Category: Defense and National Security

CorruptionLedger commentary in red.   Twitter has pulled out of the European Union’s voluntary code to fight disinformation, the EU has said. Thierry Breton, who is the EU’s internal market commissioner, announced the news on Twitter – but warned the firm new laws would force compliance. “Obligations remain. You can run but you can’t hide,” he said. Twitter will be legally required to fight disinformation in the EU from 25 August, he said, adding: “Our teams will be ready for…

In March, Der Spiegel claimed a yacht called ‘Andromeda’ had allegedly been used by a team of divers to sabotage the Nord Stream pipelines. The publication cited the discovery of traces of explosives in the cabin of the vessel and fake identification documents that were used in the hiring of the boat.  The outlet’s most recent report indicates that metadata from an email sent to enquire about the renting of the yacht “leads to Ukraine.” The president of a presumed…

Russia moved ahead on Thursday with a plan to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, whose leader said the warheads were already on the move, in the Kremlin’s first deployment of such bombs outside Russia since the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union. The U.S. State Department denounced the deployment plan, but said Waacshington had no intention of altering its position on strategic nuclear weapons or seen any signs Russia was preparing to use a nuclear weapon. Russian President Vladimir…

WASHINGTON – The United States on Wednesday announced the approval of a US$285 million (S$385 million) sale of a National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System (“NASAMS”) air defence system and related equipment to Ukraine as Kyiv seeks to boost protection against Russian strikes. “Ukraine has an urgent need to increase its capabilities to defend against Russian missile strikes and aircraft,” the US Defence Security Cooperation Agency said in a statement. “Acquiring and effectively deploying this capability will enhance Ukraine’s ability to…

WASHINGTON — Lockheed Martin, the world’s largest defense contractor by revenue, said its products were used in an exercise near Alaska to consistently share military information across services and environments. The testing during Northern Edge, a biennial experiment put on by U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, marked the first time “true” synchronization was demonstrated at such scale, the company said, hinting at its implications for the Defense Department’s connect-everything-everywhere campaign known as Joint All-Domain Command and Control. The department is pursuing JADC2…

WASHINGTON — Boeing’s effort to build a new trainer aircraft for the Air Force is plagued by safety problems, schedule and testing delays, and the risk the T-7A Red Hawk could fall even further behind schedule, the Government Accountability Office said in a scathing report. Boeing’s relationship with the Air Force has also been strained by the T-7′s issues, GAO said in the May 18 report, with service officials describing their ties as “tenuous.” As the program proceeds and Boeing…

Russia has intercepted two US Air Force strategic bombers flying over the Baltic Sea. The Russian defense ministry said on Tuesday Russia had scrambled a Su-27 fighter jet to “prevent violations of the state border” by the American bombers, AFP reported. “After removing the foreign military aircraft from the Russian state border, the Russian fighter went back to its air base,” the ministry added. The statement said that “the flight of the Russian fighter was carried out in strict accordance with international…

By Harun Maruf  The United States military has confirmed conducting a new airstrike against al-Shabab militants in the Middle Juba region of southern Somalia. The airstrike took place in Jilib town on Saturday in collaboration with the Somali federal government, according to a press statement released Monday by the U.S. Africa Command known as AFRICOM. “The command’s initial assessment is that no civilians were injured or killed,” the statement said. The AFRICOM statement did not say whether any of the…

Although it has claimed to be fighting Daesh* and other terrorist groups in Syria since 2014, the US military has never received permission from the Syrian government to operate there. In addition, US forces continue to help occupy the eastern third of the country under the guise of supporting allied Kurdish forces. Having previously claimed that a May 3 airstrike in northwestern Syria killed a top Al-Qaeda** leader, the Pentagon is now expressing doubts. “We are no longer confident we…

Media Note Office of the Spokesperson May 18, 2023 On May 18 in Chisinau, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources Richard R. Verma and Moldova Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development Lilia Dabija, with Prime Minister Dorin Recean, signed an Open Skies Air Transport Agreement (“Agreement”) between the Government of the United States and the Government of the Republic of Moldova — the first bilateral air transport agreement negotiated by the two countries. The Agreement establishes a…

A cold shoulder for a Bulgarian member of the European Parliament (MEP) traveling to North Macedonia is just the tip of the iceberg. On May 6, which is St. George’s Day and Armed Forces Day in Bulgaria, North Macedonia’s border guards turned back five Bulgarians, including a conservative MEP who has repeatedly waded into the nationalist debate between the two countries. MEP Andrey Kovachev called the snub “quite sad,” and it elicited condemnations from Sofia and from the EU’s commissioner for neighborhood and enlargement, Oliver Varhelyi.

Thales, a French multinational defence firm, is now facing a bribery probe from French prosecutors over allegations related to a contract to modernise the Indian Air Force’s (IAF) Dassault Mirage 2000 planes. Sanjay Bhandari, who claims to have assisted Thales in winning the $2.5 billion contract in 2011, has made the accusations, with the focus of the investigation on whether the payments made to Bhandari were hidden bribes. Thales has denied any wrongdoing and highlighted that prosecutors have not yet…

A cache of classified US documents online last month has shed light on American intelligence gathered about other countries. The documents consist of an elaborate timeline, dozens of military acronyms, including some items marked “top secret,” which give a detailed picture of the conflict in Ukraine, raging since February 24, 2022. “Top secret” is the highest level of classification. Some documents also contain the marking NOFORN, or “Not Releasable to Foreign Nationals,” meaning they cannot be shared with foreign intelligence…

Without approval from Washington, the best that Ukrainian airmen can hope for are lessons on technical language and tactical training on the ground, the outlet said on Wednesday. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has been pressing his Western backers for fourth generation F-16 warplanes for months, arguing they are crucial for defending the country’s airspace amid a massive Russian missile campaign targeting military facilities and energy infrastructure. The Ukrainian leader appeared to achieve limited progress during a recent European tour, with…

Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu accused the US of using the western media to manipulate the outcome of the upcoming presidential and parliamentary elections in Turkiye. “The plan by the US intensifies actively. The reason of [the] Western media’s interference is the realization of the US’s plan,” Soylu told reporters. In the months leading up to the14 May elections, several US and European media outlets published stories describing President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as a “dictator and tyrant.” On 3 May,…

WASHINGTON —Indian authorities have arrested Vivek Raghuvanshi, a defense journalist and longtime correspondent for Defense News, and accused him of espionage, according to reports in the Indian press. Raghuvanshi’s arrest drew a condemnation from Sightline Media Group, the publisher of Defense News and Military Times. “We call for the immediate release of freelance reporter Vivek Raghuvanshi following his arrest in India,” said Mike Gruss, Sightline’s editor-in-chief. “Vivek has written about the Indian defense industry for Sightline publications for more than…