Category: Defense and National Security

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…

  WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Defense asked Congress to authorize the transfer of nuclear-powered submarines to Australia as part of the trilateral AUKUS agreement with the U.K. Three legislative proposals, submitted on May 2 and first posted online Tuesday, would greenlight the sale of two Virginia-class submarines to Australia, permit the training of Australian nationals for submarine work and allow Canberra to invest in the U.S. submarine industrial base. Rep. Joe Courtney of Connecticut, the top Democrat on…

President Joe Biden canceled his trips to Papua New Guinea and Australia next week to continue debt ceiling talks with congressional leaders that he held Tuesday at the White House. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement that the president would to return to Washington on Sunday, following the Group of Seven summit in Hiroshima, Japan, “in order to be back for meetings with congressional leaders to ensure that Congress takes action by the deadline to avert…

U.S. law enforcement officials on Tuesday announced a series of criminal cases exposing efforts by Russia, China and Iran to steal sensitive U.S. technologies. The five cases, which spanned a wide range of protected U.S. technologies, were brought by a new “strike force” created earlier this year to deter foreign adversaries from obtaining advanced U.S. innovation. “These charges demonstrate the Justice Department’s commitment to preventing sensitive technology from falling into the hands of foreign adversaries, including Russia, China, and Iran,”…

Natalia Arno, the U.S.-based chief of the Free Russia Foundation, says there are suspicions she may have been poisoned, “possibly by some nerve agent,” after falling ill during a recent trip to Europe, amid a report that at least two other Kremlin critics have experienced similar episodes since 2020. Arno, who previously kept silent about what she experienced during a trip to Prague in early May, wrote about the ordeal on Facebook on May 16 after the website Agentsvo published…

  WASHINGTON – The US Justice Department said on Tuesday it has charged a former Apple Inc engineer with attempting to steal the firm’s technology related to autonomous systems, including self-driving cars, and then fleeing to China. The case was among five announced on Tuesday aimed at countering efforts to illicitly acquire American technology by nations including Russia and China. The actions were the first announced by a “strike force” formed in February in part to keep sensitive technologies away…

In October, reports indicated that the FBI believed it had enough evidence to charge Hunter Biden with tax crimes. The Justice Department reportedly ordered the team’s removal, according to the New York Post. An IRS criminal supervisory special agent came forward to Congress in April seeking whistleblower protection to share with lawmakers information that allegedly showed the investigation into potential tax crimes by the younger Biden was being mishandled. Now, the whistleblower’s attorneys claim the team’s removal from the investigation…