursion, he expressed his frustrations to Lloyd Austin, defense secretary at the time.

“I actually had told the Secretary of Defense on the 16th of December 2021 that I lacked the domain awareness to really do my mission,” the retired general explained. “That we lack access to capabilities and capacity, timely access in the homeland to do the mission, not only for a drone threat but more broadly all threats.”

“Maybe the most important one,” he said he told Austin, “is that we’re not set up to fight in and from our own land. We make an assumption that we’re going to take the fight somewhere else, and it’s going to occur on somebody else’s land. And the fact is, it’s ready to happen here right now.”

The lack of domain awareness over the homeland is a topic TWZ has frequently raised over the years, but that U.S. officials would not admit to it or address until after the Chinese spy balloon floated over much of the country in 2023 before being shot down off the Carolinas.

As we described in our original story, a base official at the time told us that Langley “first observed UAS [uncrewed aerial systems] activities the evening of December 6 [2023] and experienced multiple incursions throughout the month of December. The number of UASs fluctuated and they ranged in size/configuration. None of the incursions appeared to exhibit hostile intent but anything flying in our restricted airspace can pose a threat to flight safety. The FAA was made aware of the UAS incursions.”

Beyond not having the means to detect and defeat incursions like the ones over Langley, VanHerck said he didn’t even have the authority to do so. It was not NORAD/NORTHCOM’s mission, VanHerck proffered. It was up to the individual services.

“But their responsibility and authority stopped at the fence line at the base, and immediately thereafter, it was really unclear to everybody whose responsibility and authority was it just outside the base,” the retired general noted.

“Our installation commanders didn’t feel empowered,” VanHerck remembered. “They really felt a lack of trust. That ‘hey, if I take action, am I going to be covered for taking action and shooting something down that might be a civilian drone, but it might be a hostile drone?’ And so there was a lot of work to be done in that aspect, on the policy side and the authority side.”

VanHerck said that the pressure to act mounted after the so-called Jersey Drone incidents, which we were also the first to report. For a few months beginning in November 2024, thousands of people began reporting mystery drones in the skies.

“After New Jersey, there were calls for ‘just shoot them down,’” the general recalled. “Well, you know, in your homeland, that’s pretty hard to do, especially when you don’t have domain awareness. But shooting missiles that accelerate to four times the speed of sound or more, that have exploding warheads with fragmentation devices that explode titanium rods at thousands of feet per second over Langley or New Jersey is probably not where we needed to be, and for me that was really the only option I had as the NORAD/NORTHCOM commander.” 

Besides, as we frequently noted, the vast majority of these so-called drones were reported by civilians and turned out to be misidentified manned aircraft and even stars and planets. In fact, we saw no visual evidence of any mass drone incursions or strange objects over New Jersey during this prolonged series of events.

You can see video of one of the Jersey Drone situations below:

VanHerck was bringing up issues we pointed out in our own coverage about the murky authorities and prohibitions on the use of directed energy weapons, like lasers and high-power microwave systems, let alone kinetic capabilities, to bring down drones over military bases. 

Frustrations over that lack of authority and ability to act are issues that VanHerck’s successor, Gen. Gregory Guillot, has also raised and in many ways successfully pushed to change. You can read more about his efforts to give commanders greater authority to act against drones in our coverage here.

As we previously reported, in the wake of drone incursions like those over Langley, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Picatinny Arsenal, and others, NORTHCOM was given the role of synchronizing the U.S. military response during Guillot’s tenure. U.S. INDOPACOM was given a similar role for the Pacific. 

In addition, as VanHerck noted on Wednesday, there have been additional much-needed changes under current Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, “who has cleared up a lot of the responsibility [and] authority [issues] with some of his actions.”

Among them, the military has been using directed energy lasers against cartel drones flying across the border and is working to expand that capability.

Moreover, the federal Safer Skies Act, which gives the Departments of Homeland Security (DHS) and Justice (DOJ) as well as certain state, local and tribal agencies, limited authority to mitigate drone threats domestically, “really helps clarify things,” VanHerck stated.

Still, there is a long way to go, however, before the U.S. can fully protect its skies, the retired general suggested.

“We still have gaps and seams, and we need an integrated, layered approach driven by specific policy on what you must defend,” VanHerck posited. “These are the key lessons that I took away and put in memos years ago that we still have to fix today, and we’re seeing some of this play out not only in our homeland. We’re seeing some of it play out forward as well. So that’s a long answer, but there are a lot of lessons here.”

Contact the author: howard@twz.com

The deputy commander of United States Northern Command (NORTHCOM) was asked on Thursday if he could defend against an attack by a swarm of drones in the homeland. His reply was blunt and chilling: “No.”

“We don’t have the sensors, and depending on where that swarm is going to attack, it depends on whether we have any sensors at all, and also on whether we’ve got any effectors to go after that problem,” stated Army Lt. Gen. Joseph Jarrard, who also serves as the Vice Commander, United States Element, North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD). He was addressing an audience at the Space and Missile Defense Symposium (SMD) in Huntsville, Alabama, attended by TWZ.

“So we are ill-equipped right now to handle something like that, and obviously we’ve seen it used,” the general added. “We’re seeing it used on a daily basis around the world, and we’ve got to figure out how to mitigate that threat, but we’re not there yet.”

2026 SMD Symposium Day 3

Jarrard’s statements were a sharp admission by a U.S. military leader of a number of interconnected gaps, including the lack of domain awareness over the homeland. It is a topic TWZ has frequently raised over the years, but one that U.S. officials would not admit to or address until after the Chinese spy balloon floated over much of the country in 2023 before being shot down off the Carolinas. He was also raising other concerns we have often highlighted, like having the right systems in place to take drones down once they are detected and the proper authority to use them when needed.

Though Jarrard didn’t offer any specific examples of potential threat scenarios, the most glaring is Ukraine’s Operation Spiderweb attack on Russian air bases. Drones stored in pre-positioned trucks were launched nearby remotely and destroyed a large number of Russian bombers and other critical aviation assets.

You can see a video of one of those attacks below.

Another example of a similar near-field attack was the first-person view (FPV) drone strike on a U.S. Army helicopter in Iraq earlier this year, which you can read more about here.

The following video captures that incident.

An Iranian-backed militia carried out a successful FPV drone strike on Camp Victory in Iraq yesterday, successfully hitting multiple targets.

Seen here, one of the FPV attack munitions hits a parked UH-60 Black Hawk. pic.twitter.com/ngY8td9ONZ

— OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical) March 25, 2026

These incidents underscore the very real risk faced by military infrastructure, other critical assets and VIPs in the United States, a point that TWZ has repeatedly raised for a decade. In particular, near-field attacks like Operation Spiderweb pose a huge threat and one that would be hard to stop once it began. Compared to a combat theater, there are fewer defenses and far less surveillance, let alone similar alert levels, at sensitive installations all over the U.S. With advances in drone technology and accessibility, attacks coming from within the U.S. could be executed by longer-range drones, as well, which presents additional challenges for preparing defenses.

Speaking at SMD, Jarrard acknowledged many of these concerns and offered some insights into the challenges the command faces and how it is working to address them.

While the authority to use counter-drone systems is still catching up with the technology, Jarrard noted that his commands are working to apply lessons from Operation Noble Eagle (ONE) on the counter-drone effort. ONE, which came into being following the September 11th attacks, changed America’s air defense posture. It included putting fighters on higher readiness and upping the surveillance over the United States with regular air patrols and flights by AWACS surveillance aircraft. In addition, new rules of engagement were put in place and trained for.

“We are integrating some of the TTPs [tactics, techniques and procedures] that we use in that mission to also incorporate with the counter-UAS mission, so some of that is just a natural flow from the ONE mission,” the general proffered at SMD without offering further details. “But the other problem is detection. That is obviously the biggest issue, and so how we are able to detect is one of our biggest concerns right now.”

“We’re using the assets that we have, radars, et cetera, but it’s going to be also involving local law enforcement because it’s not just installations, Army or military installations, but it’s also things like we did [by] interacting with the federal authorities and local law enforcement with respect to the FIFA World Cup,” Jarrard suggested. “We’ve got to be interoperable with the systems that they’re procuring, using, utilizing, and they’ve all got to talk together, and so that’s where we’ve got to get to with respect to the interoperability between not just military systems, but also those that are protecting our cities, critical infrastructure, et cetera, that are off our installations.”

Inside Look at US Drone Security During FIFA World Cup 2026

As we have previously noted, NORTHCOM has taken measures to help base commanders protect against drones once they arrive. One example came earlier this year, after incursions over two installations, including Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana, home of B-52 Stratofortress bombers and nuclear weapons storage facilities, and a key part of the airborne leg of America’s nuclear triad. NORTHCOM deployed its new counter-drone fly-away kit, designed to give installation commanders the ability to detect, quantify, and defeat small drones that they cannot defend against on their own.

However, given that these systems have to be requested and then delivered, there is a limit to just how much protection they can provide, especially against an attack like Spiderweb that popped up with no warning. The fly-away kits would not arrive until after such an attack occurred, unless there was intelligence that gave some kind of warning. Meanwhile, there is a huge lack of capacity when it comes to installing these systems on a more permanent basis at installations that really need them, let alone critical civilian infrastructure and other high-value targets.

Moreover, for years now, U.S. military officials have often pushed back on the utility and cost-effectiveness of investing more in the physical hardening of bases and other critical facilities, especially shelters to shield aircraft from drones and other threats. However, that is starting to change. In a notable shift in department policy, the Pentagon in February issued new guidance for defending critical infrastructure against drone attacks through the increased use of netting, cables, and other kinds of passive physical defenses.

Jarrard’s comments at SMD, while troubling, were also a refreshing acknowledgment by someone in charge of protecting the U.S. that we remain woefully vulnerable to the kind of attack Ukraine launched against Russia last year, and admitting the problem will hopefully help with putting real solutions in place in the not-so-distant future.

Contact the author: howard@twz.com

WASHINGTON — Approaching six months of war with Iran after predicting a six-week campaign, President Trump has few options before him to bring the conflict to a close. But some experts believe a new strategy emerging from his administration could avert a more consequential defeat.

The president has repeatedly flirted with broadening the assault, hoping yet another round of bombardment might force Iran to yield. Yet he has ultimately resisted, once again stepping back this month from options to expand strikes across Iran’s critical infrastructure and leadership. And he has refrained since the beginning of the war from ordering a ground operation that would expose U.S. troops to direct attack, faced with dwindling U.S. munitions stockpiles and an entrenched Iranian government willing to retaliate.

The result has been a U.S. campaign that has failed to achieve any of Trump’s stated war aims — of regime change in Tehran, the elimination of Iran’s ballistic missile and naval capabilities, and the end of its nuclear program — but has also avoided the costs of uncontrolled escalation, experts said.

In remarks Friday, Trump said the United States was still in the process of “defeating Iran, which is being very badly defeated.”

“We have the blockade. No ships get through,” he said. “They still have missiles, but not a lot. They still have drones, but just a fraction of what they had. But their manufacturing is largely gone.

“We’re winning big with the Islamic Republic of Iran,” he added. “Nobody has any idea how successful we are — they don’t want to write it. But they know. You know who knows how well we’re doing? Iran.”

In an interview published last week, Trump explained his decision not to proceed with expanded strikes, telling Axios, “we are low-keying it.”

“We are only semi-negotiating with them,” he said. “We are just watching Iran with its huge inflation and the fact they have no money.”

It is a shift from an instinctual posture to one of restraint uncharacteristic of a president who launched the war in February after consulting a mere handful of people, including Israel’s prime minister and fewer than a dozen of his closest aides.

The current approach — an economic choke hold on Iran — is being led by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who was not involved in Trump’s prewar deliberations.

“The options are escalating militarily, conceding Iranian victory through a phony negotiation, or continuing the economic pressure we have in place. The president’s problem is that he can’t simply choose — the ayatollah gets a vote,” said Elliott Abrams, a veteran diplomat who served under Presidents Reagan and George W. Bush, as well as under Trump in his first term.

“Trump has to choose now between sticking to the blockade and the risks it brings — including high oil prices and a loss in the midterm elections — or accepting defeat by Iran and the risks that brings,” he added, “to our friends and allies and to his own reputation.”

White House officials are betting the risks to Tehran, from soaring inflation and a shortage of goods, are greater than the political costs Trump will incur at the ballot box in November during the midterm elections, with oil prices holding stable under $100 a barrel since mid-July.

“We have the ability to accept costs because our resources are great. Iran does not, because theirs are few,” said Barry Posen, a political science professor at MIT.

And while restraint may not end the conflict on Trump’s preferred terms, it could prevent the kind of open-ended escalation that pulled the United States deeper into costly quagmires in Vietnam and Iraq, said Michael O’Hanlon, director of research in the Brookings Institution’s foreign policy program.

“He has resisted that temptation so far,” O’Hanlon said. “In this regard, he is showing greater humanity and greater thoughtfulness than either of those two American presidents during the Vietnam War. And he has avoided the mistakes of George W. Bush in launching big ground wars without adequate planning or preparation.

“It’s troubling, and far from victory,” O’Hanlon added, “but also far from quagmire or defeat.”

Trump’s reluctance to escalate has so far averted a high U.S. casualty count in the war. According to the Pentagon’s Defense Casualty Analysis System, 18 U.S. service members have been killed and hundreds have been wounded since the start of operations against Iran.

But his reticence to deploy additional U.S. troops within striking distance of Tehran — and the need to protect those already stationed across the region — has forced the administration to rely on long-range weapons systems that cost tens of millions of dollars and require complex international supply chains to produce, leading to critical shortages of drones, missiles and defense systems as the conflict continues longer than planned.

“Even limited operations, such as the air wars over Kosovo and Libya, dragged on much longer than policymakers expected, and the U.S. ran short of critical precision guided weapons,” said Stacie Pettyjohn, director of the Defense Program at the Center for a New American Security. “What really differentiates the current situation with Iran is that Tehran can hold U.S. forces in the region at risk with its long-range missiles and drones.”

Karoline Leavitt, the president’s outgoing White House press secretary, said the United States has “more than enough firepower” to carry out any operation the president wishes to order.

But Defense officials acknowledged to The Times that a protracted campaign, and the risk of an escalation that prompts Iran to expand its targeting of U.S. assets and allies in the region, could further stretch weapons systems to dangerously low levels.

A “low-key” campaign will mitigate the threat of dwindling supplies and high casualties, without necessarily providing Trump with a path to victory, said Stephen Biddle, a professor of international and public policy at Columbia University.

“The issue with Iran isn’t how long the war has lasted, though it’s already lasted longer than the Trump administration apparently expected,” Biddle said. “The issue is how we’ll get out of it with our interests intact. The administration has no viable plan for doing that, and none is immediately obvious.”

Romania’s Defence Ministry didn’t specify the origin of the drone but has previously blamed Russia for similar incidents.

Russian strikes on Ukraine have killed at least one person and wounded seven more while a Spanish jet has shot down a drone that entered Romanian airspace.

A woman was killed and six others wounded in a missile and drone attack on Kryvyi Rig, the hometown of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the region’s governor said early on Sunday.

Authorities in the Ukrainian capital also said Kyiv was “under ballistic missile attack” late on Saturday, with one person wounded and fires sparked at non-residential sites in the Obolonsky and Holosiivskyi districts.

Separately, Romania’s Defence Ministry reported on Sunday that a Spanish F-18 fighter jet pilot on a NATO air policing mission to Romania had shot down a drone illegally breaching its national airspace.

It is the fourth drone shot down in Romania this year.

Romania’s Defence Ministry did not specify the origin of ‌the ‌drone.

In July, a Romanian jet shot down a suspected Russian drone, and in May a stray drone injured two people in the Romanian city of Galati when it collided with a building.

Romania shares a 634km (394-mile) border with Ukraine and has repeatedly seen Russian drones breaching its airspace as Moscow escalates its bombing campaign against Ukrainian civilian and military infrastructure.

Escalating long-range strikes

Russia has maintained near-daily missile and drone strikes across Ukraine since launching its full-scale invasion in early 2022, with areas far from the front lines frequently coming under attack.

The war’s impact has also spread to key regional shipping lanes, with reports of mines and unmanned sea drones found floating in the Black Sea.

Civilian casualties in Ukraine hit their highest level since 2022 this July, with at least 437 killed and 2,610 injured, according to the United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission.

Meanwhile, in Russia on Sunday, authorities reported a large-scale drone incursion from the Ukrainians.

Moscow officials said they had downed more than 100 drones heading towards the capital overnight.

Emergency services were deployed to sites where debris fell, Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said, adding that three people were wounded.

Ukraine has increasingly targeted military, industrial and logistical facilities deep inside Russia, arguing its strikes are a response to Moscow’s ongoing bombardment of Ukrainian towns and infrastructure.

The deputy commander of United States Northern Command (NORTHCOM) was asked on Thursday if he could defend against an attack by a swarm of drones in the homeland. His reply was blunt and chilling: “No.”

“We don’t have the sensors, and depending on where that swarm is going to attack, it depends on whether we have any sensors at all, and also on whether we’ve got any effectors to go after that problem,” stated Army Lt. Gen. Joseph Jarrard, who also serves as the Vice Commander, United States Element, North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD). He was addressing an audience at the Space and Missile Defense Symposium (SMD) in Huntsville, Alabama, attended by TWZ.

“So we are ill-equipped right now to handle something like that, and obviously we’ve seen it used,” the general added. “We’re seeing it used on a daily basis around the world, and we’ve got to figure out how to mitigate that threat, but we’re not there yet.”

2026 SMD Symposium Day 3

Jarrard’s statements were a sharp admission by a U.S. military leader of a number of interconnected gaps, including the lack of domain awareness over the homeland. It is a topic TWZ has frequently raised over the years, but one that U.S. officials would not admit to or address until after the Chinese spy balloon floated over much of the country in 2023 before being shot down off the Carolinas. He was also raising other concerns we have often highlighted, like having the right systems in place to take drones down once they are detected and the proper authority to use them when needed.

Though Jarrard didn’t offer any specific examples of potential threat scenarios, the most glaring is Ukraine’s Operation Spiderweb attack on Russian air bases. Drones stored in pre-positioned trucks were launched nearby remotely and destroyed a large number of Russian bombers and other critical aviation assets.

You can see a video of one of those attacks below.

Another example of a similar near-field attack was the first-person view (FPV) drone strike on a U.S. Army helicopter in Iraq earlier this year, which you can read more about here.

The following video captures that incident.

An Iranian-backed militia carried out a successful FPV drone strike on Camp Victory in Iraq yesterday, successfully hitting multiple targets.

Seen here, one of the FPV attack munitions hits a parked UH-60 Black Hawk. pic.twitter.com/ngY8td9ONZ

— OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical) March 25, 2026

These incidents underscore the very real risk faced by military infrastructure, other critical assets and VIPs in the United States, a point that TWZ has repeatedly raised for a decade. In particular, near-field attacks like Operation Spiderweb pose a huge threat and one that would be hard to stop once it began. Compared to a combat theater, there are fewer defenses and far less surveillance, let alone similar alert levels, at sensitive installations all over the U.S. With advances in drone technology and accessibility, attacks coming from within the U.S. could be executed by longer-range drones, as well, which presents additional challenges for preparing defenses.

Speaking at SMD, Jarrard acknowledged many of these concerns and offered some insights into the challenges the command faces and how it is working to address them.

While the authority to use counter-drone systems is still catching up with the technology, Jarrard noted that his commands are working to apply lessons from Operation Noble Eagle (ONE) on the counter-drone effort. ONE, which came into being following the September 11th attacks, changed America’s air defense posture. It included putting fighters on higher readiness and upping the surveillance over the United States with regular air patrols and flights by AWACS surveillance aircraft. In addition, new rules of engagement were put in place and trained for.

“We are integrating some of the TTPs [tactics, techniques and procedures] that we use in that mission to also incorporate with the counter-UAS mission, so some of that is just a natural flow from the ONE mission,” the general proffered at SMD without offering further details. “But the other problem is detection. That is obviously the biggest issue, and so how we are able to detect is one of our biggest concerns right now.”

“We’re using the assets that we have, radars, et cetera, but it’s going to be also involving local law enforcement because it’s not just installations, Army or military installations, but it’s also things like we did [by] interacting with the federal authorities and local law enforcement with respect to the FIFA World Cup,” Jarrard suggested. “We’ve got to be interoperable with the systems that they’re procuring, using, utilizing, and they’ve all got to talk together, and so that’s where we’ve got to get to with respect to the interoperability between not just military systems, but also those that are protecting our cities, critical infrastructure, et cetera, that are off our installations.”

Inside Look at US Drone Security During FIFA World Cup 2026

As we have previously noted, NORTHCOM has taken measures to help base commanders protect against drones once they arrive. One example came earlier this year, after incursions over two installations, including Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana, home of B-52 Stratofortress bombers and nuclear weapons storage facilities, and a key part of the airborne leg of America’s nuclear triad. NORTHCOM deployed its new counter-drone fly-away kit, designed to give installation commanders the ability to detect, quantify, and defeat small drones that they cannot defend against on their own.

However, given that these systems have to be requested and then delivered, there is a limit to just how much protection they can provide, especially against an attack like Spiderweb that popped up with no warning. The fly-away kits would not arrive until after such an attack occurred, unless there was intelligence that gave some kind of warning. Meanwhile, there is a huge lack of capacity when it comes to installing these systems on a more permanent basis at installations that really need them, let alone critical civilian infrastructure and other high-value targets.

Moreover, for years now, U.S. military officials have often pushed back on the utility and cost-effectiveness of investing more in the physical hardening of bases and other critical facilities, especially shelters to shield aircraft from drones and other threats. However, that is starting to change. In a notable shift in department policy, the Pentagon in February issued new guidance for defending critical infrastructure against drone attacks through the increased use of netting, cables, and other kinds of passive physical defenses.

Jarrard’s comments at SMD, while troubling, were also a refreshing acknowledgment by someone in charge of protecting the U.S. that we remain woefully vulnerable to the kind of attack Ukraine launched against Russia last year, and admitting the problem will hopefully help with putting real solutions in place in the not-so-distant future.

Contact the author: howard@twz.com

With one-way attack drones playing an ever larger role in American military operations, U.S. Central Command announced it is creating what it calls “the first multinational attack drone task force.” The move comes as combat between the U.S. and Iran has paused, but tensions in the region remain high, including ongoing attacks on shipping by the Iranian-aligned Houthi rebels of Yemen. The task force is also being launched amid growing concerns about the U.S. magazine depth of high-end standoff weapons — a class of weapon one-way-attack drones aim to take pressure off of.

Dubbed Task Force Falcon Strike (TFFS), the command said it will “employ one-way attack drones consisting of unmanned systems from above, on, and below the sea operated by military support staff from the United States and regional partners.”

The CENTCOM announcement offered no further information about which nations will participate, what systems will be used, and whether those joining Task Force Falcon Strike will bring their own equipment. The command declined to provide further details when we asked.

The war against Iran saw the command follow global trends in warfare by deploying air and sea drones in combat for the first time. Other militaries in the Middle East have or are working on acquiring similar capabilities. Israel largely wrote the book on one-way attack munitions, for instance.

The establishment of TFFS follows the creation in December of Task Force Scorpion Strike (TFSS). As we were one of the first to report, this was the U.S. military’s first dedicated one-way attack drone squadron and the first operational unit armed with Low-Cost Uncrewed Combat Attack System (LUCAS) kamikaze drones, a design reverse-engineered from the Iranian-designed Shahed-136, in the Middle East.

Initially, TFSS was created to send a warning to Iran, a U.S. official told us at the time. As we noted earlier in this story, after the launch of Epic Fury on Feb. 28, TFSS marked several operational firsts for America’s use of drones in war.

The first major milestone came on the opening day of the war, when LUCAS drones were used for the first time. The second came in June, when a Saronic Corsair uncrewed surface vessel (USV) rescued the crew of a U.S. Army AH-64 Apache that crashed in the Gulf of Oman after it was downed by Iran. That was the first known instance of a drone boat being used to recover personnel as part of a search and rescue mission.

The third large step forward for U.S. drone warfare came in July, when three Corsairs “hit the port at Bandar Abbas Naval Base” and “successfully struck a submarine and ship maintenance facility in Iran,” the command stated on X that day. It was the first U.S. use of a USV as an attack weapon.

You can see those attacks in the following video produced by CENTCOM.

As we have frequently reported, Ukraine has used USVs to devastating effect on the Russian Black Sea Fleet. The Magura line of drones, among others, has played a key role in this campaign.

Notably, the command also said the new task force will also use uncrewed underwater vehicles (UUVs) as attack weapons. If they have been used in combat by the U.S., that has not been publicly acknowledged. The command did announce in April that it was using UUVs to assist in demining the Strait of Hormuz.

In December, Ukraine’s state security service (SBU) said it carried out the first-ever UUV attack on a Russian vessel. The strike was on a Project 636 Varshavyanka class, or Improved Kilo class diesel-electric submarine, in the Black Sea naval stronghold of Novorossiysk.

That attack can be seen in the video below.

Aug. 13 (UPI) — The Trump administration on Thursday announced tariffs on imports of drones and related components, saying that the U.S. was ‘too reliant’ on drones produced overseas.

According to a White House fact sheet, a 100% tariff will be levied on “certain capabilities that are particularly sensitive for national security purposes, docking stations of these drones, and certain critical components of these drones.”

The category includes drones that have a top takeoff weight of more than 25 kilograms and those with thermal imaging features, the proclamations says.

The U.S. “is too reliant on foreign sources of [unmanned aircraft systems] and UAS components,” a proclamation signed by U.S. President Donald Trump says.

Meanwhile, smaller drones that do not have certain features that do not affect national security will face a 25% tariff. Drones and components produced in the European Union, Japan, Liechtenstein, South Korea, Switzerland and Taiwan will see a 15% levy. UK-produced drones will be assessed 10%.

The percentage of the tariffs will depend if “substantially all hardware, software, and technology originates from within these countries and the United States,” the fact sheet says.

The White House said the tariffs take effect in 21 days, but tariffs on drone components “that are not particularly sensitive,” will take effect in 180 days

For products and components that the Department of Defense has approved an exemption from the Federal Communications Commission’s Covered List within 20 days after being signed by Trump, the tariffs will take effect 180 days after signing.

The ability to counter individual drones and complex swarms is becoming increasingly critical on the battlefield of today and will be even more so on those of the future. In response to such threats, Lockheed Martin recently unveiled the MORFIUS X-Rotor. TWZ’s Jamie Hunter spoke with Jason Reynolds, Lockheed Martin’s Vice President of Integrated Air & Missile Defense, at the Space and Missile Defense Symposium in Huntsville, Alabama, about MORFIUS in detail.

This counter-UAS system features a High Power Microwave (HPM) payload that can reportedly neutralize more than 50 adversary drones during a single sortie. The cross-wing configuration allows MORFIUS to take off and land vertically, and it is designed specifically for field recovery and rapid reuse. After launch, the drone uses proprietary algorithms to hunt and kill enemy drones using an active radio-frequency seeker onboard. The big advantage is that MORFIUS X-Rotor can kill a lot of drones and be reused to kill more over and over. Many interceptor drones in use today are self sacrificing in order to do their job.

Lockheed Martin says it has completed live-fire testing and is accelerating production to meet demand.

“Counter-UAS is a hot topic around the world. We took MORFIUS to the Farnborough Airshow; every single person was interested in understanding the technology, the availability, the production rates. This system is going to be proliferated because we need to basically protect against drones that are single or swarming and protect our critical assets, critical sites, and defend what matters most,” Reynolds told us.

Watch the video below and subscribe to our channel on YouTube here.

Meet MORFIUS: The Drone Designed To Zap Other Drones

Libya’s National Oil Corporation warns it may halt operations at the country’s largest operating refinery if drone attacks continue.

Firefighters in Libya are battling a massive blaze at the Zawiya refinery following a drone attack, with the country’s national oil company warning it may declare a force majeure and shut down operations if attacks continue.

Libya’s Ambulance and Emergency Service said in a statement on Tuesday there were no “serious injuries” from the fire, with most patients treated for smoke inhalation.

Footage verified by Al Jazeera showed huge flames and thick black ‌smoke billowing over the facility, the largest operating refinery in Libya with a refining capacity of 120,000 barrels per day.

It is located about 40km (25 miles) west of the capital, Tripoli.

The National Oil Corporation (NOC) said in a statement on Facebook that the fire broke out on Monday evening at tank number 402-T, belonging to the Brega Oil Company.

It said the tank, which contained about 4.5 million litres (1.2 million gallons) of gasoline, was “directly targeted, resulting in a severe fire before the tank completely collapsed”.

The NOC said the attack followed drone strikes on a water desalination plant at the refinery on Sunday and on a naphtha reservoir on Saturday.

The company declared a “maximum emergency” in the region and urged authorities to launch an investigation and bring the perpetrators to justice.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attacks, and the company did ‌not say who they believed was behind them.

In a statement hours later, the NOC said the refinery was “still being subject to sabotage attacks” with a drone targeting an oil blending and filling ⁠plant operated by the Zawiya Oil Refining Company.

It said the drone fell near its main oil tank and a pipeline network used to produce oils for the domestic market, without causing any casualties or damage.

“The company’s board of directors also confirms that if these attacks continue, it will have to declare a state of force majeure and suspend operations at the refinery,” it warned.

The Brega Oil Company, meanwhile, appealed to “all parties to stop the fighting and stay away from oil facilities and depots”. It said “oil facilities are vital infrastructure and owned by all Libyans” and that “protecting them is a national responsibility that does not tolerate any negligence”.

The attacks highlight the continuing security challenges in Libya, where rival administrations and armed groups have retained influence despite a ‌2020 ⁠ceasefire that halted major warfare. The country split in 2014 after a NATO-backed uprising that toppled longtime leader Muammar ⁠Gaddafi in 2011.

Two governments are currently vying for power: the United Nations-recognised administration in Tripoli, led by Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah, and a rival in the east backed by military commander Khalifa Haftar.

In a statement, the Tripoli-based government said Dbeibah held a meeting earlier in the day with key officials, including the interior minister and the chiefs of some armed groups in the capital, “to follow up on the latest security developments”.

Dbeibah “stressed the need to deal firmly with any transgressions or actions that threaten security or harm vital facilities and installations”, the statement said.

Separately, a Libyan parliamentary panel condemned the attack and called for stronger protection of oil installations.

“The House of Representatives’ Energy and Natural Resources Committee condemns in the strongest terms the criminal attack targeting the Zawiya Refinery, one of the most vital facilities in the oil and gas sector that is a cornerstone of the national economy,” it said in a statement.

Drones of an unknown origin were reportedly sighted over the remote joint U.S.-U.K. Diego Garcia installation located deep in the Indian Ocean. As we have frequently reported, this island base has long been a highly strategic operating location for the U.S. military. Beyond its large airfield that has been an epicenter of bomber operations over the decades, it plays many roles for the Pentagon. These include hosting Space Force operations, serving as a key port for U.S. Navy vessels, including nuclear submarines, and its lagoon provides shelter for a Sealift Command Prepositioning Ship Squadron.

The installation was targeted by Iranian ballistic missiles during the Epic Fury operation, but the threat posed by drones is even more plausible for the island outpost, especially at this extremely tense time as the standoff between the U.S. and Iran grinds on.

The issue of reported drones over Diego Garcia highlights a plausible threat of sea-launched drones that TWZ has been drawing attention to for years now. It also again raises concerns about the danger to critical infrastructure and aircraft parked in the open at Diego Garcia and many other U.S. installations. This is another issue TWZ has been highlighting for years.

“We are aware of reported sightings of drones (UAS) over Diego Garcia,” the U.K. Defense Ministry (MoD) told us Monday morning. “We are unable to provide any details about a situation which may affect the security or operation of the joint U.K.-U.S. base on Diego Garcia.”

“The U.S. and U.K. Commanding Officers on Diego Garcia consider and implement appropriate measures to ensure the security and safety of the base and the safety of the personnel on the island,” MoD added.

U.S. officials were less forthcoming.

“As a matter of operational security, we do not discuss specific force protection measures or security procedures at U.S. military installations,” an official from U.S. Pacific Command (PACOM) told us on Friday. “We remain vigilant in protecting U.S. personnel and facilities.”

Neither MoD nor PACOM would say what kinds of drones were sighted, when they were sighted, who was operating them or what, if any, defensive measures were taken as a result. Both military organizations were responding to our questions about an Aug. 7 posting on the Air Force amn/nco/snco Facebook page, an unofficial social media channel that posts about service topics.

“Inbox: ‘Diego Garcia. Drones spotted near fuel farm. Base on 0700 to 1900 curfew until further notice’ Note: message us if you have further information, thanks,” the post read.

On Sunday, the page published a second post on the topic titled “Diego Garcia Curfew reportedly due to Drone Threats.” The post displayed what the page purported to be an official listing of curfew times for various locations around the installation.

We cannot independently confirm the accuracy of these posts and have reached out to MoD and PACOM for details. MoD did not specify who reported the drone sightings over Diego Garcia, so we have asked for clarification. Making this an even more unusual event, Diego Garcia is essentially a closed island with no significant general population or tourists around to be operating drones on a recreational basis. So seeing one or more over the base would certainly raise alarms.

Though Diego Garcia is about 1,000 miles from Sri Lanka, the nearest large landmass, its remote location does not rule out the possibility of drone incursions by an adversary.

During the run-up to the launch of the Epic Fury operation against Iran, the FBI sent out an alert warning about the possibility of an Iranian drone attack on targets in California using uncrewed aircraft launched from ships off the coast. Though the alert was based on raw, unverified intelligence, and was sent out of an abundance of caution rather than any fears of an imminent action, the overall threat of drone attacks from ships is very real. You can read our feature about this very real threat vector and its relation to that questionable intelligence release here.

Generally speaking, there are long-standing concerns that Iran and/or other actors operating on its behalf could seek to launch asymmetric attacks on targets in the United States, as well as elsewhere outside of the Middle East, in retaliation for large-scale strikes or even in an unprovoked manner. The risks of Iranians deciding to take such action have historically been seen as especially high in any scenario where there might be an existential threat to the regime in Tehran.

There were enough concerns about an Iranian attack on Diego Garcia that F-16s were deployed there in February, before the war erupted, for protection primarily against one-way attack drones and cruise missiles. F-15Es were first deployed to Diego Garcia for this same purpose last year, in what appeared to be a first of its kind force protection change. As noted earlier, Iran clearly sees the installation as a top target, as it has long been something of a refuge for U.S. forces to fallback from the Middle East from, if need be. Iran subsequently launched two intermediate-range ballistic missiles at Diego Garcia during Epic Fury; however, neither struck the base.

The threat from drones launched by ships is not just limited to Iran. Russia is suspected of sending drones over key European military installations from vessels.

Long-range one-way attack drones with endurance measured in many hundreds of miles, if not more than a thousand miles, are increasingly a staple in military arsenals globally, and have also been proliferating to non-state actors. Yet the drone threat isn’t just limited to these kinds of weapons for remote locales like islands. Ukraine has carried out devastating attacks on Russian radars and other targets on Crimea and elsewhere using short-range aerial drones launched by uncrewed surface vessels (USVs). This same capability set is proliferating around the globe, allowing for the USV to work as a relatively low-cost delivery system for highly precise and relatively inexpensive short-range drones that can then execute near-field attacks. The U.S. and others are also developing similar capabilities for its submarines and future uncrewed underwater vehicles (UUVs), which could even more easily sneak into close proximity to targets ashore before launching their deadly drone munitions.

The following video shows a Ukrainian USV launching drones against Russian targets:

Iran-backed Houthis have resumed attacks on Yemen’s al-Makha port in the Red Sea, striking Saudi weapons depots with missiles and drones. Yemen’s military says at least seven people were killed.

The latest Houthi attacks come less than 24 hours after an earlier barrage struck al-Makha (Mocha) and its commercial port.

Yemen’s Houthis have launched a new wave of missile and drone attacks on the Red Sea port city of al-Makha (Mocha), extending an assault on government-held areas along Yemen’s western coast and killing at least 11 people.

The latest attacks came on Sunday evening, less than 24 hours after an earlier barrage struck al-Makha and its commercial port. Yemeni government forces said air defences intercepted six drones during the renewed assault, while two ballistic missiles fell into the sea without hitting their targets.

Footage broadcast by the Houthi-affiliated Al Masirah TV showed several ballistic missiles and drones being launched. Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said the operation targeted Saudi troop concentrations and weapon depots in the area, according to the Reuters news agency.

At least 11 killed

Earlier on Sunday, Attacks on al-Makha killed at least 11 people, including eight military personnel and three civilians, and wounded 32 others, according to the latest toll cited by the AFP news agency.

The strikes also caused extensive damage at al-Makha’s port. Government authorities said buildings and commercial facilities were hit, while The Associated Press reported damage to port infrastructure, commercial goods and food supplies.

Government forces also said they intercepted and destroyed an unmanned explosive boat approaching the commercial port.

During the renewed attacks later on Sunday, the National Resistance Forces, which are aligned with Yemen’s internationally recognised government, urged residents of al-Makha to remain indoors, accusing the Houthis of carrying out indiscriminate shelling.

Houthis say Saudi military buildup prompted attack

The Houthis said the operation involved a large number of ballistic missiles and drones and was launched in response to an alleged continued Saudi military buildup, including the reinforcement of allied forces with weapons and equipment along Yemen’s western coast and in Taiz province.

Houthi political council member Hizam al-Assad separately claimed that continuing explosions, fires and columns of smoke from the port were caused by large quantities of weapons and military equipment stored there.

Attacks extend to al-Khokha

The escalation was not limited to al-Makha, but also targeted the al-Khokha district, south of the coastal city of Hodeidah.

Al-Jumhuriya television, which is affiliated with the National Resistance Forces led by Presidential Leadership Council member Tareq Saleh, said the government-appointed governor of Hodeidah, al-Hassan Taher, survived an assassination attempt on Sunday after a Houthi ballistic missile struck his residence in the district.

Espionage, sabotage, cyberattacks, and covert operations are a ‘constant reality’, says Germany’s interior minister.

Germany is facing daily “hybrid warfare” attacks from abroad, an official has said, days after an explosive-laden drone was discovered at Leipzig/Halle Airport.

Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt told the local newspaper Bild am Sonntag on Sunday that foreign powers wanted to subdue Germany politically and socially by stirring up fear.

“We’re not at war, but we are the daily target of hybrid warfare,” Dobrindt said.

“Espionage, sabotage, cyberattacks, or covert operations by foreign powers aimed at destabilising Germany or inflicting direct harm are a constant reality.”

He did not identify any countries behind the alleged attacks.

The minister’s comments come after a drone loaded ‌with explosives was discovered at the Leipzig/Halle Airport in eastern Germany on Tuesday.

Some German lawmakers pointed the finger at Russia, which has been at war with Ukraine since its full-scale invasion of the country in 2022.

The Russian embassy in Berlin on Friday dismissed the Leipzig event as a “fabricated provocation”, saying it was another example of unsubstantiated accusations against Moscow.

Germany plans to boost anti-drone capacity

Germany is planning to strengthen its ability to counter drones amid concerns over the threat, Bild reported, citing government sources.

The newspaper said Dobrindt’s ministry wanted to double the federal government’s team of anti-drone experts from 150 to 300 and increase its network of related bases from four to eight.

Germany’s armed forces said on Saturday that two drones were spotted late on Thursday over a German military base site in Mechernich, in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia.

Separately, a drone exploded on Saturday in Bulgaria near the Trans-Balkan gas pipeline.

Bulgaria’s defence ministry said there was no reason to suspect the incident was intentional. Ukraine said it was working with Bulgarian authorities to clarify the circumstances.

The drone incidents across Europe have renewed concerns that Russia’s war in Ukraine could increasingly affect neighbouring NATO states.

NATO and European Union officials have blamed Russia for previous drone sightings. Russia has rejected all the allegations.

The Nimitz class USS Theodore Roosevelt has become the first U.S. Navy supercarrier with an Unmanned Air Warfare Center (UAWC) fully capable of supporting the forthcoming MQ-25 Stingray tanker drone. This marks another step toward the Navy finally reaching initial operational capability with the MQ-25, now set to come in 2029 after years of delays. There is still a lot of work to be done before the Stingray can be fully woven into routine carrier flight operations.

The new details about the Theodore Roosevelt‘s UAWC and other information about the MQ-25 are contained in a Modernized Selected Acquisition Report (MSAR) that the Pentagon recently released. The report itself is dated April 21, 2026, and it was produced as part of work on the U.S. military’s proposed Fiscal Year 2027 budget.

“In March 2026, the USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71) UAWC became the first fully operational/deployable MQ-25 capable aircraft carrier,” according to the report. “The USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76) UAWC is planned to be operational/deployable at the end of Aug 2026.”

“In August 2024, the first test Unmanned Air Warfare Center (UAWC), where Air Vehicle Pilots will control future MQ-25 airborne operations, was installed and tested aboard the USS George H.W. Bush (CVN 77),” the report also notes.

The USS Ronald Reagan and USS George H.W. Bush are also Nimitz class aircraft carriers. The Navy publicly announced the integration of the UAWC on the George H.W. Bush, a first-of-its-kind development, back in 2024. It is unclear why Theodore Roosevelt‘s UAWC has now become the first to be fully certified to support MQ-25 operations. It has been previously reported that the Navy’s plan is to deploy Stingrays first on the Theodore Roosevelt.

As mentioned, the MQ-25 program, overall, has been beset by delays, as well as cost growth, for years now. The Navy originally hoped to see the Stingray reach initial operational capability (IOC) in 2024. The IOC timeline subsequently slipped to July 2027 and has now been pushed even further to the right to February 2029. The first production representative example only made its maiden flight this past April. An earlier MQ-25 demonstrator, also known as the T1, has been flying since 2019.

The Navy currently plans to acquire a total fleet of 76 Stingrays, which will offer critical range extension for current and future aircraft in its carrier air wings. The aim, in turn, is also to eliminate the need for crewed F/A-18E/F Super Hornets to fly in the tanker role, which accounts for a significant portion of their sorties while deployed. This will free up those aircraft up for other missions and reduce overall wear and tear on the airframes. The new drones will also have a secondary intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) capability from the start.

“The MQ-25 Air System is integrating a Ground Control Station (GCS) managed by the Unmanned Carrier Aviation Mission Control System (UMCS) program within UCA [the Navy’s Unmanned Carrier Aviation program]. The UMCS program is a separate ACAT II [Acquisition Category II] program that integrates with multiple networks and systems both afloat and ashore,” the recently released MSAR also notes. “The MQ-25 and UMCS programs are synchronized to provide complete capability to the aircraft carrier.”

While Boeing is the prime contractor for the MQ-25 drone, Lockheed Martin has been leading work on the UMCS, and has described it previously as a “system of systems.” The central element is the MD-5E GCS, which consists of operator stations with arrays of monitors, tablet-like devices, and other computer hardware. What has been seen of the MD-5 system to date in terms of the physical hardware is fully in line with other known GCS designs, including ones the U.S. Air Force has used over the years to operate MQ-1 Predators and MQ-9 Reapers.

The UMCS also includes the Multi Domain Combat System (MDCX), an “autonomy platform” developed by Lockheed Martin’s famed Skunk Works advanced projects division. The company has told TWZ directly in the past that MDCX “provides uncrewed vehicle autonomy, mission planning, and command and control (C2) capability.”

“In October 2025, MQ-25A and the UMCS connected for the first time during air vehicle and Ground Control Station (GCS) Integration Checkout testing, allowing the Lockheed Martin GCS to establish command and control of the aircraft, which was critical to achieving First Flight,” per the recently released MSAR.

“The first Command, Control, Communications, Computers, and Intelligence (C4I) Operational Network Evaluation test event was also conducted in collaboration with the USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN72),” the report also highlights. “This test event transmitted representative-network traffic between an at sea-configured aircraft carrier and a remote MQ-25 surrogate through operational C4I paths that include satellite communications links and the Navy’s primary tactical wide area network.”

The Navy has previously disclosed testing of the UMCS in conjunction with General Atomics MQ-20 Avenger drone to demonstrate the control system’s ability to support other uncrewed platforms beyond the MQ-25. The Navy does envision its future carrier air wings eventually incorporating multiple types of drones, including ones capable of attacking enemy forces at least 1,000 nautical miles away, as you can read more about here. A year ago, the service awarded contracts to Anduril, Boeing, General Atomics, and Northrop Grumman for work on concepts for future carrier-based Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) type designs. Navy officials have said in the past that the composition of the service’s carrier air wings could eventually become 60 percent or more uncrewed.

Beyond the important additional capabilities the MQ-25 will bring to the Navy’s carrier air wings, the Navy has long described the Stingray as a foundational “pathfinder” for its broader uncrewed aviation plans, something the new MSAR reiterates. As TWZ has explored in detail in the past, the MQ-25’s design and baseline performance, especially its extreme endurance and low-signature design, open the door to the Stingray itself being adapted to strike, advanced ISR, and other missions in the future.

There is more work still to be done before the MQ-25 can enter operational service, including demonstrating the ability of Navy carriers to launch and recover the drones. The service has laid at least some of the groundwork for that years ago with extensive testing involving a pair of X-47B stealthy demonstrator drones, which achieved many firsts for carrier-based uncrewed aviation. That very promising work was done under the Unmanned Carrier-Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike (UCLASS) program, which subsequently morphed into the radically different Carrier-Based Aerial-Refueling System (CBARS) effort in the mid-2010s. The reasons for that shift are still not entirely clear, as you can read more about in detail here. CBARS ultimately led to the MQ-25.

Northrop Grumman’s X47-B Completes 1st Carrier Catapult Launch

The Stingrays will have to be further integrated into routine flight deck operations, including just making sure they can be safely moved around with everything else going on. As we have previously written:

“Carrier decks are very constrained environments physically, and present very different conditions to operate in compared to bases on land. This is true even for crewed aircraft operations, where individuals onboard can provide additional situational awareness. A wearable glove-like system that personnel could use for deck handling was notably used during testing of the X-47B. A different kind of portable control device has been used in testing of the T1 MQ-25 demonstrator in the past, as well. The video released today does not appear to offer any major new insights into how the Navy plans to maneuver the Stingray around on carrier decks.”

It is still unclear what the Navy will be using to manage operational MQ-25s on carrier flight decks when the drones enter service.

The Navy has already been working to establish new units and training pipelines to support the future MQ-25 fleet. The Stingray force structure is set to be deeply intertwined with that of the Navy’s E-2 Hawkeye airborne early warning and control aircraft.

With the USS Theodore Roosevelt‘s UAWC now deemed fully able to support MQ-25 operations, the Navy has moved at least one more step closer toward finally fielding the Stingray.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com