drone

Eight arrests made in connection with an attempted arson, which Tallinn says was ordered by Russian intelligence.

Estonia will close its border crossings with Russia, after an attack on an Estonian defence company that Tallinn blames on Moscow.

The foreign minister made the announcement on Sunday, after eight people were detained overnight in connection with an attempted arson attack on drone maker Threod Systems.

Estonian authorities said the attacks had been ordered by Russia’s GRU military intelligence. There was no immediate comment from Moscow.

Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna wrote on X, “Russia must understand that hostile actions against Estonia come with consequences. Attempts to intimidate, destabilise, or undermine our security will not go unanswered.

“Closing the border crossings will reduce Russia’s ability to conduct hostile activities in Estonia and strengthen our efforts to prevent sanctions circumvention.”

He did not specify how long the border closure would last.

Latvia’s Interior Minister Janis Dombrava thanked Estonia’s Internal Security Service on X, saying that several “Latvian citizens and non-citizens” were arrested.

“Since the collapse of the USSR, there have been people among us who are willing to commit serious crimes in Russia’s interests. We will continue our work to ensure that such people cannot endanger the lives of those who love Latvia and want to live in safety,” Dombrava wrote.

‘Shadow war’

Estonia, a European Union and NATO member state and a strong ally of Ukraine, currently has three open border crossings with Russia at Narva, Luhamaa and Koidula.

Marko Mihkelson, chairman of the Estonian Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, told Al Jazeera that the arrests demonstrated that Estonia was “prepared to respond swiftly to such attacks”.

“It is essential that Russia’s state-sponsored campaign of terror does not remain merely a matter of diplomatic protests, either in Estonia or among our allies elsewhere,” Mihkelson said.

“Russia is waging a shadow war to divide Europe and undermine support for Ukraine. European countries must respond with asymmetric measures of their own. Closing borders with Russia is one such measure.”

The Czech Republic could supply Ukraine with up to 16 Aero L-39NG Skyfox aircraft, potentially giving Kyiv another option for countering Russia’s Shahed-type attack drones. The proposal includes four aircraft previously agreed for transfer and 12 more that Czech officials are now discussing with their Ukrainian counterparts.

Czech Deputy Prime Minister and Industry and Trade Minister Karel Havlíček raised the expanded arrangement during a visit to Kyiv yesterday, where he met Ukrainian Prime Minister Serhiy Koretskyi. Havlíček described the discussions as encouraging but did not announce a finalized agreement for the additional aircraft.

Skyfox is based on the Cold War-era Aero L-39 Albatros jet trainer, a rugged and reliable Soviet aircraft that was produced in the thousands and served all over the globe. The new L-39NG was reworked and modernized in the 2010s in an effort to recapture jet trainer market share that had waned as the Soviet design was increasingly passed over for more modern alternatives. Many L-39s are also flown by privately in the United States and are used for contracted air support services for the U.S. military. One of the firms that uses them, Draken International, actually assisted in the L-39NG project and acted as a U.S. anchor for the program.

The Skyfox’s redesigned structure makes use of modern materials, reducing weight and increasing structural lifespan to 15,000 flight hours. The American Williams FJ44-4M turbofan, a very widely used jet engine that is found on many private jets, replaces the original Soviet-designed engine, offering far better fuel efficiency, digital engine control, updated ejection seats and improved maintenance support. In contrast to the old Albatros, the Skyfox has a modern glass cockpit and an updated flight control system. The Skyfox has a maximum speed of approximately 560 miles per hour, a service ceiling of 38,000 feet, and five external hardpoints for carrying weapons and other mission equipment. Like its predecessor, although primarily a jet trainer, it also has light combat capabilities.

L-39NG – Nová generace

Its potential counter-drone role is tied to Aero Vodochody’s Drone Hunter concept, which is being developed specifically to engage uncrewed aerial vehicles. The proposed L-39NG configuration features an electro-optical targeting system and launchers for 70mm laser-guided rockets. Gun pods would be another potential option for the counter-drone role.

Drone Hunter would provide Ukraine with a reliable airborne platform for rapidly engaging attack drones, reducing reliance on more expensive surface-to-air missiles and conventional fighter aircraft. However, the system has not yet entered operational service, and its effectiveness will depend on the results of further testing and integration work. Aero Vodochody is working with Belgian defense company Thales on the guided rocket system.

A dedicated counter-drone aircraft in this class would also help preserve Ukraine’s more capable fighter fleet for other missions. Its F-16s, along with the country’s remaining MiG-29 Fulcrums, Su-27 Flankers, and French-supplied Mirage 2000s, are needed for a much wider range of tasks, including counter-air operations, air-to-ground strikes, and intercepting more challenging Russian cruise missiles and jet-powered one-way attack drones. Using these aircraft extensively to hunt relatively inexpensive and slower one-way attack drones adds flight hours, increases maintenance demands, and consumes finite stocks of air-to-air weapons.

Ukraine’s F-16 fleet is already under considerable strain. As TWZ recently reported, more than half of the aircraft were reportedly stuck in maintenance limbo, while shortages of AIM-9 Sidewinder and AIM-120 AMRAAM missiles were further complicating operations. The fighters have also been increasingly tasked with countering Russia’s expanding use of faster, jet-powered attack drones. A separate aircraft optimized for engaging slower uncrewed targets could help ease some of that burden.

The potential economic advantage is also significant. Laser-guided 70mm rockets are a much less expensive means of engaging drones compared to conventional air-to-air missiles. Already, Ukraine appears to have introduced the U.S.-made 70mm Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System II (APKWS II) rockets to the arsenal available for its F-16s. The Thales 70mm laser-guided rocket is very similar, as you can read about here, and is already being employed by Ukraine in ground-based applications.

As we have reported in the past, guided rockets offer clear cost advantages over traditional air-to-air missiles:

Each APKWS II consists of three core components: a 70mm rocket motor, one of several standard warhead options, and a guidance and control section in between. The guidance and control element is by far the most costly of the three, with a unit price of around $15,000. The warhead and motor add another few thousand dollars to the total cost, which is generally in the $20,000 to $25,000 range. By comparison, current-generation variants of the AIM-120 are in the $1 million unit cost range, with the latest versions of the AIM-9X also being priced at around $500,000.

Aside from the effectors, operating the Skyfox is an entirely different cost proposition than the F-16, for example.

Aero Vodochody puts the Skyfox’s operating costs at approximately $1,700 to $2,300 per flight hour, compared with around $22,000 for an F-16-class fighter. The Skyfox also requires a much less demanding maintenance and logistical support footprint than a frontline fighter. It can fly from rough strips and roadways with ease and can be more readily hidden from view due to its small size.

Ukraine has also previously shown that it is more than willing to adopt less-conventional aerial platforms for countering the drone menace.

One notable example is the Antonov An-28 twin-engine turboprop utility aircraft that has been adapted into a Shahed hunter. The aircraft has been equipped with M134 Miniguns and, more recently, underwing launchers for Ukrainian-made interceptor drones. This approach allows the aircraft to act as an airborne launch platform, bringing interceptors closer to incoming threats while using its own sensors and crew to help locate them. The An-28’s relatively long endurance and short takeoff and landing capabilities also make it well suited to sustained patrols from austere airfields.

The Skyfox would offer a different approach, using a jet-powered platform and guided rockets and gun pods rather than relying on trainable guns or air-launched interceptor drones.

In terms of crewed aircraft being used or considered for counter-drone missions, the L-39NG Skyfox would occupy something of a middle ground. At the higher end are aircraft like the F-16 and other combat jets, which offer substantially greater performance and broader combat capabilities but are also more valuable assets that require much greater levels of support. At the lower end are platforms such as the An-28, helicopters, and even repurposed propeller-driven training aircraft, which offer relatively inexpensive ways to patrol for and engage slower-moving drones.

The requirement for additional counter-drone capabilities is becoming more pressing as Russia continues to evolve its Shahed-family weapons. Alongside the familiar propeller-driven Geran-2, which was derived from the Iranian Shahed-136, Moscow has increasingly employed jet-powered variants, including the Geran-3 and newer Geran-4 and Geran-5. These drones fly faster and at higher altitudes, making them significantly more challenging to engage with the relatively inexpensive interceptor drones Ukraine has relied on heavily.

The Geran-4, for example, is reported to reach speeds of around 280 to 310 miles per hour and operate at altitudes of up to 26,000 feet. Newer variants are also incorporating improved navigation, cameras, and communications equipment, potentially allowing for greater autonomy and more flexible targeting. Russia’s growing use of these weapons is placing additional pressure on Ukraine’s already stretched air-defense network.

Speaking to TWZ, Justin Bronk, Senior Research Fellow for Airpower and Military Technology at RUSI, noted that the L-39NG “offers an unusually attractive combination of attributes as a dedicated counter-drone interceptor; being fast enough to easily intercept Geran-3 and Geran-4 jet-powered drones, very cheap and simple to operate compared to frontline fighters and even other advanced trainer jets, already having targeting pod, gunpod and rocket pod options integrated, and being available quickly due to a small existing order book.”

“It also has impressive endurance for an aircraft of its size and weight, so it can stay on station longer than most other jet options without air-to-air refuelling,” Bronk added.

This is largely thanks to its FJ44 engine and is critical to being able to rapidly respond to new inbound threats while remaining airborne for extended periods during raids.

However, Bronk also pointed to its primary limitation: having a radar. “While this makes it harder to acquire the drones during an intercept, it is not as problematic in Ukraine given the extensive existing network of radar-equipped ground-control stations to help guide interceptors to the rough vicinity of the target,” he said.

In addition, Ukraine already has large numbers of pilots and maintenance personnel who are familiar with the previous-generation L-39, so training should be very straightforward to operate the L-39NG. Ukraine’s L-39s have even flown combat operations during the war.

The new Czech proposal follows Ukraine’s unsuccessful effort to obtain L-159 ALCA light combat aircraft from Prague. Czech President Petr Pavel previously supported transferring some of the aircraft to Kyiv, and the Czech military indicated it could release up to four. However, Prime Minister Andrej Babiš’s government rejected the proposal, arguing that the aircraft were needed by the Czech Armed Forces.

The L-159 has a radar, the Italian FIAR Grifo L, which was eyed as a highly beneficial tool for crews independently detecting and engaging inbound drones, even in all weather conditions. But as Bronk explained, this can be overcome to a degree thanks to Ukraine’s vast drone detection and tracking network.

Already in service with the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Vietnam, the Skyfox is also on order for Angola and Armenia.

Aero Vodochody currently produces approximately 12 Skyfox aircraft annually, with the potential to increase output to 18. However, the company’s production schedule was reportedly booked through the second quarter of 2027, potentially complicating deliveries to Ukraine.

Whatever happens next, the development is indicative of how drone-hunting aircraft are increasingly becoming a feature of the evolving air defense landscape, as militaries look for more economical ways to counter the proliferation of one-way attack drones. It also highlights the possibility that other trainer types could be used to help reduce costs and save the higher-end fighters for more complex missions. Such a strategy could become more widely adopted globally as the threat of one-way attack drones continues to metastasize.

Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com

The Royal Navy is aiming to see Northrop Grumman’s Talon Blue collaborative combat aircraft (CCA) drone fly from a British aircraft carrier next year. The planned demonstration is another notable step toward a carrier-based CCA capability in the United Kingdom. The plans also signal significant new opportunities on the horizon for Talon Blue, the first flight of which was only announced last month.

“We look forward to working with the Royal Navy over the next 12 months on this future demonstration,” Northrop Grumman told TWZ in a statement today. “Thursday’s signing is an important step in demonstrating relevant British naval capabilities, building on Northrop Grumman’s decades of leadership in autonomy and commitment to mission-relevant platforms and systems.”

First Sea Lord General Sir Gwyn Jenkins had first announced plans to launch Talon Blue, which the U.S. military has also designated the YFQ-48A, from a carrier during an address yesterday at the International Sea Power Conference in Norway. Jenkins, the first Royal Marine to ever hold the post of First Sea Lord, the United Kingdom’s top naval officer, made his remarks aboard the HMS Prince of Wales. That ship is the second of two Queen Elizabeth class carriers in Royal Navy service today.

“In two days’ time, on this carrier, I will sign a statement of intent with our friends at Northrop Grumman to prepare their Talon demonstrator for trials with the Royal Navy under Project Vanquish,” Jenkins declared to those in attendance. “Through that agreement, we will work towards a demonstration in U.K. waters in 2027, including a launch from the carrier.”

The planned tests involving Talon “will give us the evidence we need to understand how uncrewed combat aircraft can operate safely and effectively alongside the existing air wing. Then we learn, adapt and keep moving forward,” he continued. “That is how we deliver capability at the pace necessary. Not by waiting years for a perfect solution, but by working with industry to get the latest technology into the hands of our people as quickly as possible. Of course, moving at pace carries some risk.”

Jenkins first announced Project Vanquish in September 2025. As outlined then, the project’s goal was to demonstrate the ability to launch and recover what authorities in the U.K. refer to as a Tier 2 Autonomous Collaborative Platform (ACP) from a carrier without the need for a catapult or arresting gear. The Royal Navy’s Queen Elizabeth class carriers are so-called short-takeoff and vertical landing (STOVL) types that lack catapults and arresting gear, but there has been talk in the past about adding those features in some form down the line.

In the British government’s parlance, Tier 2 ACPs are defined primarily by being ‘attritable.’ This, in turn, is generally taken to mean designs that are low-cost enough to be employed in higher-risk environments from which they may not return, but that are also capable enough to conduct relevant missions.

Since Talon Blue was first officially disclosed in December 2025, at a media event that TWZ attended, Northrop Grumman has talked about the design as being lower-cost. However, the company does not appear to have used attritable or similar terms to describe the drone. Hard cost data of any kind has yet to be disclosed. Talon Blue does appear to be in line, broadly speaking, with the complexity of the two CCAs now in production for the U.S. Air Force. Those drones, General Atomics FQ-42A Vengeance and Anduril’s FQ-44A Fury, are understood to have unit costs in the low tens of millions.

“Our customers made it clear they need autonomous systems that can be fielded faster and more affordably without sacrificing mission effectiveness,” Craig Woolston, Vice President and General Manager for Research and Advanced Design at Northrop Grumman, said in a statement accompanying the announcement of Talon Blue’s maiden flight last month. “We listened. Talon Blue’s first flight is one step toward a new generation of autonomous capabilities. Every flight and lesson strengthens our broader autonomy work and sharpens what comes next.”

What it might take to configure Talon Blue for carrier-based operations remains to be seen, even without the need for the drone to be capable of catapult launches and arrested recoveries. An entirely new variant could well be required, if it is not already in the works.

It should be noted that the Royal Navy has already demonstrated the ability to launch and recover several different types of propeller-driven drones from the decks of its Queen Elizabeth class carriers since 2023. This includes the Mojave from General Atomics in the United States. Just earlier this month, the service announced that the Tekever AR5 had joined this list. The British Army is already in the process of acquiring AR5s for land-based use to replace its long-troubled Watchkeeper drones. None of these drones are as advanced as the jet-powered Talon Blue.

Mojave Aircraft Carrier Takeoff and Landing

The Royal Navy has also launched other smaller drones, including long-range one-way-attack types, from its Queen Elizabeth class carriers via trailer-mounted catapults in the past.

All of this has been in service of a broader Royal Navy push to incorporate more uncrewed platforms with higher degrees of autonomy into its operations in the air and at sea. The service has dubbed this broader vision as its Hybrid Navy concept.

“I do not believe the Royal Navy can build the Hybrid Navy at the speed we need it by doing things the way we have always done,” First Sea Lord Jenkins said yesterday, speaking about these plans more broadly. “During my career, I have seen too many examples of what happens when institutions become too set in their ways. So I need industry alongside us from the start.”

The decision to involve Northrop Grumman Talon Blue also represents a significant development for that drone. The company has said the genesis behind this uncrewed aircraft was lessons learned from its failed bid in the first phase, or Increment 1, of the U.S. Air Force’s CCA program. Especially since it received its U.S. military designation, Talon Blue has looked well positioned for the Air Force’s follow-on Increment 2 CCA competition.

Northrop Grumman is also one of the companies under contract now to develop a conceptual carrier-based CCA design for the U.S. Navy. The company has yet to share details about what that proposed drone might look like, but a demonstration of Talon Blue operating from a British carrier could provide hints.

The market space for land- and carrier-based CCAs has also expanded globally. Talon Blue is just one of several notable new designs to break cover in this arena in recent years, including in the United Kingdom. This development trend also extends to potential adversaries, and China in particular.

The CCA market could be differently important for Northrop Grumman going forward given the company’s recent loss to Boeing in the U.S. Navy’s F/A-XX next-generation carrier-based fighter competition. Back in 2023, Northrop Grumman had also dropped out of the running for the U.S. Air Force competition that led to the F-47, which is also being built by Boeing. Northrop Grumman is the prime contractor for a number of other very high-profile U.S. military programs, including the B-21 Raider bomber and the LGM-35A Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).

Plans to launch Talon Blue from a British carrier are still very much in their infancy, but the demonstration now on the horizon for next year looks set to be an important development for all parties involved.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

Kongsberg Maritime has unveiled a new fully uncrewed surface vessel (USV) design, which is based on a hardy fishing vessel, intended to meet the Royal Navy’s emerging Type 92 requirement. It calls for autonomous platforms to persistently hunt Russian submarines in the increasingly contested waters of the North Atlantic and Arctic.

Dubbed the Arctic Hunter USV, the vessel combines a proven commercial ship design with Kongsberg Maritime’s remote-control and autonomous technologies. It is being developed around an anti-submarine warfare (ASW) mission, with a particular emphasis on providing persistent underwater surveillance in the High North.

The announcement, made November 9, comes as the Royal Navy moves ahead with its broader Hybrid Navy concept, which will see uncrewed vessels and other autonomous systems operate alongside traditional crewed warships and aircraft. The Type 92 is one of four new uncrewed vessel types envisioned under this effort, which is intended to significantly expand the fleet’s overall sensing and weapons capacity.

Bruce Balchin of Kongsberg Maritime, which is headquartered in Norway, told TWZ that the Arctic Hunter concept emerged from the Royal Navy’s stated desire to address the submarine threat in the High North with capabilities that could be delivered quickly and in significant numbers, using commercial shipyards.

“We’ve been following the Royal Navy’s Hybrid Fleet and some of the statements that have been coming from the First Sea Lord,” Balchin explained. “The immediate threat is submarines in the High North. I need things at mass to be delivered at mass and at pace. I need commercial shipyards.”

Kongsberg’s response was to look at an existing commercial vessel design that could be adapted to tow a powerful submarine-hunting sonar. Rather than developing a new military ship, the company saw an opportunity to repurpose an Arctic fishing vessel, replacing its fishing equipment with the systems needed for ASW surveillance.

The resulting Arctic Hunter is based on an existing 184-foot hull design. Kongsberg plans to remove the wheelhouse and fish-processing factory, freeing up space for the military mission systems and equipment needed to operate the vessel remotely.

“Replace towing fish with towing sonar,” Balchin said, describing the basic concept. “It’s not a stretch to say we straight away got a vessel which is hardened to that environment, used to working at that sea state.”

There are other advantages to starting with a fishing vessel, too. These ships are already designed to operate for extended periods in demanding Arctic conditions, with relatively straightforward maintenance requirements. They also have the machinery, power generation, and internal volume needed to support substantial mission equipment.

The platform is being designed around a relatively high-performance towed array, the Sonar 2087, developed by Thales Underwater Systems. The Type 92 is intended to provide a significant extension of the Royal Navy’s ASW sensing capabilities, and Kongsberg believes that requires a substantial towed array.

Sonar 2087 already equips Royal Navy Type 23 frigates and will be carried aboard its forthcoming Type 26 ASW frigates.

Another critical consideration is the vessel’s acoustic signature. A sonar platform needs to be quiet enough that its own machinery and propellers do not interfere with its ability to detect submarines.

“You can have the best sonar in the world, but if you’ve got a very noisy ship, it drowns out everything else you’re trying to find,” Balchin said. “You need a very quiet platform to maximize the performance of your sonar.”

Kongsberg has considerable experience in this area, having designed propellers for the Royal Navy’s Type 23 and Type 26 frigates. The company has applied some of that expertise to the Arctic Hunter, optimizing its hull and propeller design to reduce underwater radiated noise (URN).

The fishing vessel design already offered a relatively quiet platform, partly because of the requirements of its original mission. Kongsberg says it is further improving that performance for the ASW role.

The Arctic Hunter also draws on technology from another Kongsberg project called Reach Remote, an existing uncrewed offshore vessel that operates in the North Atlantic, deploying remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) for survey work.

Reach Remote: Powered by partnership, proven by performance

Rather than developing an entirely new autonomous control system, Kongsberg intends to transfer the proven remote-operation technology from Reach Remote into the Arctic Hunter platform.

“We’re taking a proven platform, proven flag-approved remote autonomy technology with a proven sonar, and then we’ve also added on another layer of military communications,” Balchin said.

Those communications will be designed to provide secure connectivity in the contested and degraded environments expected in the High North.

Kongsberg is designing the Arctic Hunter for up to 60 days at sea without human intervention aboard. The company’s existing Reach Remote vessels already operate for around 30 days at a time, providing a basis for extending that endurance.

The vessel is uncrewed by design, rather than being a conventional ship subsequently adapted to operate without a crew, and this has significant implications for its layout and cost.

“Putting anybody on it for any period of time massively complicates a ship and adds significant costs,” Balchin explained, pointing to the need for accommodation, a galley, water supplies, and other systems required to support a human crew.

Engineers may occasionally board the vessel for maintenance or servicing, but its normal operation will be controlled from shore.

The initial concept is deliberately focused on a relatively straightforward ASW sensing mission. Balchin described this as a “minimum viable capability,” intended to get additional submarine-hunting sensors into the High North as quickly as possible.

Initially, the Arctic Hunter vessels could operate as an uncrewed flotilla, collecting underwater surveillance data and transmitting it to military decision-makers in the United Kingdom. This would provide the Royal Navy with additional sensing capacity without requiring the vessels to operate directly alongside crewed warships from the outset.

Over time, however, Kongsberg sees the vessels working more closely with the Type 26 frigates as those warships enter service.

“Type 26 at the core, and these acting as autonomous wingmen,” is how Balchin described the longer-term concept.

This would give the Royal Navy considerable flexibility in how it deploys the vessels, allowing them to operate independently or as part of a wider ASW formation. It could also help address gaps in the existing frigate fleet by providing additional sensing assets that do not require a crewed warship to remain continuously on station.

Although the Arctic Hunter is being developed primarily as a sensor platform, its design has considerable room for additional capabilities. Balchin highlighted the vessel’s installed power, payload capacity, and unused internal volume as factors that could allow it to accommodate other mission systems.

“We have resisted the temptation to go on flights of fancy at this time around what else it could do, and instead stick to that very simple: we want to get a program of record in quickly,” he said.

The vessel’s potential flexibility could nevertheless be attractive to other navies. Balchin emphasized that the underlying platform is not inherently tied to British systems. For the U.K. Type 92 requirement, it would carry sovereign British sonar and secure military communications, but other customers could select their own equipment.

“If America said, ‘I want to tow a different sonar, and I’d like to have an American communication system in there,’ that’s very easy as well,” he said. It’s worth noting that a version of the Sonar 2087, known as CAPTAS-4, had been planned for the U.S. Navy’s now-canceled Constellation class frigate. The FF(X) that has superseded it currently lacks any built-in sonar array, fixed or towed, and other anti-submarine warfare capabilities.

Unrivalled Anti-submarine warfare with CAPTAS-4 VDS and FLASH dipping sonar – Thales

Kongsberg believes its underlying platform could therefore provide a common commercial foundation for different national requirements, with the military payload adapted to suit each customer.

For the British program, the company is working with its established shipbuilding partner Balaena Maritime, with construction planned at the latter’s Birkenhead yard.

A commercial approach to construction is central to the Arctic Hunter proposition. Fishing vessels operating in Arctic waters typically spend around six weeks at sea before returning to port to unload their catch, refuel, and undergo servicing. They then head back out again, with relatively straightforward shore-based support.

Kongsberg believes the same model can be applied to the uncrewed ASW vessels. Existing commercial shipyard infrastructure, including dry docks and slipways, could support routine maintenance, with additional facilities required for sonar and military communications servicing.

There would also be a remote operations center in the High North to control the vessels themselves. However, the more important decisions about where the flotilla should operate and how its missions should be managed would remain in the United Kingdom.

The Arctic Hunter is also being presented as a potential export product. Balchin said Kongsberg’s separation from the wider Kongsberg Group earlier this year had given the maritime business greater freedom to work with different defense companies and national partners.

For the Royal Navy, the Type 92 is part of a much broader effort to reshape how the service operates at sea. Under the Hybrid Navy concept, four new types of uncrewed vessels will take on different roles, ranging from providing additional missile capacity to extending the fleet’s ability to detect and engage threats underwater and in the air.

The move toward a fleet built around autonomous vessels represents a new venture for the Royal Navy. However, the service is already beginning to establish the operational structures needed to make that transition.

Last week, it formally commissioned its 1st Autonomous Squadron at Portsmouth, a unit of around 180 personnel that will operate uncrewed surface vessels on frontline missions. Initially equipped with Kraken and Rattler craft, the squadron is intended to develop the skills, tactics and experience needed to bring increasingly sophisticated autonomous systems into the fleet. The Type 92 and other larger uncrewed vessels would represent a significant expansion of that effort, moving beyond smaller boats toward persistent, ocean-going capabilities.

The Arctic Hunter announcement also highlights the growing emphasis on industrial cooperation between the United Kingdom and Norway in the maritime domain. The two countries have been working more closely on security in the North Atlantic and High North, including through the Lunna House agreement, which includes an ambition for both nations to lead NATO’s adoption of autonomous systems in the region.

The proposed Type 92 program also comes amid mounting concern over Russian submarine activity in the North Atlantic, where Moscow’s undersea forces remain a significant threat to NATO’s maritime communications, reinforcement routes, and naval forces. Persistent uncrewed sensors could help address the challenge of maintaining surveillance over such a large area, particularly as crewed ASW platforms face competing operational demands.

Russian submarine activity in the North Atlantic has been a growing worry for NATO for years, with the challenge involving not just the number of deployments but the increasingly capable boats involved. As TWZ has reported, Russian submarines are operating for longer periods and carrying more lethal weapons, while newer designs such as the Yasen class are quieter and harder to detect. In April of this year, the United Kingdom and Norway disclosed a month-long operation with Norway and other allies to track a Russian Akula class attack submarine and two small, special-missions submarines operating near critical undersea infrastructure in the North Atlantic. The episode underscored the demands placed on crewed ships and patrol aircraft to maintain persistent surveillance across the region.

For now, the Arctic Hunter represents an industrially focused proposal for a major element of the U.K.’s emerging Hybrid Navy concept. Its combination of commercial shipbuilding, autonomous vessel technology, and sovereign British ASW systems is intended to offer a relatively rapid route to expanding the Royal Navy’s underwater surveillance capacity.

More broadly, the Type 92 points toward a future fleet in which crewed warships are increasingly supported by uncrewed platforms that distribute weapons, sensors and other capabilities across a wider operating area. While embracing so much unproven technology and concepts comes with risks, the Royal Navy is betting that a combination of autonomous systems and traditional warships can deliver greater firepower, persistence, and operational reach.

Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com

The U.S. Air Force is looking for contractors who could install netting at Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida to help protect F-35 Joint Strike Fighters from drone attacks. The netting plan, which has yet to be finalized, does reflect growing support for increased physical hardening of bases within the U.S. military, especially against uncrewed aerial threats. At the same time, it also calls attention to how the Air Force, in particular, has dragged its feet, if not actively pushed back, on such efforts.

The Air Force’s 325th Contracting Squadron at Tyndall announced last Friday that it was conducting “market research to identify qualified sources capable of providing all design, materials, labor, and equipment necessary to furnish and install counter-Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) netting” around six sunshade-type shelters at the base. Each one of these open-ended structures is 630 feet long, 65 feet wide, and 30 feet high. They are designed to accommodate up to six F-35As apiece at a time.

Today, Tyndall is a major hub for Air Force F-35 operations. Situated on the Florida Panhandle with ready access to extensive ranges in the Gulf, it is also an important facility for training and other activities. The base notably hosts the Checkered Flag large-force exercise series, which regularly includes participants from elsewhere across the U.S. military, as well as foreign allies and partners.

It is important to note here that the six structures mentioned in the notice only reflect a portion of the sunshade-type shelters at Tyndall. F-35s and other aircraft, including ones visiting for exercises and other training, also regularly park out in the open along the base’s flightline.

At this time, “the Government does not guarantee that a contract will result from this notice, and the Government will not reimburse any costs incurred by interested parties in preparing or submitting a response,” the contracting notice stresses. It does, however, lay out key parameters.

The 325th Contracting Squadron’s notice says the prospective counter-drone “netting installed on the north- and south-facing sides shall be quickly and easily retractable to allow normal aircraft entry and exit.” It has to have a tensile strength of at least 200 pounds and a mesh with squares no more than three inches across. Overall, the nets have to be “capable of stopping Group 1 small UAVs from penetrating the structure without compromising the netting.”

The U.S. military breaks drones down into five tiers, with Group 1 being the lowest. It covers designs with maximum takeoff weights of 20 pounds or less, that can’t fly above altitudes of 1,200 feet, and have maximum speeds of no more than 100 knots. Quadcopter-type drones, including weaponized commercial types, are a prime example of what falls into the Group 1 category. There are also fixed-wing uncrewed aerial systems that meet those parameters.

Beyond their counter-drone capabilities, the nets would have to be “UV-resistant, moisture-resistant, capable of withstanding temperatures up to 400°F,” and “polyester or nylon are preferred.” They also “must meet Miami-Dade County Wind Load rating requirements.” These requirements are in line with Tyndall’s location in the Florida Panhandle, where hurricanes and other extreme weather are also real concerns.

Drone threats to aircraft parked in the open are not new

TWZ has been sounding the alarm on threats posed by drones, small and large, to aircraft sitting out in the open for more than a decade now. Ukraine’s unprecedented Operation Spiderweb attack last year thrust these threats fully into the public consciousness. Spiderweb involved coordinated localized covert attacks on airbases across Russia using large waves of weaponized quadcopter drones. At least 10 Russian bombers, as well as a variety of other aircraft, all sitting on open flightlines, were destroyed.

Even before Operation Spiderweb, the U.S. Air Force had at least considered installing nets or other physical barriers to help blunt drone attacks on parked aircraft at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia and Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in North Carolina.

The potential plans to erect netting around sunshade-type shelters for F-22 Raptor fighters at Langley notably followed still largely unexplained drone incursions over that base in December 2023, which TWZ was the first to report. The Langley incursions reflected years of worrisome trends we had already been reporting on regarding the threat of drone attacks to key U.S. military bases and critical infrastructure within the U.S. homeland, as well as in waters just off America’s coastlines.

The scale and scope of potential drone threats on and off conventional battlefields has only continued to grow since. Just earlier this year, amid major combat operations against Iran, there were new reports of unauthorized drones flying over Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana, a major Air Force bomber hub, and other strategic military facilities in the United States. A similar surge in drone incidents at key bases hosting U.S. forces, as well as commercial airports, in Europe has also been documented.

In October, the Air Force made a sudden and unexpected decision to withdraw B-1 bombers from RAF Fairford, an airbase in the United Kingdom. Still, unconfirmed reports said that the move was driven by concerns about an Iranian-directed drone attack broadly akin to Operation Spiderweb.

Separate from any particular mode of attack, the vulnerability of aircraft parked out on open flightlines is well established at this point, in general. This point was driven home for the U.S. military more directly by an Iranian missile and drone barrage on Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia in March, which destroyed a prized E-3 Sentry Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) radar plane and damaged several KC-135 tankers. F-15E Strike Eagles and A-10 Warthog ground attack jets were also reportedly damaged following Iran’s attack on Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan in September.

Counter-drone nets would not have stopped the attacks on Prince Sultan or Muwaffaq Salti, in which both included ballistic missiles. Iran also launched long-range kamikaze drones much larger and more capable than any Group 1 design at Prince Sultan Air Base.

In March, Iranian-backed militias in Iraq also launched localized drone attacks on a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter and other American assets in that country, where nets could have offered additional protection.

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

A matter of urgency

Despite the years of concerning drone incursions, as well as observations from the conflict in Ukraine and now the experiences from the war with Iran, the Air Force has continued to, at best, downplay the value of physical hardening of infrastructure. A debate surrounding the pros and cons of building new hardened aircraft shelters has become a particular flashpoint. More recently, the service’s top leader has voiced support for nets and other lower-cost passive defenses, while still pushing back on shelters.

“There is value in some light protection against small, unmanned threats,” Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Kenneth Wilsbach told Breaking Defense in July. “Some of them — just nets that are up that keep a small, few-$100 drone from getting next to a $2 billion aircraft. That actually works, [and is] really cheap.”

Otherwise, “I think that I don’t want to spend a lot of money on hardening shelters. Unless you’re going to send something 100 feet or more underground, we can blow it up, and so can they,” Wilsbach said in the same interview. “So, the economics of building a shelter that is impervious to a strike doesn’t work.”

“I think the economics favor defending your airspace, defending your ground space with systems that can defeat the incoming rounds, versus building a shelter,” he added. “Some people would argue, well, you should do both. Well, that’s even more expensive. And the other thing is, the shelter doesn’t go anywhere.”

Wilsbach’s comments here came in response to a direct question about whether he still stood behind similar remarks he made back in 2023. At that time, he was head of Pacific Air Forces (PACAF), the Air Force’s top command in that region. In recent years, other Air Force officers have similarly downplayed calls for construction of new hardened aircraft shelters, in particular.

When it comes to base defense and reducing vulnerability of aircraft on the ground, the Air Force has focused more on active measures like traditional surface-to-air missile batteries and anti-aircraft guns, as well as directed energy weapons and electronic warfare systems. The service also continues to put heavy emphasis on dispersal and deception, as well as new and still-evolving distributed concepts of operations.

As TWZ has reported on several occasions now, the key counterpoint when it comes to shelters, at least, is that not all such structures have to be stereotypical Cold War-era concrete bunkers to be useful. Just like nets can provide a valuable additional lower-cost layer of counter-drone protection, less-well-protected shelters that are cheaper to build would still offer benefits.

As we have written in the past:

“A structure that shields against smaller blasts and shrapnel, also including from cluster munitions that can be readily scattered across wide areas, is one that then has to be addressed by more capable weapons. This could even include mobile or otherwise temporary shelters that offer sufficient concealment and protection.”

“Eliminating, or at least substantially mitigating, the lowest rung of threats creates a dilemma for opponents, who then have to decide whether it is even worthwhile to attempt certain types of attacks. There is clear value in narrowing the available options for the enemy and pushing them toward having to expend higher-end, more expensive munitions, that are available in smaller quantities, and that traditional active defenses may be better optimized to handle. As an example, it may be more viable to shoot down a small barrage of incoming cruise missiles than a swarm of dozens of drones.”

Fully enclosed shelters, even ones that aren’t hardened, can offer additional benefits beyond protecting against hostile attacks. As mentioned earlier, extreme weather is a real threat to aircraft parked out on open flightlines, too. Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida is an especially notable case study to consider in this regard.

In 2018, Hurricane Michael ravaged Tyndall. At the time, the base was home to a significant portion of the Air Force’s highly prized F-22 fleet. Approximately 17 F-22s had to ride out the storm in existing hangars, and four sustained significant damage. As the scope of required repairs to Tyndall’s infrastructure became clear, F-22 operations there came to an end. Jets from the base were reassigned permanently to other units around the country. The Air Force only formalized plans to turn the Florida base into a new hub for the F-35 in 2021, and the first Joint Strike Fighters began arriving there in 2023.

Trends at home and abroad

TWZ has long highlighted how the Air Force’s position on the construction of new shelters bucks very visible trends elsewhere globally, including in China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran. Even before Operation Spiderweb, expanding Ukrainian drone and missile attacks had pushed Russia to begin building new and increasingly large hardened shelters at various bases, especially on the occupied Crimean Peninsula.

For years now, counter-drone netting, as well as cage-type armor, has also been increasingly in use in Ukraine and Russia for protecting static structures and fighting positions, as well as vehicles on land and ships at sea. These are other trends that have been expanding globally, as well.

As highlighted by Gen. Wilsbach’s comments to Breaking Defense in July, the U.S. military has clearly been taking notice of global developments when it comes to aspects of physical hardening. At the end of January, the Pentagon, by way of Joint Interagency Task Force 401 (JIATF-401), also notably issued new guidance for protecting critical infrastructure against drone attacks that explicitly called for increased use of netting, along with cables and other kinds of passive physical defenses. JIATF-401 was established in late 2025 to serve as a focal point for counter-drone efforts across the U.S. military, as well as other branches of government, and to help accelerate the fielding of new capabilities.

The counter-drone guidance the Pentagon promulgated earlier this year did also make clear that there is no one single solution to threats posed by uncrewed aerial attackers. Nets and other passive measures are complements, not substitutes for active defenses and other relevant tactics, techniques, and procedures. By the same token, however, they are valuable, if not increasingly critical, additions to a comprehensive layered defensive architecture.

“The technology is not going to solve this problem for us. We can’t field a system that will stop every drone,” U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Matt Ross, Director, head of JIATF-401, told TWZ and other outlets during a press call in December 2025 in response to a direct question about physical hardening from this author. “At the end of that would be protection, which would be netting or fencing or physical barriers that would prevent a [sic] unmanned system from having its intended effect.”

As it stands now, prospective contractors have until November 13 to submit details about how they would go about installing counter-drone netting at Tyndall if and when the Air Force decides to move ahead with that project. In the meantime, the contracting announcement only reinforces the continued and increasingly glaring lack of urgency with which the service is pursuing any kind of physical hardening.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

The strike leaves more than 70 percent of northern Iraq’s Kurdish region without power.

A drone attack on the Khor Mor gasfield in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq has caused a fire at the facility and cut power to the region, according to Iraqi and Kurdish officials.

The Sunday night attack left more than 70 percent of the Kurdish region without power.

It was not clear who was responsible for the attack or whether it was related to the United States and Israel’s war on Iran.

Al Jazeera’s fact-checking agency Sanad has verified footage of smoke and flames rising from the vicinity of the gasfield in the Sulaimaniyah governorate.

Omid Ahmed, spokesperson for the Kurdistan Regional Government’s Ministry of Electricity, said the attack suspended gas supply to power plants in the cities of Erbil, Sulaimaniyah, Bazian, Chamchamal and Duhok, the official Iraqi News Agency (INA) reported.

The strike knocked between 2,500 and 2,800 megawatts of electricity generation off the grid, he said.

He added that the ministry would provide electricity to critical facilities, such as hospitals and water treatment plants, by operating hydroelectric power stations and other plants that run on alternative fuel.

Al Jazeera’s Peter Smith, reporting from Baghdad, cited security sources as saying the explosive-laden drone struck the Khor Mor gas storage facility, reducing the energy grid’s capacity by 70 to 80 percent.

Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi said there were no casualties as a result of the attack, based on an initial assessment, the INA reported.

Al-Zaidi also directed that a joint investigative committee be formed with the relevant authorities in the Kurdish region to investigate the circumstances surrounding the attack, INA reported.

The attack comes amid heightened regional tensions. A drone strike hit the same facility last year, with no group having claimed responsibility.

Colombian President de la Espriella says those behind the attack in Santa Rosa del Sur will have ‘nowhere to hide’.

A drone attack on a military base in northern Colombia has killed three soldiers and wounded at least 16, the country’s armed forces said.

The Colombian military said in a statement on Saturday that the attack hit a base in Santa Rosa del Sur, a small town in the foothills of the San Lucas mountain range. Authorities have not said who carried out the strike, the latest in a series of attacks on security forces as violence rises across rural parts of the country.

The area is rich in gold mines and has long been disputed by rebel armed groups including the Gulf Clan, the National Liberation Army (ELN) and smaller groups led by former members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

Footage shared on social media showed clouds of smoke rising from the base after three explosions, and soldiers taking cover in shelters made of sandbags.

“Those who were behind this attack… will have nowhere to hide,” President Abelardo de la Espriella wrote on X. “Every attack against our soldiers strengthens our resolve to defend Colombia.”

Rising violence

Violence has intensified in several rural areas since de la Espriella, a conservative, took office in August.

The president cancelled peace talks with rebel groups and has taken a confrontational approach, including more air strikes, deploying more troops in some cities and creating joint task forces to defend strategic assets such as a pipeline that runs from the Caribbean coast to central Colombia.

De la Espriella’s government argues that armed groups used ceasefires granted by the previous government to consolidate their grip on rural areas, where they tax local businesses and profit from the drug trade.

Some groups have responded by stepping up attacks on the country’s armed forces.

Last week, a military base in Tolima province was targeted with missiles made from gas canisters. The attack killed four civilians, including a two-month-old baby.

Police in the border city of Cucuta have been attacked several times with remotely activated bombs.

State forces and illegal armed groups carried out 34 attacks with bombs or explosives in Colombia in the four weeks to October 16, a 9 percent increase on last year’s four-week average, according to ACLED, a group that monitors armed conflicts.

A 2016 peace deal with FARC led to the demobilisation of more than 14,000 fighters, but smaller groups have since fought over the rebels’ former territory.

Shield AI has shared the first look at a full-scale prototype of its X-BAT jet-powered stealth ‘fighter’ drone, which is designed to both take off and land vertically from a tail-sitting position. This is the company’s latest step toward proving out what remains an extremely ambitious aircraft concept. The tailless X-BAT has already received a significant vote of confidence from the U.S. Navy, which is hoping to see the drone develop into a real operational capability on a very aggressive timeline.

A video showing X-BAT 001, the first of two full-scale prototypes Shield AI plans to build, was released earlier today and is seen below. The drone is in the process of being moved from the company’s main hub in Frisco, Texas, to its flight test facility in Newton, Kansas. These sites are also known as X-Forge 1 and X-Forge 2, respectively. X-BAT was revealed to the public last year, as TWZ was first to report on in depth.

X-BAT 001.

X-BAT has already evolved significantly since its unveiling. In April, a half-scale model was displayed at the Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space 2026 exposition, showing major changes to the core design. The entire planform was reworked from a ‘cranked kite’ type arrangement to one with an arrowhead-shaped profile featuring a straight leading edge with a more dramatic sweep.

The configuration of the X-BAT 001 prototype is broadly reflective of the model seen at Sea-Air-Space this year, as well as more recent computer renderings. However, there are some notable differences.

For one, the prototype’s thrust-vectoring exhaust nozzle extends significantly to the rear of the drone beyond the trailing edges of the wings. Previously shown models and renders had the nozzle in a position more inset in the rear fuselage.

There are also two pronounced bulges toward the rear of the central body, one on either side of X-BAT 001’s dorsal ‘spine.’ These do not appear to be present on any models or renderings shown in the past. Each one of the bulges also has a small opening at the front. There are two circular openings on top of the spine with mesh screens covering them, as well. Small fans may be visible inside them.

The purpose of these features on top is unknown, and Shield AI declined to comment when asked for more information. They could be tied to the drone’s propulsion arrangement. The drone’s thrust-vectoring exhaust nozzle only provides pitch and yaw control. Shield AI has said in the past that bleed air routed through thrusters in the wings will be used for roll control.

Various panel lines with circular edges are also visible across the top of the drone. This is distinctly different from the saw-tooth-edged paneling depicted on previously shown models and renders.

As an aside, the prototype also features an insignia on the top of its left wing with a skull and other motifs, which the company says is meant to pay homage to all four branches of the U.S. military.

“X-BAT 001 is a development aircraft, so the design will evolve as we test and refine it,” a Shield AI spokesperson also told TWZ today.

Shield AI had previously said that the prototype nozzle arrangement would lack low-observable (LO) attributes, but also that this would change after initial testing. From what we can see now, the experimental nozzle is well blended considering the current stage of development. Beyond that, it has what appears to be remarkably good low-observable (stealthy) optimization, especially true for a prototype. Initial examples of new designs are often cluttered with elements that are eliminated later on, like antennas and air data probes. Some of these features could be added to X-BAT 001 prior to flight testing.

In an interview with TWZ last month, Shield AI’s Armor Harris, Senior Vice President and General Manager of the company’s aircraft division, had also compared the expected differences between the full-scale prototypes and production version “as like X-35 versus F-35.” This is a reference to Lockheed Martin’s X-35 demonstrators, which were broadly similar, but also distinctly different from the production variants of the Joint Strike Fighter.

“That’s a full-scale vehicle,” Harris also stressed when talking about the configuration of the full-scale prototypes. “It’s got the outer mold line, it’s got the F110 engine, the full propulsion path, everything in it.”

The “propulsion path” mentioned here, which includes the aforementioned exhaust nozzle and thrusters, is absolutely critical to the X-BAT concept. The design leverages past work on an Axisymmetric Vectoring Exhaust Nozzle (AVEN), first developed in the 1990s for an experimental thrust-vectoring F-16 fighter. Shield AI has been using the original test nozzle, which had been in storage for decades, as part of the development process.

X-BAT’s ability to take off and land vertically comes down to this propulsion arrangement combined with guidance, navigation, and control (GNC) systems. The GNC elements will leverage Shield AI’s experience with the much smaller, internal combustion-engine-powered, tail-sitting V-BAT. This, in turn, creates benefits from the design perspective, especially obviating the need for any kind of landing gear, and opens the door to a host of new operational possibilities. X-BAT is designed to be launched and recovered via a trailer-based system that can be deployed on land and on ships with sufficient deck space, all with a minimal footprint.

“The launch and recovery vehicle is actually critical to the operation of the X-BAT weapon system because it enables survivability on the ground. So when you’re operating in a land-based environment, it enables basically shoot-and-scoot tactics,” Shield AI’s Harris told us last month. “Enemy transporter-erector-launchers [for missiles] are like pretty hard to find because they’re constantly moving around. Just like X-BAT, when it’s mated onto the launch and recovery vehicle, [it] is always moving around, makes it hard to track, hard to find, hard to destroy.”

Land-based deployment concepts could be particularly attractive for expeditionary and distribution operations scenarios, especially in the Pacific. This is something TWZ has explored in more detail in the past.

On the maritime side, Shield AI envisions X-BATs on their launch and recovery trailers – potentially dozens at a time – being embarked on a variety of ships, including amphibious warfare and expeditionary sea base-type vessels. The company notably touts the concept as offering additional air combat capacity without having to sacrifice space for crewed planes on aircraft carriers.

“So when you think about the number of carrier air wings that the Navy has to deploy, deploying X-BAT across all these other ships basically significantly increases the number of carrier air wings,” Harris said in his interview with us in October.

Once in the air, X-BAT is designed to operate as a multi-mission tactical platform capable of carrying munitions internally and on hardpoints under the wings. The drones will also be able to carry various sensors, electronic warfare packages, and other mission systems. Shield AI plans to leverage its Hivemind software to give X-BATs a high degree of autonomy when carrying out any assigned task.

“Those multirole abilities put X-BAT in a very different category from Air Force Increment 1 CCAs. Those are much smaller aircraft, focused exclusively on air-to-air,” Shield AI’s Harris wrote in an extended statement today. “X-BAT is twice the size, has the capacity for air-to-ground strike missions, and carries many more sensors on board. The F110 engine with thrust vectoring also gives X-BAT a much more fighter-like flight envelope than those smaller aircraft with Williams-type engines.”

X-BAT is on the way.

Before any of these operational capabilities can be demonstrated, the core X-BAT concept still very much needs to be proven out. There have been several unsuccessful attempts to operationalize broadly similar designs in the past, which Shield AI itself has acknowledged.

In the past year, Shield AI has conducted “wind tunnel testing, engine testing, thermal testing, all kinds of stuff to basically take the major risks in the program, [and] burn them down, so we can move confidently into the production design,” Harris told TWZ last month. The plan for the prototypes now is to “start with the vehicle horizontal, sitting on that launch and recovery vehicle, running the engine. Then we bring it up vertical, run the engine vertically, run the vehicle vertically.”

“Then we have one of the biggest cranes in the world that’s getting set up at our test site in Kansas right now, and we hang the vehicle suspended from that crane and do a bunch of testing while it’s hanging from the crane in free flight,” he added. “Then we take the crane away, and then we do the actual untethered flights.”

As mentioned, the U.S. Navy is already actively supporting development of X-BAT with a clear eye toward fielding the drones operationally in the future. Just this year, Shield AI has received $200 million in funding from the Navy in support of a program called Runway Independent Maritime Expeditionary Strike (RIMES). Some of this money has come via the Office of the Under Secretary of War for Acquisition and Sustainment. The company has also committed an equal amount of internal funding to the project.

“The Department of the Navy Rapid Capabilities Office (DONRCO), in partnership with the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), is aggressively accelerating development and testing of RIMES in order to deliver a runway-independent, long-range maritime strike capability to the fleet at the speed of relevance,” a Navy spokesperson told TWZ last week. “Specific timelines for achieving operational capability will be determined by operational evaluations, flight-test performance, and subsequent fleet requirements.”

RIMES is distinct from the Navy’s program pursuing carrier-based Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) type drones.

Shield AI has said previously that the goal is to fly a fully missionized X-BAT in 2028 and start series production the following year. The company has also raised the prospect of achieving at least a limited degree of operational capability in 2029. As we have noted in the past, X-BAT reaching any real level of operational maturity within three years is, to say the least, an extraordinarily ambitious timeline.

How fast Shield AI progresses with testing of its initial prototypes, the first of which we have now seen, will speak to its ability to keep to this schedule.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

Attacks the latest to disrupt electricity supplies; army reports new defections from paramilitary RSF.

Drone strikes are reported to have hit three electricity substations in eastern and northern Sudan, the latest attacks in a concentrated campaign.

The attacks on Monday, which caused widespread power outages across parts of the country, brought the number of strikes reported to target Sudan’s electricity network to 18 over the past week.

Sudan’s military government has claimed that Ethiopia is aiding the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) – which it has been fighting since April 2023 – in carrying out the attacks.

Facilities in New Halfa and Aroma in eastern Kassala state were hit early on Monday, while the al-Ghazali substation in Sudan’s Northern State was also targeted, according to local media.

Videos circulating on social media appeared to show fires at the facilities, with civil defence teams trying to extinguish the fires. Al Jazeera was not able to immediately verify the footage and reports.

On Sunday, Sudan’s government said it had filed complaints against Ethiopia with the United Nations Security Council and the African Union’s Peace and Security Council, accusing Addis Ababa of involvement in the ongoing campaign of attacks on civilian infrastructure and power stations.

The Sudanese army also reported on Monday that a group of RSF members had defected by surrendering to its forces in Damazin, the capital of southeastern Blue Nile state.

The announcement follows a declaration, in video footage obtained exclusively by Al Jazeera, by senior RSF commander Siddiq Ander that he had defected.

In a statement, the army said that the development was the latest in increasing defections from the paramilitary group in Blue Nile state.

It added that the group’s commander had provided information concerning the management of military operations in Damazin, including “Ethiopian support” for the RSF.

One-way drone attacks have killed or wounded 484 civilians since February, Khartoum says.

Sudan has lodged a complaint against Ethiopia with both the United Nations Security Council and the African Union’s Peace and Security Council after a series of deadly drone attacks this year.

In a statement late on Sunday, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs accused the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group of using Ethiopian territory to launch “brazen aggression” against “civilian sites and power stations” in Sudan, resulting in hundreds of casualties and disruptions to essential services.

The string of incidents “places Ethiopia before international law”, the ministry added.

Sudan’s military has repeatedly accused Ethiopia of aiding the RSF, which it has been fighting in a civil war since April 2023. Ethiopia, meanwhile, has accused the Sudanese military of backing rebels linked to the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, a charge Khartoum denied.

The ministry’s statement came alongside a report from Sudan’s army-led Transitional Sovereignty Council that alleged 70 assaults from February 15 to October 27 involving 187 one-way attack drones.

The attacks killed or wounded 484 civilians and killed 176 Sudanese soldiers, the report said, with another 200 soldiers wounded.

“Since February 2026, armed drones have taken off from Ethiopian soil … to strike Sudanese cities and civilians,” the report said.

The report identified launch sites at Asosa Airport in western Ethiopia, the Kurmuk-Gizen border area and Bahir Dar airbase in northwestern Ethiopia’s Amhara region.

Last month saw 28 attacks carried out by 97 drones, the report said.

It cited an October 9 attack on displaced families in Wad el-Mahi, located in Sudan’s Blue Nile region near the Ethiopian border, which it said killed 30 civilians – 26 women and four children – and wounded 100.

A spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Saturday that he was “appalled” by the impact of drone strikes in Sudan, days after another strike on a market in RSF-controlled territory in Darfur killed more than 100 people.

The secretary-general “strongly condemns the escalating drone attacks in Sudan by the parties to the conflict and the catastrophic toll these attacks are inflicting on civilians”, the spokesman said, adding that the strikes constitute violations of international humanitarian law.

The Chief Minister of Jersey, Senator Lyndon Farnham, said operating a drone close to an airport was “not a prank or a harmless hobby”.

“To those responsible, the message is clear: if you are identified, you should expect to face the full consequences of the law,” he added.

Pacific Basirwe was waiting for his wife and young son to fly in from London Heathrow when he heard the news.

He said: “It’s annoying, this should be regulated, and the people doing those things should be prosecuted.

“It’s been two days in a row now… If there is no further action, they will keep doing it, which is not good.”

A GJ-21 stealthy flying-wing uncrewed combat air vehicle (UCAV) has successfully launched from and recovered aboard the Type 076 amphibious assault ship Sichuan, according to China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Visual confirmation of this milestone has yet to emerge, but there have been steady signs of preparations for flight trials from the Sichuan, which features an electromagnetic catapult. GJ-21s have already been spotted flying from airfields on land.

The GJ-21 and the land-based GJ-11 Mysterious Dragon it is based on are prime examples of China’s major investments in UCAVs and other flying-wing-type drones. These developments stand in particular contrast to the U.S. military’s eschewing of such designs, at least publicly. This is despite significant past U.S. achievements in this arena, including in the development of carrier-based UCAVs. The PLA Navy (PLAN) now looks to be on track to be the first country to field an operational capability of this kind.

“China’s first ship-borne stealth reconnaissance and attack drone ‘GJ-21’ recently made its first successful take-off and landing on [the Type] 076 amphibious assault ship, the ‘Sichuan’ (Hull 51),” according to a post today from the China Military Bugle account on X, an official PLA mouthpiece. “This is another significant breakthrough in the development of China’s amphibious assault ship, indicating that the Chinese Navy now has the capability to operate fixed-wing stealth drones from large maritime combat platforms.”

At the time of writing, neither the PLA nor Chinese state media have shared where or when these trials occurred or provided any other additional details, including how many total launches and recoveries were conducted. No official pictures or videos from the testing have been released so far.

Unconfirmed claims that a GJ-21 had been launched from Sichuan had already begun circulating on social media earlier this month. As an aside, the GJ-21 is readily discernible from the land-based GJ-11 by the catapult bar on its nose landing gear strut.

A review of satellite imagery from Planet Labs does show Sichuan was at its usual berth at Hudong-Zhonghua in Shanghai as of October 13, but absent four days later. When exactly it left port is unclear. The one-of-a-kind Type 076 does not appear to have returned until October 26. TWZ has also obtained a satellite image of Hudong-Zhonghua taken just today from Vantor, with the ship still seen sitting at the pier, as seen at the top of this story and below. GJ-21 drones, or more likely mockups thereof, have also been present on the pier for some time.

Even while Sichuan was still under construction, there were growing signs that a navalized version of the GJ-11, as well as other uncrewed platforms, would be major components of its future air wing. With its electromagnetic catapult and notably large overall size, the Type 076 is unlike any other big-deck amphibious warship in service today globally, as TWZ has previously explored in depth.

As mentioned, there have been further signs that the PLA has been preparing Sichuan for real launches and recoveries, especially of GJ-21s, since last year. Pictures emerged online in October 2025 showing a red-colored test ‘truck’ on the ship’s flight deck, indicating the start of catapult testing. Video from those tests has since been released. Weighted trucks like this have long been used to test catapults on aircraft carriers during construction or following maintenance. The Type 076 left port for the first time in November 2025.

Weighted carts catapult test on Type 076 LHD

three lines marked directly under and outside the wheels of the Red cart to ensure it is centered

the parallel alignment markings flanking the catapult slot serve as visual tips for precise positioning https://t.co/KJkC2ZrLgS pic.twitter.com/pZa0Vx56jG

— David Wang (@DavidWangPLA) August 1, 2026

“Two GJ-21 aircraft were displayed at the victory parade in September 2025, reportedly having entered PLAN service in mid-2025,” according to Andreas Rupprecht, an expert on Chinese aviation and contributor to TWZ. “By late 2025, several GJ-21 aircraft were reportedly undergoing simulated EMALS launches and arrested landings at the PLAN’s land-based facility at Huangdicun.”

In February of this year, GJ-21 mockups were spotted on Sichuan’s flight deck and riding on the ship’s port-side elevator to the hangar deck as part of what appeared to be deck-handling trials.

After the first Type 076 LHD/LAH “Sichuan” was seen yesterday with a GJ-21 UCAV mock-up on deck, the GJ-21 was seen for the first time with its wings folded and later lowered to the hangar deck on one of the elevators.

(Images @鼎盛大彪 from Weibo) pic.twitter.com/eMyz2QLHQX

— @Rupprecht_A (@RupprechtDeino) February 1, 2026

More recent satellite imagery had shown that the Type 076’s flight deck had received additional markings in line with progress toward real flight operations. Fittings for three arresting cables also became plainly visible. Those cables are also notably depicted in the graphic that the China Military Bugle shared online today.

The GJ-21 will of course not be the only aircraft in the Type 076’s future air wing. The ship is also expected to carry a variety of other uncrewed aircraft, as well as crewed helicopters. China has shown a range of other combat drone designs in recent years. Navalized versions could well be developed for deployment on Sichuan, as well as PLAN’s growing fleet of traditional carriers and other suitable configured vessels.

Loading the Type 076 with operational UCAVs would only underscore the significance of this particular ship. As we have previously written:

“The potential value to the PLAN of having a fleet of very large deck amphibious assault ships that are highly capable of large-scale drone operations as well as traditional amphibious assaults is clear. These ships could be used to launch and recover UCAVs like the GJ-11 and other types of drones to perform a host of missions from maritime strike to intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR). They could be used to provide additional ‘mass’ in support of the operations of larger carrier strike groups and help to free the air wings of flattops like Fujian up for tasks they might be better suited for. In addition, they could provide a lower tier of naval aviation support that could be employed independently.”

…

“Simply having more naval aviation capacity overall would give the PLAN added flexibility for various operations closer to the mainland, including a potential military intervention against Taiwan or defending its expansive and largely unrecognized territorial claims in places like the South China Sea. Type 076s could also help project naval and air power further from China’s shores, something that has also been a driving factor behind the country’s broader carrier ambitions.”

…

“The Type 076 could help provide support during humanitarian assistance and disaster relief operations. Big deck amphibious warfare ships, in general, provide their operators with immensely valuable platforms for projecting both hard and soft power.”

Chinese PLA Navy’s First Type 076 Amphibious Assault Ship “Sichuan” Conducts First Sea Trial

Last year, the PLA separately confirmed that the GJ-11 had entered at least limited operational service. That followed a steady ramp-up in testing of that drone based on what could be seen in satellite imagery and video clips that had emerged online. This included evidence of near-daily flights at Malan Air Base, a major hub for testing uncrewed platforms. GJ-11s had also been spotted at an operational air base in China’s Tibet Autonomous Region.

New video out from the People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) of China shows the new GJ-11 stealth drone (UCAV), and also the J-20 stealth fighter firing a live PL-15 air-to-air missile: pic.twitter.com/wraDqyMOht

— The STRATCOM Bureau (@OSPSF) November 11, 2025

As mentioned earlier, the continued development of the GJ-11 and GJ-21 are reflective of the PLA’s broader pursuit of stealthy flying-wing drones, which is not limited to UCAVs. Several larger designs that look most immediately suited to high-altitude, long-endurance ISR missions have also broken cover in the country in the past few years.

There is something of a trend in this regard globally, with Russia, India, Turkey, and France also pursuing flying-wing drone designs. The U.S. military continues to be markedly absent from this space, at least that we know, despite major investments and real demonstrations of relevant capability, before various programs were abandoned for reasons that still remain largely unclear. In the late 2010s, the U.S. Navy notably looked to be right on the edge of fielding a carrier-based UCAV, before changing course entirely to an uncrewed tanker instead. There are some signs now that the service may be taking another look at the capabilities it passed over.

It is still to be seen how quickly the PLA’s official statement today will be followed by real confirmation of the launching and recovery of a GJ-21 from the Sichuan.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

Iran claims to have brought down what looks to be a U.S.-made MQM-170C Outlaw G2 drone largely intact. A video shows it has a notable feature on top of its nose. In U.S. military use today, Outlaw-series drones are best known as an aerial target for use in training and testing.

The footage in question, and the accompanying claims, should be treated with caution given that the regime in Tehran and the country’s media outlets do routinely make exaggerated and unverified claims. That being said, so far, the footage looks to be credible. Furthermore, the U.S. military has pushed back on Iran’s version of events, but has not explicitly denied having lost one of these drones in the region recently.

For its part, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) says it captured the MQM-170-series drone following what it described as an “offensive electronic warfare operation” somewhere to the “west of the Strait of Hormuz.” The IRGC also claims that the uncrewed aircraft was conducting reconnaissance on Iranian air defenses positioned along the country’s Persian Gulf coast. At the time of writing, no firm evidence has been provided to support either of these assertions. The IRGC has released the aforementioned video, seen below, which it says shows the drone being tracked via an infrared camera, as well as after its recovery.

“In the past weeks and months, the IRGC has repeatedly lied out of desperation, and today is no different,” U.S. Navy Capt. Tim Hawkins, spokesperson for U.S. Central Command, told TWZ when asked about the specific Iranian claims.

“We’re not going to waste our time. U.S. forces remain vigilant and laser-focused on our assigned missions,” Hawkins said in response to a follow-up question about whether CENTCOM could confirm or deny the loss of an MQM-170-series drone for any reason.

As an aside, Iran recovered an Anduril Dive-LD uncrewed underwater vehicle (UUV) largely intact last month in what the IRGC claimed had been a “complex intelligence and operational action.” U.S. authorities ultimately confirmed the loss of the advanced UUV, but said it was the result of a malfunction.

As mentioned, the drone seen in the IRGC video does look to be an MQM-170C, or at least a closely-related variant thereof. It has an interesting feature on top of its nose: a single forward-looking aperture. This is something that is commonly associated with staring-type optics, which drones often use to aid with navigation. There is a possibility that it could be a seeker, if the drone were to be configured as a one-way-attack munition, but this seems unlikely.

MQM-170C’s manufacturer, Griffon Aerospace, which refers to this design internally as the Outlaw Gen 2 (G2), does say on its website that it can be configured as “an inexpensive payload development platform offering great endurance, payload size, weight, and power.” The company’s website also says that the target configuration of the G2 has a gross weight of 150 pounds, but that this can grow to 225 pounds when used as a more general-purpose drone.

The drone, which is nearly 11 feet long and has a wingspan of 16 feet, otherwise has a stated maximum endurance of eight hours, top speed of 126 knots, and the ability to reach altitudes of more than 16,000 feet. The design is propelled by a 2-cylinder, 2-stroke combustion engine driving a single pusher propeller. The G2 gets into the air via a catapult-type launcher and can be recovered, either after a glide-in landing on suitable terrain or via parachute.

Griffon Aerospace also offers an ‘expanded’ G2E version with fixed tricycle landing gear as an “open and customizable platform for ISR [intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance] missions, subsystem testing, and R&D [research and development].” This version has a lower maximum takeoff weight and total endurance compared to the baseline G2, according to the company’s website. The IRGC video does not show any evidence of landing gear, but it could have broken away when the drone came down.

The larger Outlaw family, which traces back to the early 2000s, also includes the Gen 1 MQM-170A, which has a completely different design from the subsequent G2 drone. Griffon also developed a derivative of the Gen 1 design with a twin-boom tail, called the Outlaw Boomer, which the U.S. military designated the MQM-170B. There is also a twin-engine, twin-boom derivative of the Outlaw G2 that the U.S. military has at least tested in the past.

This brings us to the additional matter of a contract the U.S. Army awarded to Griffon Aerospace, valued at nearly $68 million, for the procurement of a Gen 3 version of the Outlaw on June 3. When the Pentagon first announced this deal, it was explicitly said to be “in support of Operation Epic Fury” against Iran. That portion of the announcement was quietly deleted sometime thereafter.

“A company official declined to provide details about the Gen 3 design,” Breaking Defense reported in a story published on June 5.

On August 25, Griffon received an additional contract from the Army, valued at just under $133 million, “to procure Griffon Outlaw systems, support equipment and field service representatives for system use and employment.” That announcement made no mention of operations against Iran.

At the time of writing, Griffon Aerospace’s website does not appear to make any mention of the Gen 3 Outlaw. TWZ has reached out for more information about this drone.

Given the known breadth of Outlaw designs to date, it is possible that the Gen 3 drone is substantially, if not entirely, different from any of the existing types. At the same time, the June contract announcement does establish a link between the Outlaw family and U.S. military use outside of training and testing, and specifically as part of real-world operations aimed at Iran.

There remains the potential that Iran simply captured an Outlaw target drone that U.S. forces lost control of during training or testing in the region. The drone seen in the IRGC video lacks the high-visibility orange markings typically seen on aerial targets, though these could easily have been painted over. Iranian authorities could have still fabricated the recovery, in part or in whole, though there is no firm evidence of that at present, either.

Another non-U.S. operator region could also be employing versions of the Outlaw, including in non-target drone roles, such as for surveillance and reconnaissance, or as decoys.

All of this does now come amid growing signs that the United States, as well as Israel, are preparing to launch a new major campaign against Iran. As TWZ reported recently, stimulating Iranian air defenses to glean key intelligence about their current capabilities and positions would be critical in the lead-up to any such operation.

“Stimulating Iran’s air defenses is critical,” our own Tyler Rogoway wrote on X earlier this month following unconfirmed reports of unusual Israeli air activity. “By Iran operating as if a full scale attack could be coming, their air defenses can be detected, categorized and geolocated. This is absolutely critical prior to a major air operation. Surveilling them during times of lower alert does not provide the same fidelity of actionable intelligence. Knowing where those threats are and how they are operating can mean the difference of life and death and/or will help standoff munitions make their way to their targets as those defenses can be suppressed, destroyed, or avoided entirely via careful mission planning.”

In September, claims had emerged that Iran had shot down a U.S.-made ADM-160 Miniature Air-Launched Decoy (MALD), but that remains unconfirmed. There were also reports of unusual, UAP-like objects flying over Iran, which have similarly not been confirmed.

Ukraine’s 475th Separate Assault Regiment, known as CODE 9.2, says it has used the StarGate uncrewed aerial platform to evacuate two seriously wounded soldiers from the battlefield in the span of a week. Reportedly, this is the first time the specialized drone has been used for an operation of this kind. It is not, however, the first instance of Ukraine using an aerial rescue drone on the battlefield, with the more extemporized heavy hexacopter also having been used recently, as you can read about here.

Taken together, the missions underscore Ukraine’s efforts to develop alternative casualty evacuation capabilities as Russian drone threats, electronic warfare, and harsh terrain increasingly complicate conventional recovery operations, including those using uncrewed ground vehicles (UGVs).

МИ ЕВАКУЮВАЛИ ДВОХ ПОРАНЕНИХ ДРОНОМ STARGATE

According to CODE 9.2, on its Facebook page, the regiment’s personnel carried out two complex evacuation missions using StarGate, a platform developed and manufactured by Ukrainian company SkyFall. The two wounded servicemen were 25-year-old Yevhen, callsign “Izyum,” and 24-year-old Artem, callsign “Kolobok.” Both belonged to adjacent units and had suffered severe limb injuries while occupying positions in a so-called gray zone approximately three miles from the Russian border.

Difficult terrain, including water obstacles, and the threat posed by Russian first-person-view (FPV) drones prevented ground vehicles from reaching the casualties, the regiment said. Air evacuation was the only available option.

The missions were planned and executed by CODE 9.2 personnel with support from SkyFall. They required coordination among multiple units, additional forces and equipment, and dedicated fire support — much like a more traditional casualty evacuation effort involving crewed helicopters. Vampire heavy strike drones were employed to suppress enemy positions during the operations.

“The injury tore off half of my foot, so a lot of blood was lost already,” Izyum said in a video interview from his hospital room. “I think if that incredible little bird hadn’t flown in, well, getting out from there would have been unrealistic.”

During one of the missions, StarGate reportedly flew nearly 20 miles to reach the casualty before covering approximately the same distance on the return leg with the wounded serviceman aboard. CODE 9.2 said Russian electronic warfare systems were actively attempting to suppress satellite navigation signals in the area.

Despite the reported interference, the platform completed the mission using its onboard artificial intelligence-based navigation system, according to the regiment. The statement did not specify the navigation technologies involved.

StarGate was designed specifically for casualty evacuation, or CASEVAC, when conventional ground transportation cannot reach wounded personnel or would expose them to unacceptable risks. Its stated specifications include a payload capacity of up to 330 pounds and a maximum speed of approximately 65 miles per hour. The evacuation module is based on a covered, medical-grade stretcher.

Oleksandr Nastenko, commander of CODE 9.2, callsign “Flint,” said the regiment intends to use the experience gained from the two missions to train crews and make aerial evacuation a more established capability. The regiment also plans to set up a dedicated aerial medical evacuation unit within its medical company.

The StarGate missions follow a separate reported operation involving the 92nd Assault Brigade, which says its personnel helped evacuate a wounded soldier using a heavy-lift hexacopter drone, produced by Gurzuf Defense, with the casualty suspended beneath it, as seen in the video below:

ТАКОГО ЩЕ НІХТО НЕ РОБИВ! В УКРАЇНІ ПРОВЕЛИ ПЕРШУ В СВІТІ ПОВІТРЯНУ ЕВАКУАЦІЮ ЛЮДИНИ З ЛІНІЇ ФРОНТУ

This drone was reportedly an Audag-6 model, which is said to be capable of carrying a 200-pound payload over a distance of up to 15 miles.

In that incident, the soldier had been wounded while holding his position. Once again, aerial extraction was judged the only suitable option; in this case, due to the presence of mines and intense Russian drone activity.

This was a more improvised approach, which the brigade described as the world’s first frontline aerial drone evacuation of a wounded soldier. Compared to Stargate, the Gurzuf drone brings some drawbacks with it, including casualty stability, exposure to the elements, the risk of swinging during flight, and the difficulty of safely lifting and lowering a severely injured person. It subsequently emerged that the soldier involved, Kostiantyn Vlasenko, had been forced to amputate his own foot as part of a 491-day ordeal on a frontline position.

This was not the first time that Ukrainian forces have adapted existing drone technology to effect battlefield evacuations.

TWZ also previously reported on a Ukrainian soldier who managed to escape from the Russians that surrounded him after an electric bike was dropped to him by a large aerial drone.

Врятований завдяки дрону. Як ми витягли пораненого побратима з оточення

As a purpose-built platform, StarGate offers a more standardized way to secure and transport casualties, and to transport them protected from the elements, in a secure, prone position. However, StarGate still faces the challenges of flying in contested airspace and navigating under electronic warfare conditions. Once again, depending on the degree of injuries, the casualty may need assistance being put on the stretcher and, regardless of the degree of medical care that can be provided, StarGate is only an option if already available in proximity to the victim.

The fact that the StarGate missions also needed strike drones for fire support underscores that casualty recovery, whatever the platform being used, typically requires coordination across multiple combat elements.

Despite the limitations, CODE 9.2’s plan to create a dedicated medical aviation element indicates it wants to move beyond one-off missions toward a repeatable capability.

As with other emerging technologies from the war in Ukraine, this is likely to be studied by other armed forces, too. The U.S. military, for example, has long looked at the potential of uncrewed aerial systems to effect casualty evacuation missions, as you can read about here.

Meanwhile, the challenges of that conflict mean that Ukrainian troops continue to explore different ways to recover wounded troops from positions that more conventional evacuation methods can no longer safely reach.

Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com

Arsenal’s match with Fleetwood Town in the last-16 of the Carabao Cup was delayed for more than eight minutes after a drone was flown above the stadium during the match.

Referee Michael Salisbury stopped play with one minute and 40 seconds on the clock after spotting the drone flying above the pitch while Arsenal waited to take a free-kick at Highbury Stadium.

The game was halted while the referee spoke to the management and staff on both benches with police also investigating.

The match got back underway with 10 minutes on the clock; the commentator on Sky saying police had located the drone operator.

More to follow.

Strikes hit a major bridge in the Ukrainian capital as leaders push for ‘direct discussions’ to end the war.

Russia has attacked transport infrastructure in Ukraine’s capital, targeting a major bridge, as the leaders of Finland and Norway held a rare call with Russian President Vladimir Putin and a separate one with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Officials in Kyiv said the South Bridge was hit in overnight attacks on the city ⁠⁠that included 16 ballistic missiles and more ⁠⁠than 280 drones. Zelenskyy said Russian forces struck again while emergency crews were still dealing with the aftermath of the initial strikes.

“This is a serious escalation in Russia’s campaign targeting our logistics,” he said.

Russian attacks also caused deaths and injuries in the cities of Kharkiv and Pavlohrad.

Russia’s Defence Ministry said on Telegram that its forces had targeted transport infrastructure in Kyiv and a logistics hub in the Kharkiv region, along with industrial sites and cargo vessels it said were serving military purposes.

Officials in the Russian-controlled part of Ukraine’s southeastern Zaporizhzhia region said a drone strike on a bus killed one person and injured 30 others.

One person was also killed and six others were wounded in a drone attack on the Russian city of Bryansk, near the Ukrainian border.

The attacks come as the warring sides prepare for talks. On Friday, Kyiv and Moscow said they had agreed to hold United States-mediated technical meetings in Abu Dhabi in early November.

Finnish President Alexander Stubb and Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store called Putin from Helsinki on Tuesday to convey messages on future negotiations ahead of the Abu Dhabi meetings, according to a statement from both governments.

Zelenskyy, who spoke to the pair afterwards, said on X that they had told Putin real steps were needed to de-escalate attacks on Ukraine’s energy facilities and infrastructure. He said they also discussed preparations for the November talks.

“There must be peace, de-escalation is needed, and Russia must stop dragging out the war,” he said.

In the Finnish-Norwegian statement, Stubb said the war’s outcome would directly affect the security of Finland and Norway, both of which border Russia, and of Europe more widely.

“Ending the war requires direct discussions,” he said.

Store said the two leaders had stressed the importance of de-escalation during the call.

Both leaders said they spoke for their own countries, not Europe, and that Finnish and Norwegian support for Ukraine would continue.

Most Western European leaders have avoided direct contact with Putin since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022.

The calls come amid a renewed US push to end the war. The two governments described Tuesday’s call, held in consultation with Ukraine, as a follow-up to talks in Oslo on October 20 with Zelenskyy and US special envoy Steve Witkoff.

Witkoff met Putin in St Petersburg the next day, after which the Kremlin said it was ready to resume US-mediated talks with Kyiv that stalled in February.

US President Donald Trump has also credited his wife, First Lady Melania Trump, with securing a localised ceasefire in the southern Kherson region, which took effect on Tuesday to allow aid into the Russian-controlled town of Oleshky.

General Atomics has tapped Spirit Defense, a subsidiary of Boeing, to help produce FQ-42A Vengeance Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) drones. This follows the U.S. Air Force’s announcement last month that it wants to have at least 500 CCAs in inventory by 2032. Years ago, TWZ highlighted the likelihood that industrial partnerships like this would be required to meet the service’s aggressive volume and schedule goals for the CCA program.

General Atomics’ Aeronautical Systems, Inc. division (GA-ASI) announced the team-up with Spirit on FQ-42 production earlier today. The Vengenace is one of two designs the Air Force has ordered into production under the first phase, or Increment 1, of its CCA program. The other is Anduril’s FQ-44A Fury. The 500-drone target the Air Force has laid out covers a mixed fleet of both FQ-42s and FQ-44s. The service is still planning to acquire additional CCAs, potentially with completely different designs, through a follow-on Increment 2.

When it comes to FQ-42 production, “Spirit Defense’s role as a fuselage design-build partner brings together the company’s engineering and advanced manufacturing capabilities to support the program from design through production,” according to a GA-ASI release. “Partnering with Spirit Defense is a strength multiplier for the company and the nation, offering manufacturing capacity and industrial depth to scale CCA production faster, while strengthening production resilience, and reducing the risk of single points of failure.”

“We’re excited to be working with Spirit Defense,” David R. Alexander, GA-ASI’s President, said in an accompanying statement. “We’ve established our proven design, development, and manufacturing capability for the FQ-42. With Spirit Defense, we add capacity, which is exactly the kind of production resilience our U.S. Air Force customer is looking for with its CCA ramp-up. This kind of partnership represents the scalable industrial base the Air Force and the U.S. Department of War are looking for from industry.”

“The intent for them [the Air Force] is to go up to as many as 500 aircraft by 2032,” Mike Shortsleeve, Vice President for Strategy Business Development at GA-ASI, also told TWZ’s Jamie Hunter on the floor of the Air & Space Forces Association’s (AFA) 2026 Air, Space & Cyber Conference in September. “We’re ready to do that production.”

FQ-42 Vengeance fighter drone update from General Atomics

At the conference, Shortsleeve highlighted investments in additive manufacturing and advanced robotics, along with efforts to build out the company’s skilled workforce, to help meet those production demands.

General Atomics is already an established drone maker with significant serial airframe production experience of its own. At the same time, the company is seeing growing demand for its MQ-9B series of drones, including a sale to the U.S. Coast Guard announced earlier this month. The MQ-9B design builds on the highly successful MQ-9A Reaper. It is also pursuing a host of other opportunities in the U.S. and abroad that could add production demands.

Mike Atwood, GA-ASI’s Vice President of Advanced Aircraft Programs, notably acknowledged potential hurdles for meeting CCA production demands, specifically, in the past.

“We have basically a hot production line where I can take an MQ-9 out and put a Collaborative Combat Aircraft in,” Atwood said on an edition of The Merge podcast back in 2024. “We were able to essentially take Reaper parts out of stock rooms and build the first [CCA] aircraft.”

“Composites are inherently expensive … they’re really for high-performance applications where you need certain strength and stiffness,” he also noted at that time. “When you look at Collaborative Combat Aircraft … we’re actually falling back on more metallic – what we call hybrid structures, metal frames with composite skins.”

The production of advanced composites and hybrid structures is Spirit’s main business. The company also has a well-established history of working as a subcontractor on military aerospace projects, including in support of bleed-edge programs like the B-21 Raider bomber.

It is also important to note here that, before its founding as an independent company in 2005, Spirit was actually a division of Boeing. By the early 2020s, Spirit had been suffering from significant financial losses and quality control lapses. Boeing subsequently decided to reacquire it in a multi-billion-dollar deal. The acquisition process began in 2024 and was finalized last year. Since then, Boeing has faced continued challenges in getting the firm back on track.

In 2024, when General Atomics and Anduril were selected to move ahead in the Increment 1 phase of the Air Force’s CCA program, TWZ explicitly raised the prospect of both companies bringing in help, especially to meet future production demands. At the time, the focus was more on Anduril, which was not a major airframer at the time and had yet to establish significant production facilities of its own for Fury. It was also unclear then whether the Air Force might pick a single winning Increment 1 drone rather than go the route it ultimately chose of ordering batches of both designs.

However, as we wrote at the time: “No matter who is selected in the end as the prime contractor, a large pool of manufacturer partners will likely be key to meeting the Air Force’s production volume and schedule goals.”

As an aside, Boeing is already in the CCA business itself, with the MQ-28 Ghost Bat developed originally through a separate subsidary in Australia. The company has been working to expand its own production capacity to build those drones in recent years.

Generally speaking, the ability of defense contractors to rapidly scale production to meet U.S. military demands, and do so affordably, is steadily becoming a more common point of discussion across all major acquisition programs. Being able to acquire and field CCAs in relatively large volumes and at a price that makes sense is absolutely central to the whole concept being these drones.

“The nuance here that probably is overlooked, is the fact that they’re [the Air Force] recognizing with 500 that they require, the factory floor is now becoming part of the battle space,” General Atomics’ Shortsleeve had told TWZ at the AFA conference last month. “So the ability for companies to be able to manufacture and produce those aircraft in numbers that are needed for the fight rapidly is going to be a key part to going forward in the future.”

The Air Force is otherwise still very much laying the rest of the groundwork for fielding its future CCAs operationally toward the end of the decade. A full playbook for deploying, launching, recovering, supporting, and otherwise operating CCA-type drones on a day-to-day basis, let alone employing them tactically, still has yet to be written. Answering these questions will be important for other CCA programs across the U.S. military and elsewhere globally.

General Atomics’ new partnership with Spirit Defense underscores how production of Increment 1 CCAs is ramping up already in reponse to the Air Force’s current CCA program goals.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com