“At my direction, the United States Southern Command delivered a swift and lethal kinetic strike to successfully execute Nino Guerrero the infamous leader of Tren De Aragua, one of the most bloodthirsty Terrorist Organizations on Planet,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social on Friday evening.

“This action was coordinated closely with our friends in Venezuela, with whom we are working very well.”

Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth posted on X that the strike was conducted earlier this week and that Guerrero “was confirmed killed during the strike.”

Venezuela’s information ministry said that during the operation there were clashes with members of criminal groups, in which the leader, Guerrero, was neutralized.

The operation involved specialized technological support and was carried out through cooperation and intelligence-sharing between authorities of both countries, the ministry said.

The Trump administration has repeatedly targeted Guerrero and other leaders of the Tren de Aragua organization with sanctions over alleged involvement in criminal activities such as illicit drug smuggling, human trafficking and money laundering.

The State Department has designated Tren de Aragua a foreign terrorist organization.

Trump has claimed Tren de Aragua coordinated its U.S. activities with the Venezuelan government of President Nicolás Maduro. The Trump administration has cited the alleged connection to justify deporting some immigrants in the U.S. to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador.

Tren de Aragua is known for being involved in human trafficking and controls routes taken by Venezuelans and other South American migrants heading south to relatively prosperous Chile and other destinations in South America or Europe.

The group has also been linked to extortion, kidnapping, money laundering, contract killings, smuggling and organized retail theft from Panama to Brazil and along the Andean corridor, Latin American police officials say.

Guerrero escaped from the Tocoron prison in Venezuela along with other gang leaders just before a police raid in 2023.

Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, the president declared, “We hit them hard yesterday and we’re going to hit them hard again today.”

Trump initially claimed in a Truth Social post on Tuesday that Iran had shot down the aircraft, before revising his account a day later to say it was struck by an Iranian ordnance that failed to detonate on impact.

“That bomb was lodged in the helicopter, it didn’t explode. It was on fire but it didn’t explode,” Trump explained. “Those two guys, they knew how to fly, but they got very lucky.”

He then quipped: “You won’t believe the rescue, how cool it was.”

The crew members were retrieved by a remotely piloted Navy surface drone, in what Trump and military officials described as the first U.S. operation of its kind.

Still, the episode demonstrated one asymmetrical element of the conflict. U.S. officials said a low-cost Iranian Shahed-136 drone — estimated to cost roughly $20,000 — engaged the American attack helicopter valued at between $35 million and $40 million.

Describing the subsequent rescue, Capt. Tim Hawkins, a spokesman for Central Command, told Military Times that the unmanned surface vessel retrieved the downed aviators and ferried them to a rendezvous point at sea, where they were then hoisted aboard a helicopter for extraction.

“The surface drone that assisted in [Monday’s] rescue of the Apache crew off the coast of Oman was a U.S. Navy Corsair unmanned surface vessel operated by U.S. 5th Fleet’s Task Force 59,” he said. “The task force began fielding these drones in theater in late March.”

The 24-foot Corsair — built by Texas-based Saronic Technologies — can carry payloads of up to 1,000 pounds over a 1,000-nautical-mile range and reach speeds of up to 35 knots, according to the company’s website.

Soon after the U.S. began carrying out retaliatory strikes on Tuesday night, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, in a social media post, wrote that “our powerful armed forces will leave no attack or threat unanswered.” The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps later announced, through a statement carried by Iranian state TV, that it had conducted 21 attacks on U.S. bases across the region, including in Bahrain, Kuwait and Jordan.

But despite the fresh wave of attacks, Trump on Wednesday insisted that a peace agreement can be reached.

“We’ll see what happens with the deal. We were really close to a deal but they keep tapping us along, they keep playing us for suckers,” Trump said. “All they have to do is they have to start signing a paper, it’s fully negotiated.”

Given that negotiations are highly sensitive and secret, it’s unclear how close — or distant — the sides are from an agreement.

A delegation of Qatari officials arrived in Iran on Wednesday in an effort to broker a deal between Washington and Tehran, a source familiar with the discussions told Military Times, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matters publicly.

The president’s aircraft, referred to as the VC-25B Bridge, is undergoing its final “government modifications,” an Air Force spokesperson told Military Times on Wednesday.

A photograph of the aircraft sporting its new paint job circulated on social media this week. It was taken by aviation photographer Travis Ghormley on Saturday and posted the following day.

pic.twitter.com/LAk8IqnLlR

— TGhormley Photography (@SkunkChaser25) June 7, 2026

The controversial gift from Qatar was donated in May 2025 after President Donald Trump aired his dissatisfaction over Boeing’s delays to deliver two new VC-25B aircraft. The replacement of the current Air Force One was originally slated for 2024, but now it is expected in 2028.

The Air Force provided an update on the Bridge aircraft at the beginning of May, saying it completed flight testing and is on track for a summer delivery to the Presidential Airlift Group. The service did not specify when the president will begin flying in the aircraft.

The spokesperson declined Wednesday to comment on what final modifications are being made to the aircraft.

To make the plane suitable for a president, the plane would require a reinforced defense with countermeasures, encrypted communications and other capabilities installed.

Currently, the president is flying in a version of the Boeing 747 aircraft, the VC-25A.

Kuwait requested the c-UAS platforms, built by Anduril, in an effort to improve the country’s ability to counter current and future threats, according to a Friday release. The request followed attacks last week carried out by Iran on Kuwait infrastructure.

“This proposed sale will support the foreign policy and national security objectives of the United States by improving the security of a major non-NATO ally that has been an important force for political stability and economic progress in the Middle East,” a statement from the State Department reads.

The approval comes days after Iran launched a drone and missile attack on June 3 that damaged the Kuwait International Airport, killing one and injuring more than 60 people.

Three days later, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps said it targeted U.S. bases in Kuwait and Bahrain in response to U.S. strikes. There were no casualties, but the Saturday attack did cause some material damage, according to Kuwait’s army.

Gulf nations have been the target of strikes throughout the ceasefire and during negotiations between the U.S. and Iran to end the war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, showcasing the frustration among the countries and a need for more defense capabilities, like this deal.

“The proposed sale of this equipment and support will not alter the basic military balance in the region,” the announcement says.

The estimated $1.98 billion sale will include “non-major defense equipment,” such as lattice command and control, personnel training and software development, and it will supply Kuwait with electronic and kinetic “defeat capabilities” against unmanned aerial systems.

The Palau-flagged M/T Marivex, which was reportedly traveling without cargo, was transiting international waters in the Gulf of Oman when its crew failed to respond to directions from U.S. forces in the region.

A U.S. Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet assigned to the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln responded by firing a precision munition into the Marivex‘s engineering and steering spaces.

“Marivex is no longer sailing to Iran,” a release from U.S. Central Command stated.

To date, U.S. forces carrying out the naval blockade — launched April 13 — in waters around Iran have disabled seven non-compliant ships, according to the command release.

Well over 100 vessels have complied and been redirected, while 42 ships transiting the area with humanitarian aid have been permitted to pass.

U.S. industry became complacent and got “ambushed by the future,” said Christian Brose, who was on hand last week at the Washington Post’s inaugural Building America Summit to discuss defense industry developments.

“There was just no way of thinking that this formidable capability institution could be disrupted, and I think that there was a failure of imagination,” Brose said.

Brose added that the nation has been “systematically failing” at making necessary changes to project a stronger footing in the U.S.-China competition. He pointed to lessons from the Ukraine war and Operation Epic Fury, adding that Tehran has been evolving technologically and ramping up asymmetric capabilities.

“We’re struggling right now with a regional power of Iran that isn’t even close to what China would present to us,” Brose said. “And we’re struggling to some extent because we haven’t necessarily learned our own lessons of Ukraine and other recent events.”

Anduril recently opened a new 5-million-square-foot facility in Columbus, Ohio, where the company produces a range of munitions destined for the U.S. military.

Brose pointed to the new facility as evidence of Anduril meeting the military’s demands — under one roof — for mass produced, quickly built weapons that cost a fraction of a munition like a PAC-3 interceptor or Tomahawk missile.

“The point is not that the government should stop buying the exquisite weapons and instead just buy ours,” Brose said. “It’s that if all you have in a fight is a Tomahawk, that’s all you’re going to use, which is why in the first opening weeks of Epic Fury, we shot eight to 10 years of Tomahawk production in a few weeks.”

Brose added that once the military puts significant dents in stockpiles of munitions that are “artisanally built and incredibly expensive,” it can take years to replenish that production capacity.

He said that Anduril is instead building systems that can be completed by workers with minimal training and simple tools, much like how the country built weapons during World War II.

“It was Rosie the Riveter, not like Martha, the master welder, who took 14 years to become proficient at every craft,” Brose said, noting that to quickly build at scale, the nation has to take advantage of the country’s industrial workforce.

“It’s a whole different approach to the manufacturing philosophy, and it enables you to scale 10x [or] 20x to get to that order of magnitude ... that I think we’re going to need to be able to be relevant in these protracted conflicts,” Brose said.

America, Brose added, has been too concerned with creating perfect technology, making the process long and failures unacceptable.

He highlighted the belief of how certain older systems, like the Tomahawk and Patriot, have given the country military advantage for a generation, but the nation needs to be constantly producing, testing and learning from mistakes.

With the Ukraine war, Brose said that there’s no piece of technology that jumps out at him. Instead, it is the cycle of innovation and rebuilding at scale.

“When you look at the opening days of Epic Fury, obviously the United States and Israel have inflicted an enormous amount of damage on Iranian leadership, government, military, industrial base, but Iran’s still in the fight,” Brose said.

“They’re still in the fight because they’re using a lot of these asymmetric capabilities, low-cost drones, different types of systems.”

The U.S. military believes the four Iranian drones were targeting regional maritime traffic, a U.S. official told Reuters. U.S. Central Command said on X that the U.S. then struck Iran’s surveillance sites in Goruk and Qeshm Island, which are both on the Strait of Hormuz.

Iran’s foreign ministry said the U.S. action broke an April 8 ceasefire, adding that repeated violations showed Washington had no intention of reducing tensions. It warned that the United States would bear responsibility for the consequences of its “illegal actions” and any further escalation.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps said it had attacked U.S. bases in Kuwait and Bahrain in retaliation for U.S. strikes and fired at four tankers trying to cross the strait without its permission.

Kuwait’s army said on Saturday it engaged seven ballistic missiles that entered the country’s airspace early in the morning and passed over several residential areas, resulting in the fall of some debris. The army added that the Iranian attack caused material damage but no casualties. In Bahrain sirens sounded and residents were urged to seek shelter.

PAKISTANI MINISTER REPORTED EN ROUTE TO TEHRAN

Kuwait and Bahrain condemned the strikes. Kuwait’s foreign ministry described the Iranian attacks, including the latest one on Saturday, as “blatant” aggression that threatened citizens, residents and regional security, a ministry statement said.

Iran later said it had hit U.S. bases in both countries with ballistic missiles but the U.S. military said six missiles were intercepted and a seventh did not reach its target.

The U.S. and Iran have been engaged in largely indirect negotiations to secure an interim deal to halt the three-month-old war that would leave issues including Iran’s nuclear program to further negotiations.

But amid periodic skirmishes a deal has remained elusive.

Tehran wants access to billions of dollars in oil revenue, waivers on sanctions on crude exports, the lifting of a U.S. blockade on its ports and leverage over the strait. Iran has effectively blocked the waterway, where about a fifth of the world’s oil transited before the war.

Iranian state media reported that Mohsin Naqvi, the interior minister of Pakistan, which has been mediating an end to the conflict, was on his way to Tehran on Saturday.

A Pakistani source said Naqvi would carry a message from Pakistan to the Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei.

U.S. President Donald Trump is facing mounting domestic political pressure due to rising gas prices to bring the unpopular war to an end. He told NBC that while most of Iran’s drone and missile manufacturing facilities had been destroyed, the Iranians still have access to about a fifth of their missiles.

“They have some missiles, they have some drones. I would say percentage wise, maybe 21%-22% of their missiles. It’s a lot of missiles, but it’s not what it was when we first attacked,” Trump told NBC News’ “Meet the Press” program, according to excerpts released by the network on Friday.

When asked why Iran’s leaders were not more inclined to strike a deal, if they are as desperate as he has portrayed them, Trump said, “Because they are strong. They’re proud. There are things they never thought they’d be doing that they’re going to have to do, they’ve got no choice, and it takes a little while.”

After the U.S. and Israel launched the war against Iran on Feb. 28, Tehran attacked Gulf states hosting U.S. bases and largely stopped shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.

The conflict has driven up oil prices and disrupted supply chains for other products. The U.N. World Food Programme said on Friday that it was pushing millions of people closer to hunger due to rising fuel and transport costs.

Mohsen Rezaei, an adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, told CNN on Friday that a peace deal hinged on the Trump administration unfreezing $24 billion in Iranian assets, and warned that the U.S. would “enter into a dark corridor” if it resumed attacks.

FIGHTING FLARES ACROSS REGION DESPITE CEASEFIRES

In a parallel conflict in Lebanon, two Lebanese army officers and a soldier were killed in an Israeli strike on a military vehicle in south Lebanon, the Lebanese army said, while the Israeli military said it was investigating the incident.

The Israeli military said it struck the vehicle after identifying what it described as a threat to its forces and receiving indications that Hezbollah was preparing to fire on Israeli troops from the area. Iran-aligned Hezbollah called the incident part of Israel’s continued aggression against Lebanon.

Iran has made a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah a condition for any peace deal with Washington.

Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem this week rejected a U.S.-brokered pact between Israel and the Lebanese government to halt the fighting in Lebanon. The deal did not provide for an Israeli withdrawal and Hezbollah had not been party to the negotiations.

Israel has said its forces would not withdraw or halt operations in the country amid increasing friction with the U.S.

The discoveries, announced in a late May report by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, or OPCW, include chemical munitions — such as aerial bombs and rockets — as well as production materials and thousands of pages documenting the deadly program under ousted Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.

The findings come amid a nationwide power reshuffle as a patchwork of security players, including the U.S. and allies, struggle to secure a country devastated by years of war wrought by the government and extremist groups.

A recent Pentagon watchdog report described the transition as increasingly unstable, acknowledging that the new Syrian government forces quickly consolidated control over territory once held by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF, who had been allied with the U.S. military in the region’s fight against the Islamic State.

By mid-April, U.S. troops closed and withdrew from several American bases, handing over control to government forces and ending a 10-year presence in the country.

That same report warned that Syria’s new authorities would likely struggle to exercise control over the nation’s fragmented security apparatus, especially as the SDF — which has controlled and governed much of northern Syria for years — integrates into a national armed force.

Meanwhile, the chaos creates conditions ripe for militant groups like the Islamic State to once again flourish.

Against that fraught backdrop, OPCW investigators caution that the full extent of Syria’s chemical weapons enterprise may remain unknown.

The agency said information gathered since the December 2024 collapse of the Assad government indicated that more than 100 additional sites may be linked to the administration’s chemical weapons program, a stark increase beyond the 26 locations that were previously known.

The OPCW also found the same variety of aerial bombs used in chemical attacks on the towns of Ltamenah in March 2017 and Khan Shaykhun in April 2017. Earlier investigations found that jets dropped sarin and chlorine in Ltamenah and sarin in Khan Shaykhun.

In addition, investigators discovered the same type of rockets used in the 2013 chemical attack in Ghouta.

UNCERTAIN SECURITY

The new information adds a layer of uncertainty to the security tribulations already faced by Syria’s new president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, as he seeks regional stability after leading the armed group known as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham to topple Assad.

Since March 2025, inspectors have visited over 20 sites across Syria, many of which were inaccessible during Assad’s administration but have since been opened as military control has shifted.

In addition to questions about where other chemical weapons may be hidden, one expert said the question of exactly who has knowledge of — and access to — where those items are located could be equally troubling.

Randa Slim, the director of the Middle East program at the Stimson Center, said the discovery of previously undeclared sites raises concerns that former Assad-era officials tied to the program may retain access to materials or information.

“There is definitely an economic benefit to them to sell these materials to non-state actors — like Hezbollah or ISIS,” she said, adding that black markets for such items exist and that ISIS had used chemical weapons in the past.

The combination of military transition, combined with incomplete information about the location of chemical weapons materials, can create a “proliferation risk” given the militant groups still operating in the region.

Though Al-Sharaa’s administration vowed to rid the country of chemical weapons, the country’s transition to a unified military has given way to other security gaps.

The Pentagon watchdog assessment said at least 150 ISIS fighters escaped detention facilities during the now-Syrian government’s offensive as SDF fighters, who were guarding the prisons, redeployed to the front lines as their territorial autonomy was threatened.

The report also described mounting disorder at camps and detention centers that contained families once involved in the terror group’s short-lived caliphate.

The U.S. transferred over 5,700 ISIS detainees to facilities in Iraq but roughly 20,000 people living in al Hol, a camp for displaced persons, which included thousands of ISIS families and partners, left the settlement without any monitoring.

Slim also said that the departure of U.S. forces from Syria earlier this year could complicate efforts to track militant activity and monitor the movement of dangerous materials.

While American troops were largely based in northern Syria, she said the military was able to provide intelligence that helped monitor ISIS and other extremist networks.

“With them out of there, that kind of situational awareness that the U.S. forces could provide — on movement of material, movement of ISIS — is no longer there,” she said.

It remains unclear, Slim cautioned, whether Syria’s transitional authorities can independently maintain that level of monitoring while simultaneously trying to consolidate control over a fractured security apparatus.

Chief Master Sergeant of the Space Force John Bentivegna’s Instagram was compromised as the hackers posted multiple artworks and stories depicting anti-American messaging.

By 1 a.m. EST on Monday, the stories and posts were removed, according to Task & Purpose, which first reported on the hack.

A Space Force spokesperson confirmed to Military Times on Tuesday that Bentivegna’s account was compromised but denied to comment about how long the hackers had access to the account or who was responsible. All unauthorized content was removed with assistance from Meta, the owner of Instagram, the spokesperson said.

“This incident serves as a good reminder that online threats are constantly evolving, and users must remain alert to suspicious activity while exercising strong cybersecurity practices,” the spokesperson concluded.

Before they were taken down, the images and stories posted to Bentivegna’s account circulated unofficial U.S. military social media accounts, including the Reddit page r/AirForce and the Facebook page Air Force amn/nco/snco.

One post depicted a figure known as Imam Ali holding the Sword of Zulfiqar, which was given to Ali by the Prophet Muhammad and is a symbol of justice and knowledge in Islamic tradition. The hackers also posted a depiction of Husayn ibn Ali, a political and religious figure in Islam.

A story posted by the hackers included audio of Trịnh Thị Ngọ, also known as “Hanoi Hannah,” a Vietnamese radio personality known for releasing English-language broadcasts during the Vietnam War. Ngọ delivered three broadcasts a day during the war, written by the North Vietnamese Defense Ministry’s propaganda department and aimed at American troops to demoralize and frighten them.

The audio was posted with a caption in Arabic that roughly translates to “This is your fate if you get close to the Middle East.”

Another story, which appeared to be directly after the “Hanoi Hannah” audio, was an edit of Ali Larijani, a prominent Iranian national security official, with a caption in Arabic that roughly translates to “I set foot in America.” Larijani died in mid-March 2026 in an Israeli military airstrike during the Iran war.

As well as the other two stories, the hackers posted a photo of Game of Thrones character Jon Snow during an episode titled Battle of the Bastards, with a graphic that included Arabic text reading “Abu Al-Ahmar Army,” or “Army of the Red One,” and text underneath that roughly translates to “ban the accounts of the haters.”

Bentivegna did not address the hack on Instagram but did post on his Facebook on Sunday around 8:30 p.m. EST, saying that “appropriate teams” were working to regain access to the account and resolve the issue.

“If you receive any direct messages, requests, links or unusual posts from that account, please do not engage with them,” Bentivegna wrote in the Facebook post.

“Experiences like this are a good reminder that cybersecurity isn’t just an issue for organizations, it’s something we all deal with in our daily lives,” Bentivegna added.

The hackers also targeted former President Barack Obama’s White House Instagram account, posting the same image of Imam Ali holding the Zulfiqar sword, as well as stories, with one being a photo of Qasem Soleimani, an Iranian military officer killed in January 2020 in a U.S. drone strike, with a caption in Arabic that roughly translates to “The White House is under Shiites’ control.”

The hacks follow the recent reports received by military officials of service members’ commercial location data being used by adversaries to target personnel deployed to war zones. U.S. lawmakers said in a letter to the Pentagon that the location data can be used to identify where troops are congregated and their patterns, which then can be used to target the troops for various attacks.

Both abroad and domestically, U.S. service members have also been receiving threats through email, social media and text messages that appear to have originated from individuals connected to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Crandall, while recognized for his heroism, will be best remembered for the “warmth of his wit, the depth of his humility and the fierce loyalty he gave to the people and communities he loved,” according to a Congressional Medal of Honor Society release.

Born in February 1933, Olympia, Washington, the All-American athlete had dreams of being drafted by the New York Yankees and earned a scholarship to the University of Washington. That dream was deferred, however, when Crandall was drafted by the U.S. Army in 1953.

Crandall would subsequently receive the nation’s highest honor for valor during the Nov. 14, 1965, Battle of Ia Drang — the first major clash of the Vietnam War, made famous by the book We Were Soldiers Once … and Young: Ia Drang–The Battle That Changed the War in Vietnam and the subsequent movie of the same name.

On that day, Crandall led 16 helicopters carrying soldiers into Landing Zone X-Ray in the Ia Drang Valley, but as the fighting intensified, orders came down for follow-on aircraft to abort their mission, meaning all medevac assistance had been cut off to the men of the 1/7 Cav.

“The medevac pilots were all great pilots, but they weren’t allowed to land on a landing zone until it was ‘green’ for a period of five minutes,” meaning it wasn’t being relentlessly attacked, Crandall later recalled.

Crandall recognized that the men he had shuttled into Ia Drang were trapped, in desperate need of ammunition and, for some, medical evacuation.

Contacted on the radio by Col. Ramon Antonio “Tony” Nadal, Crandall recalled that Nadal was yelling, “I got to have — get my wounded out of here. I’ve got 12 guys that are — and they’re collected, and I have a hole where a helicopter can get in, but they won’t come.”

In response, Crandall refueled, kicked off his door gunner and weaponry to lighten his load.

“If you have infantry on the ground, you can’t shoot up their backside,” Crandall said, calling the M60 guns “worthless.”

Ignoring the heavy enemy fire, Crandall, alongside his friend Maj. Ed Freeman, voluntarily flew 22 missions into the valley to deliver ammunition and evacuate some 70 wounded soldiers.

“While medical evacuation was not his mission,” reads his Medal of Honor citation, “he immediately sought volunteers and with complete disregard for his own personal safety, led the two aircraft to Landing Zone X-Ray. Despite the fact that the landing zone was still under relentless enemy fire, Major Crandall landed and proceeded to supervise the loading of seriously wounded soldiers aboard the aircraft.

“Major Crandall’s voluntary decision to land under the most extreme fire instilled in the other pilots the will and spirit to continue to land their own aircraft, and in the ground forces the realization that they would be resupplied and that friendly wounded would be promptly evacuated,” the citation continues. “This greatly enhanced morale and the will to fight at a critical time.”

Crandall would ultimately fly nearly 1,000 combat missions and was further commended for rescuing 12 wounded soldiers during a dense jungle operation in January 1966, according to the Department of Defense.

In 1968, four months into his second tour in Vietnam flying Huey gunships in support of the 1st Cavalry Division, Crandall’s helicopter crashed, breaking the pilot’s back among other severe injuries that left him hospitalized for five months.

The broken back didn’t deter Crandall from flying, but a subsequent stroke in the early 1970s ended his flying career. He retired from the Army in 1977.

Crandall, who initially received the Distinguished Service Cross for his actions at Ia Drang, was awarded the Medal of Honor on Feb. 26, 2007, by President George W. Bush.

With Crandall’s passing there are now only 63 living Medal of Honor recipients.

Russia is now losing roughly 1,000 troops a day in killed and wounded along the front, according to Ukraine’s General Staff.

Western officials are reaching a consensus that Ukraine has gained a serious edge on the battlefield for the first time in years as Russia struggles to break through Ukraine’s multilayer air defense or stand up to Kyiv’s growing arsenal and strengthening counteroffensive.

“[Russian President Vladimir] Putin is going backwards on the battlefield, with new intelligence showing that almost half a million Russian soldiers have been killed since the conflict began,” the UK’s GCHQ intelligence director Anne Keast-Butler said Wednesday.

Until now, Western governments have hedged on Russia’s total losses, citing only a combined killed-and-wounded of around 1.2 million by late 2025.

The new figure recasts that picture: If nearly half a million Russian troops are dead, hundreds of thousands more are almost certainly wounded — and Moscow’s real casualty cost is far steeper.

The disclosure hardens a growing consensus: Russia is on its heels for the first time since the war’s opening months.

Russian battlefield gains are “approaching net zero” as Ukrainian forces are beginning to break out of the positional warfare that has gripped the front since 2023, the Institute for the Study of War concluded this week, after Russia lost 116 square kilometers of Ukrainian territory in April — the first net territorial loss in 20 months.

“This should now be regarded as an official estimate given its source,” Michael Clarke, former director-general of the Royal United Services Institute, told CBS News.

The real toll “might well be higher” because Russian forces are “so neglectful of their front line wounded,” Clarke said.

The figure broadly tracks an earlier Dutch military intelligence assessment that put Russian “permanent losses” at roughly 1.2 million, including more than 500,000 killed.

It runs well above the floor that independent Russian investigators have documented: more than 108,000 Russian war dead individually named through open-source reporting and an extrapolated minimum of around 350,000, according to Meduza.

U.S. intelligence agencies have not publicly endorsed a Russian fatality-specific estimate of their own, but the Office of the Director of National Intelligence assessed in March 2025 that Russia had suffered more than 750,000 killed and wounded.

Britain’s new estimate, covering only the dead, suggests Russia’s total casualty bill now runs far higher than either U.S. assessment noted.

Ukraine’s General Staff has put cumulative Russian losses higher still, at roughly 1.36 million killed and wounded.

The Russian casualty count came up during a broader discussion about Russian hybrid operations targeting the UK, including cyberattacks on critical infrastructure, sabotage attempts and efforts to smuggle Western technology to Moscow’s defense industry, according to British intelligence.

GCHQ is “working tirelessly with intelligence and defence partners to degrade and reduce the Russian threat,” Keast-Butler said.

For now, Moscow is replacing those losses through a recruiting machine built on cash signing bonuses, prisoner conscription and waves of North Korean troops dispatched by Pyongyang to backstop the front, allowing Putin to avoid the politically costly second mobilization wave that destabilized his rule in late 2022, experts have said.

Despite the toll, Russian forces remain on the offensive across Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia and continue to fire massed missile-and-drone salvos at Ukrainian cities, with Moscow recently warning foreign diplomats to leave Kyiv ahead of what it called “systemic and sustained” strikes on decision-making centers.

But the trade is becoming visibly unfavorable.

Russia ground its way through more than a year of combat to capture Pokrovsk in late 2025, an advance the Center for Strategic and International Studies assessed was slower than Allied progress at the Battle of the Somme.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said earlier this month that Russia is losing roughly five soldiers for every Ukrainian casualty — a ratio that, if accurate, suggests the Kremlin is paying far more per square mile of captured ground than during any earlier phase of the more than four-year war.

“The Ukrainian armed forces are the strongest, most powerful armed forces in all of Europe,” Rubio said earlier this month.

China’s nuclear missiles can already reach any city in the United States. Now, satellite images reviewed by Reuters show Beijing is building a sprawling web of launch pads, bunkers and communications nodes near the isolated nuclear silos that hold the Chinese military’s longest-range missiles.

The images reveal more than 80 pads for possible use by China’s expanding fleet of mobile missile launchers and air-defense batteries. They also show facilities that may serve electronic warfare, satellite communications and command operations, according to three security analysts, who assessed the imagery for Reuters.

The scale of the construction, which hasn’t been previously reported, points to a sweeping expansion of hardened infrastructure designed to protect and operate China’s land-based nuclear forces.

Taken together, the network signals a significant upgrade in Beijing’s efforts to ensure second-strike capability, underscoring intensifying nuclear competition with the United States as tensions rise over issues such as Taiwan’s sovereignty.

“We can see this infrastructure is being built on a grand scale, covering thousands of square kilometers of desert beyond the silo fields,” said Alexander Neill, an adjunct fellow at Hawaii’s Pacific Forum think tank. Depending on the precise capabilities, he said, “we’re looking at a very considerable enhancement and diversification of China’s strategic nuclear deterrent.”

The ability to protect its desert silos is key to China’s stated goal of forging a minimal but credible nuclear deterrent — a policy grounded in the capacity to retaliate if it is struck first.

While the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) can fire nuclear weapons from submarines and aircraft, the silo fields in the northwestern Xinjiang region and Gansu province are the core of its nuclear forces.

China’s nuclear build-up is among the most scrutinized facets of President Xi Jinping’s military modernization because of what some foreign diplomats describe as Beijing’s lack of transparency and failed efforts by the United States to engage the Chinese leadership on its evolving nuclear capabilities and intentions.

A cornerstone of China’s doctrine is its “no first use” policy, meaning its forces wouldn’t initiate a nuclear exchange. But some senior Western diplomats and analysts say China would possibly resort to nuclear coercion to limit outside involvement in a conflict over Taiwan.

Xi this month warned U.S. President Donald Trump that mishandling of their countries’ disagreements over Taiwan, which China claims as its territory, could lead them to a “dangerous place.” Taiwan’s government rejects China’s sovereignty claim.

China’s defense ministry didn’t respond to questions about its nuclear program and the developments revealed in the satellite imagery. The Pentagon said it wouldn’t comment on intelligence-related matters.

OCTAGONS IN THE DESERT

The new desert infrastructure is centered on two octagon-shaped installations built over the past six years in eastern Xinjiang. Both are southwest of the Hami nuclear silo fields — one is about 140 kilometers away, the other some 230 kilometers.

Satellite images show the octagon structures contain housing for personnel and large military vehicles. They are flanked by armored bunkers and fortified weapons-storage areas, as well as airfields and railheads that link the octagons to the Hami silos.

Exercises involving large military vehicles occurred around the northern octagon this month and during April, the images show.

Also evident in recent images are large tents and what two analysts said appear to be camouflaged launch sites cut into the desert, some with air-defense missile batteries.

The existence of the octagons has been documented previously. But Reuters is the first to report the extent of the launch-pad network linked to the octagons; recent military activity around one of the facilities; and analysts’ assessments that the pads could field mobile missile launchers and electronic-warfare operations.

Five security scholars interviewed by Reuters agreed the infrastructure broadly could support China’s nuclear program, as well as other military purposes. But they cautioned that key details remain unknown — including the weapons China might deploy at the launch pads and whether the octagon structures house truck-mounted ballistic missiles or facilities for fitting nuclear warheads.

The PLA displayed nuclear-capable weapons during a parade in Beijing last September to mark the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War. These included silo-based and truck-mounted intercontinental ballistic missiles.

U.S. officials and arms-control analysts say China is expanding and improving its nuclear weapons capabilities faster than any other nation. The latest Pentagon report on China’s military modernization says the country’s warhead production has slowed but it is on track to field 1,000 warheads by 2030. The December report estimated China is likely to have loaded 100 ICBMs across its three main silo fields.

China has also been strengthening its early-warning system, underpinned by its Huoyan-1 satellites, according to U.S. officials. The system can detect an incoming ICBM within 90 seconds of launch and alert a command center within three to four minutes, according to the Pentagon — sufficient time for China to fire its own silo-based weapons before they are hit.

‘AN EXTRAORDINARY EFFORT’

Significantly, each octagon sits at the core of a network of dirt roads and conduits that stretch far into the desert. These routes connect to the concrete pads, which are nestled among rocky outcrops and dry creekbeds.

The pads could be used to deploy mobile air-defense missiles, electronic warfare nodes or, from some of the larger ones, road-mobile ICBM launchers, three security scholars said.

Hans Kristensen, director of the Federation of American Scientists’ Nuclear Information Project, said while it was difficult to conclude how the various installations would be used, “it is hard to rule anything out” given the scale of the infrastructure in such a hostile environment.

The conduits that link the pads to the octagon structures may contain fiber-optic cables for communications, Kristensen and Neill said.

At the northernmost octagon, a possible space or microwave communications facility is also under construction, three analysts said, pointing to satellite dishes and two large towers.

“Taken together, I think there is a real possibility that the octagonal structures and the strange towers are linked to C3 - command, control, and communications - as well as maintenance and storage activities related to China’s nuclear operations at the Hami ICBM silo site,” said Tong Zhao, a senior fellow in nuclear policy at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

A third octagon-shaped installation south of the Lop Nur nuclear test facilities is less developed. It appears to be used as a target range: Images show pock-marked earth, damaged buildings and what analysts at Vantor, a commercial provider of satellite imagery, said are mock-ups of Western jet fighters.

The extent of the defensive network near its silos potentially sets China apart from the other major nuclear powers. The U.S. and Russia — whose warhead stockpiles and deployed weapons far exceed Beijing’s — rely on a combination of sheer numbers of silos, their relative isolation and hardened construction to deter a first strike, rather than extensive missile defense, Kristensen said.

The scale of what is emerging in China’s northwestern desert has left even seasoned analysts startled.

“I’ve never seen anything quite like it,” Kristensen said. “It’s an extraordinary effort.”

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the U.S. military has also intercepted and shot down multiple Iranian drones that posed a similar threat.

The U.S. military strikes, which have not been previously reported, came during negotiations to end a three-month-old war that has killed thousands and sent global energy prices sharply higher since it began on February 28 with U.S. and Israeli attacks.

U.S. President Donald Trump earlier on Wednesday dismissed a Iranian state media report that Iran and Oman would jointly manage shipping through the Strait of Hormuz as part of a peace deal. Trump said the waterway would remain open.

The U.S. last carried out what it called defensive strikes against Iran on Monday, in what Iran called a violation of the countries’ fragile ceasefire. The U.S. targets included boats attempting to lay mines and missile launch sites that the U.S. military’s Central Command said posed a threat to U.S. forces.

Russian forces have made grinding gains since their full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, but the advances have slowed this year and Ukrainian troops are increasing pressure on the battlefield to try to push them back.

Brigadier General Andriy Biletsky, who commands Ukraine’s Third Army Corps, one of Ukraine’s most respected fighting forces, told Reuters in an interview that he believes Russia’s army is exhausted and incapable of making major breakthroughs.

If Ukraine’s military can build and maintain momentum over several months, it can gain the initiative along the frontline and push Russia to abandon its designs on the last part of the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine that it does not yet occupy, he said.

“I believe the next six to nine months are a turning point,” Biletsky said at an undisclosed underground location in the northeastern Kharkiv region.

“More precisely, I think the next six are the most critical,” he said.

The issue of who controls Donetsk has been a stumbling block in U.S.-backed peace talks that have stalled, with Russia wanting the entire region and Ukraine refusing to withdraw from territory that Moscow’s troops have been unable to conquer.

“We need to define those directions where we can improve our positions, take some strategic points, and then speak with the Russians from a position of strength - not weakness - about a truly stable truce,” said Biletsky, a right-wing political leader who founded the battle-hardened Azov Battalion and now commands tens of thousands of troops.

“From a military point of view, this is realistic.”

Russia’s Defence Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment for this story. Russian President Vladimir Putin has vowed victory in Ukraine and said this month he thinks the war is nearing an end.

‘CRITICAL’ MONTHS AHEAD

Russia’s advances have been complicated by a decision by billionaire Elon Musk to deny Moscow’s forces access to his Starlink satellite-based internet service. Kyiv has meanwhile stepped up medium-range drone attacks on Russian air defenses and logistics, helping more long-range strikes get through to hit oil and military facilities in Russia.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said last week Ukraine had retaken nearly 600 square km (230 square miles) of territory in 2026. Reuters could not independently verify the figure. Moscow currently controls almost one-fifth of Ukrainian territory.

Assessing the military situation, John Helin of the Finland-based Black Bird conflict-analysis group echoed Biletsky in saying fatigue was a problem for Russian forces, while Ukraine’s war effort is hampered by a manpower shortage.

“It does seem like, four or five months into this year, it’s much more likely that the Russians will get exhausted before the Ukrainian problems come to a breaking point,” he told Reuters.

On Monday, the U.S.-based Institute for the Study of War said Kyiv’s forces were now “actively challenging the positional character of the war” and could soon be capable of staging limited mechanized assaults.

‘FORTRESS BELT’

Russian troops are bearing down on eastern Ukraine’s “Fortress Belt” where fighting is raging inside the strategic city of Kostiantynivka, its southern end.

The constellation of heavily fortified cities anchors Ukrainian defenses. Capturing it would position Russia to threaten the rest of the Donbas.

Biletsky, whose forces hold over one-tenth of the total front line, said his troops were firmly holding the flank around Sloviansk, the belt’s northern bastion, and forcing Russia to attack the city head-on.

Such costly assaults have helped drain Russian forces and led to heavy losses of field commanders, he said, in what he described as a professional degradation of Moscow’s military.

“The lack of personnel no longer allows them to advance the way they did, for example, a year ago,” said Biletsky.

Biletsky said it was too early to draw conclusions from Kyiv’s recent success, but that Ukraine could capitalize on it by continuing mid-range attacks and advancing “carefully”.

Moscow is “radically losing” in battlefield communications because of Musk’s crackdown on use of Starlink, Biletsky said.

But he described the sides at parity in evolving technology - with Ukraine leading in unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) and heavy bomber drones, and Russia winning the race for fibre-optic drones, which cannot be jammed.

A potential blueprint for a modernized Ukrainian army, his corps has led efforts to transform training and integrate new technology such as UGVs as an important part of its battlefield strategy.

Biletsky’s units lead the way in deploying stealthy kamikaze drones and robots armed with machine guns or rocket launchers to replace significant portions of infantrymen, aiming for 30% by 2027, he said.

The next “revolution” will allow commanders to stage more “creative” combined assault operations while conserving precious troops, Biletsky said.

“It will happen this year, and I think we’ll show how our corps is a vivid example of it,” he said.

A portion of the U.S. Air Force’s budget is set aside for the purchase of aviation fuel based on a predicted fuel price and an increase in flying hours for fiscal 2027, but that cost was estimated and submitted in their budget request before the war began, Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., said on Thursday at a Senate Committee on Armed Services hearing.

“My understanding is the president’s budget submitted to us did not include any costs that were costs related to the Iran war because it had largely been prepared and submitted through this budgetary chain of command before the Iran war started,” Kaine, a committee member, said in the hearing.

At the hearing on the department’s posture related to fiscal 2027’s defense authorization request, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Kenneth Wilsbach said that the service did account for the increased cost of flying hours in the request and estimated that cost before the market determined the true cost.

“Some years it’s more, some years it’s less. So we will adjust our dollars if we end up having to pay more per dollar for a gallon of fuel if it ends up being more than we assessed,” Wilsbach said.

Aviation fuel costs are not an issue unique to the Air Force even though it is the largest consumer across the federal government. All branches of the U.S. military utilize aviation fuel to manage and operate their own drones, helicopters and aircraft fleets.

Kaine said that aviation fuel costs have increased roughly 50% since the war started on Feb. 28 and that while writing fiscal 2027’s NDAA, the committee needs to deal with the new reality of costs on the commercial side, given its effects on the American people.

At the pump, gas prices have surged around $1.50, making the national average about $4.50 since the war commenced. Commercially, U.S. airlines fuel cost increased by 56.4%, or $3.23 billion, since February, according to the Bureau of Transportation.

Wilsbach said the force assumed a 10% increase in flying hours costs from last year in this upcoming fiscal year budget.

The force’s budget requests funding for 1.1 million flying hours, which is considered the “maximum executable level for the total force,” and allots $9.9 billion for the flying hour program, which includes aviation fuel among other maintenance and operation items.

Wilsbach did not indicate what is the assumed cost per gallon of PB, which is a Propane-Butane liquid gas blend commonly used by the Air Force for field operations.

He said that the Air Force department had long-term contracts for fuel purchases and now has storage built up, so the specifics can’t be known until that storage runs dry. Kaine pressed on whether that 10% increase is deemed sufficient considering the rise in costs.

“It’s hard to say at this point, but what I’ll tell you is this is routine for us,” Wilsbach said.

“Every year, the cost of flying hours changes from the time we budget for it to the time we execute it, and we work it out with moving money around in various accounts to cover down on the cost,” he continued.

When posed by Kaine on if the potential cost is being considered in preparation of a possible supplemental bill, Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink said that it depends on how long these costs stay high to determine their corresponding impact.

Meink said that in a previous hearing, Jay Hurst, who is performing the duties of Pentagon comptroller, mentioned the country is facing about a $29 billion impact, which includes some operation and maintenance fuel cost.

By the end of 2026, it is estimated that the American public will have paid over $193 billion in excess fuel costs because of the Iran war. As of today, American consumers have already paid $40 billion more for fuel.

Kaine highlighted these estimates, saying that it demonstrates the challenge families are facing now.

“I suspect as we’re looking at the military budget, we’re going to see a similar need to adjust it pretty dramatically because of fuel costs,” Kaine concluded.

The strikes targeted missile launch sites and Iranian boats that were in the process of laying mines, according to Navy Capt. Tim Hawkins, a U.S. Central Command spokesperson.

“U.S. Central Command continues to defend our forces while using restraint during the ongoing ceasefire,” Hawkins said.

The ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran began on April 12, though it has been tested it several times in recent weeks as the U.S. has fired on Iranian-flagged oil tankers and launched retaliatory military strikes against Iran.

U.S. forces destroyed six Iranian small boats on May 4 after the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps dispatched them toward Navy vessels escorting ships through the Strait of Hormuz.

US forces fire at, disable Iran-flagged tanker trying to evade blockade

On May 7, the U.S. fired at Iranian missile and drone launch sites, command-and-control locations, and intelligence and surveillance hubs after “unprovoked” Iranian attacks on Arleigh Burke-class destroyers USS Truxtun, USS Rafael Peralta and USS Mason.

A U.S. Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet from USS George H.W. Bush launched “precision munitions” at the smokestacks of two Iranian-flagged unladen oil tankers on May 8 as they transited toward an Iranian port in violation of the U.S. Navy blockade.

Iran reportedly accused the U.S. of violating the ceasefire after the Monday self-defense strikes.

The Trump administration is currently working to engineer a peace deal that would include a 60-day ceasefire extension, a stop to military activity and a commitment from Iran to end its nuclear program.

President Trump announced on Truth Social on Monday his preferred process for the destruction of Iran’s nuclear materials.

“The Enriched Uranium (Nuclear Dust!) will either be immediately turned over to the United States to be brought home and destroyed or, preferably, in conjunction and coordination with the Islamic Republic of Iran, destroyed in place or, at another acceptable location, with the Atomic Energy Commission, or its equivalent, being witness to this process and event,” Trump said.

Staff Sgt. Johnny “Joey” Jones, a Fox News contributor, reenlisted in the Corps on Wednesday in a ceremony held by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth at the Pentagon Hall of Heroes, according to the Department of Defense.

“A lot of work went into saying, ‘Hey, this is the kind of American we want back in uniform,’” Hegseth said in the ceremony. “Not just because of what he did and what he’s done in uniform but because of how he represents the fighting men and women of our country.”

Jones enlisted in 2005 as a radio technician before deploying to Iraq in 2007 as a machine gunner, per a Pentagon release. He then requested to change his MOS to Explosive Ordnance Disposal and later deployed to Afghanistan in 2010, according to the Sentinels of Freedom, a veterans scholarship and support program that Jones joined in 2012.

During his time in Afghanistan, Jones disabled over 85 improvised explosive devices. In August 2010, however, Jones stepped on an IED, resulting in the loss of both legs above the knee.

Starting in 2019, Jones became a Fox contributor “wingman” for Hegseth and spoke on military analysis and veterans’ services.

“How Joey talks about [service] on television [is] so that the American people understand it and connect to it in a visceral way,” Hegseth said at the ceremony. “You could talk about it academically, you could talk about it from a detached perspective or you can talk about having lived it the way he has.”

In his remarks at the ceremony, Hegseth highlighted last year’s Marine Corps record recruiting numbers, saying he hopes Jones’ reenlistment motivates younger Americans to join the military.

Jones said during the ceremony that he had more to give after medically retiring 14 years ago. He called it a “debt,” highlighting that he was able to be on TV while other service members continued to give to the country, “shy of their life and maybe a couple legs,” he said.

“The last job I had in uniform, my job was to get better. It was to heal. It’s a very selfish thing,” Jones said. “The Marine Corps paid me to get better, and then I retired, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But it was unfinished business.”

Jones said he strives to change the perspective that society has of the men and women who got injured in combat and saw the worst of war. He said there’s more to give — if not through reenlisting, then by serving the community.

He remembers former Commandant of the Marine Corps Gen. James Amos telling him, “Once a Marine, always a Marine,” not knowing that he would “cash that check” almost 20 years later.

“If there’s an opportunity for me to serve, there’s no reason why a no-legged 40-year-old staff sergeant [should not] be able to put the uniform on, other than these men believed it,” Jones said. “The goal here is to open that door for anyone else that has something left to give.”

The aerial bomb is a winged but engineless weapon that drops from an aircraft at altitude, gliding to its target on the speed and altitude of release, steered by satellite guidance. It costs much less than cruise missiles per shot, carries much larger warheads than most drones and lets aircraft stay outside the densest air defenses.

“The first Ukrainian guided aerial bomb is ready for combat use,” Minister of Defense Mykhailo Fedorov wrote in a Telegram post announcing the milestone, noting the Ministry has already purchased an experimental batch and is gearing up to deploy the bombs on the front.

“Ukraine is moving from importing individual solutions to creating its own high-tech weapons, which systematically strengthen the Defense Forces and provide a technological advantage on the battlefield,” Fedorov said.

Until now, Ukraine had no domestic precision glide bomb. The country has relied on scarce Western donations for strikes beyond the reach of conventional artillery, like American-made JDAM-ERs and ATACMS missiles, British Storm Shadows and French SCALP-EG cruise missiles.

Cheap to produce and free of donor restrictions, the new bombs let Kyiv press the fight at mid-range and conserve scarce longer-range Western missiles for deeper targets — part of a broader Ukrainian push to use tech to change the mathematics of war in its favor after over four years of defending itself against a much larger and richer enemy.

“We are scaling up solutions that increase the range and accuracy of strikes and change the rules of modern warfare,” Fedorov said.

DG Industry, a little-known Ukrainian firm sponsored by the state-backed defense innovation cluster Brave1, started work on the munition 17 months ago, MoD said.

Ukraine had no guided aerial bomb. Now it does.

DG Industry, a Brave1 participant, has completed all required trials and declared the weapon ready for combat after 17 month of development. The bomb carries a 250 kg warhead, hits targets dozens of kilometers behind enemy lines,… pic.twitter.com/EXP0PiLOHl

— BRAVE1 (@BRAVE1ua) May 18, 2026

The team faced a challenging environment, requiring guidance that could survive Russia’s electronic jamming, an airframe that stays stable across release speeds and altitudes and an interface that integrates with whichever aircraft will carry it, according to Brave1.

The result is a system officials say is different from others in its class.

Russia’s UMPK-equipped FAB bombs, for example, are glide kits bolted onto Soviet-era bomb bodies that were never meant to glide. The Ukrainian weapon is purpose-built from the airframe up, not a glide kit.

“This is not a copy of Western or Soviet solutions, but a development of Ukrainian engineers for effective destruction of fortifications, command posts, and other enemy targets tens of kilometers deep after launch,” Fedorov said.

Glide bombs also offer another edge.

Released from standoff distance, they appear over the target only in the last seconds of flight, leaving traditional air defenses little time to react.

They can be harder to detect, too, flying at different speeds, arcs and altitudes than the threats most air defense systems are optimized to track, according to NATO’s Joint Air Power Competence Centre.

Russian Su-34s release the bombs from well beyond Ukrainian air-defense coverage, and once airborne, the bombs themselves are small, unpowered and hard to track.

Ukraine knows from experience how hard they are to stop.

Russia now drops an average of more than 250 guided aerial bombs on Ukrainian positions and cities each day, according to the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Earlier this month, three FAB-250 strikes on Kramatorsk killed five civilians and injured 12 more, according to regional military officials.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has named glide bombs among Russia’s most dangerous weapons since Moscow began deploying them regularly in 2023.

And they cost far more to shoot down than to produce and deploy.

A UMPK-equipped FAB costs tens of thousands of dollars to manufacture, while a single Patriot interceptor capable of stopping one runs in the millions.

The new Ukrainian glide bomb is built to make that asymmetric cost ratio Russia’s problem, too.

“Soon, Ukrainian guided aerial bombs will be used against enemy targets,” the Ministry of Defense said.

Speaking at the 2026 Land Forces of the Pacific Symposium and Exposition in Hawaii, U.S. Army Brig. Gen. William Parker, commander of the 94th Army Air and Missile Defense Command, joked that he remembers, as a young officer, standing outside at a headquarters building adorned with a sign that read, “Will work for food,” a stark contrast in how the AAMDC is perceived today as tensions surge across the Indo-Pacific.

“But now, I’m a cool guy,” Parker added. “We are a very, very much demanded resource globally because of the challenges within the operating environment that we face.”

The 94th AAMDC’s mission includes protecting critical assets and formations within the expansive Indo-Pacific theater from enemy missile, air and drone attacks. The command was reactivated in 2005, roughly seven years after it shuttered.

The command’s mission, Parker discussed, is now especially focused on delivering layered defense at scale across a region that has seen its strategic importance skyrocket as the U.S. military and partner nations continue to contend with emerging security threats from China and North Korea.

Parker said there has been a consistent sense of urgency over the last 10 to 15 years as the People’s Republic of China speedily develops both its capabilities and capacity.

These contributions to a challenging environment come as the U.S. air and missile defense community is undergoing its largest period of modernization in history, Parker said.

Among those new critical developments is the incorporation of the Integrated Air and Missile Defense Battle Command System, or IBCS, a network of command-and-control systems, sensors and interceptors that offers commanders — from any branch or partner nation — a tailored approach to thwart threats ranging from cruise missiles to drones.

“The IBC’s capability really brings us to the concept of any sensor,” Parker said. “They are the most effective shooter ... that allows us to break the paradigm of having to rely solely on Patriot Radar Systems.”

Beyond tech developments, Parker hammered home the importance of continued allied collaboration while staring down and deterring threats out of Beijing.

“We can’t do any of what we do today without allies and partners,” Parker said. “We don’t fight alone, and we haven’t fought alone for a long time. Our partners help us protect our critical assets and critical formations that we have within this theater.”

Days before the launch of LANPAC 2026, the U.S. military wrapped up the 41st iteration of Exercise Balikatan, the largest annual bilateral exercise between U.S. and Philippine militaries.

This year’s 19-day exercise was also joined by Australia, Japan, New Zealand, France and Canada, the latter four of which put troops on the ground for the first time as part of the exercise.

“Balikatan 2026 marked a strategic evolution from a bilateral exercise to a full-scale, multinational mission rehearsal for the defense of the Philippines,” U.S. Navy Adm. Samuel J. Paparo, commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, said of the event. “That growth reflects the security environment. It reflects the sovereign choices of free nations.”

The surge in partner participation, Parker noted at LANPAC, is a direct reflection of the region’s security importance. And the role of the air defender, he added, is at the heart of it all.

“It’s both an interesting and challenging time,” Parker said. “It’s a great time to be an air defender. If you don’t believe it, just watch the news every night.”

Ukraine and Russia agreed on Friday to a ceasefire from May 9 to May 11 as part of a U.S.-led push for peace under President Donald Trump after more than four years of war following Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022.

Trump said on Friday he hoped the ceasefire would be extended, but it was already showing signs of strain on Sunday, when each side accused the other of violating it.

Russia, Ukraine to enter temporary ceasefire with prisoner exchange, Trump says

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Sunday Moscow had refrained from large-scale aerial and missile attacks but had continued assaults along parts of the 745-mile front line where Russian forces are advancing.

He said Ukrainian troops were responding and defending their positions.

Russian state news agencies reported on Monday that Russia’s Defence Ministry had said it had recorded 23,802 ceasefire violations by Ukraine since the start of the ceasefire.

Russian troops had responded in kind to Ukrainian attacks on rocket launchers, artillery and drone launch sites, the ministry was quoted as saying.

One person was killed and three wounded in a Ukrainian attack on Russia’s southern Belgorod region, Russian state news agency TASS cited the regional governor as saying on Monday.

Frontline clashes

The General Staff of Ukraine’s military said 180 battlefield clashes had been recorded along the front line over the previous 24 hours. Russian forces had on Sunday deployed “kamikaze” drones and artillery in attacks on settlements and military positions, it said in a Monday morning update.

In its Monday afternoon report, the General Staff said Russian troops had carried out 38 new assaults on Ukrainian positions, adding: “Artillery shelling of border areas continues.”

Regional governors in Ukraine reported early on Monday that at least three people had been killed in the southeastern Zaporizhzhia and southern Kherson regions over the past 24 hours.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Saturday he thought the war was coming to an end and that he would be willing to negotiate new security arrangements for Europe, with Germany’s former chancellor, Gerhard Schroeder, as his preferred partner.

But European Union foreign ministers, arriving for a meeting in Brussels on Monday, rejected Putin’s suggestion, voicing skepticism that Russia was ready to end the war and negotiate sincerely on peace and security for Europe.

In separate statements, Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the proposal would include a ceasefire running through May 11 and the exchange of 1,000 prisoners from each country.

Trump described the ceasefire as the result of U.S. diplomacy, writing in a Truth Social post that the request “was made directly by me.” He then thanked both Russian President Vladimir Putin and Zelenskyy for agreeing to the pause in fighting.

Zelenskyy, however, framed the agreement around the return of Ukrainian prisoners of war, and he seemed guarded about Russia’s willingness to uphold the ceasefire.

“We expect the United States to ensure that the Russian side fulfills these agreements,” he said in a social media post after thanking Trump for his involvement.

Ukraine’s skepticism toward the Russian commitment comes amid concerns about Moscow’s alignment with Iran.

Last month, a Ukrainian intelligence assessment alleged Russia had shared satellite imagery and cyber support with Tehran to support attacks against the U.S. and other countries.

Trump in late April publicly raised the idea of a temporary ceasefire for marking the anniversary of the end of World War II after a phone call with Putin. At the Time, Trump told reporters that he had suggested “a little bit of a ceasefire,” saying that Putin “might do that.”

The proposed ceasefire coincides with Russia’s Victory Day, which commemorates the Soviet Union’s role in defeating Nazi Germany during World War II.

Iran’s parliament speaker, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, said in a social media post on Tuesday breaches of the four-week-old ceasefire by the United States and its allies had endangered shipping and energy transit through the vital waterway.

“We know well that the continuation of the current situation is unbearable for the United States, while we have not even begun yet,” he said.

The fresh volleys of missiles and drones came after U.S. President Donald Trump launched a new effort to get stranded tankers and other ships through the strait, the vital energy-trade chokepoint that has been virtually closed since the U.S. and Israel began attacks on Iran in February, a war that has killed thousands of people across the region.

On Monday, several merchant ships in the Gulf reported explosions or fires, the U.S. said it had destroyed six small Iranian military boats, and an oil port in the United Arab Emirates, which hosts a large U.S. military base, was set ablaze by Iranian missiles.

Trump gave scant details about his new effort, which he called “Project Freedom,” to assist stuck ships in getting through the strait when he announced it on social media, two days after a legal deadline under U.S. law for him to get authorization from Congress for the war.

Trump told Congress the war was “terminated” and the deadline was moot, a claim disputed by some lawmakers.

It was the first apparent attempt to use military force since last month’s ceasefire announcement to unblock the world’s most important energy shipping route, which Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has said can only happen with its permission.

The cost of shipping insurance has also skyrocketed. For weeks, the U.S. Navy has blockaded Iran’s trade by sea, which Iran says is itself an act of war.

But Trump’s latest move, at least initially, appeared to have backfired, bringing no surge of merchant ship traffic while provoking a promised show of force from Iran, which has threatened to respond to any escalation with new attacks on its neighbors hosting U.S. troops.

Major shipping companies said they were likely to wait for an agreed end to hostilities before trying to cross the strait.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said Monday’s events showed there was no military solution to the crisis. He said peace talks were progressing with Pakistan’s mediation while warning the U.S. and the UAE against being drawn into a “quagmire by ill-wishers.”

“Project Freedom is Project Deadlock,” he wrote on social media.

Nonetheless, the U.S. military said two U.S. merchant ships made it through the strait, without saying when, with the support of Navy guided-missile destroyers.

While Iran denied any crossings had taken place in recent hours, Maersk said the Alliance Fairfax, a U.S.-flagged ship, exited the Gulf via the Strait of Hormuz accompanied by the U.S. military on Monday.

The commander of U.S. forces in the region said his fleet had destroyed six small Iranian boats, which Iran also denied. Admiral Brad Cooper said he “strongly advised” Iranian forces to keep clear of U.S. military assets carrying out the mission.

Iranian authorities released a map of what they said was an expanded sea area now under their control, extending far beyond the strait to include long stretches of the UAE’s coastline.

South Korea reported one of its merchant ships, HMM Namu, in the strait suffered an explosion and fire in its engine room, though no one aboard was hurt, and a spokesman said it was unclear if the fire was caused by an attack or originated internally.

The British maritime security agency UKMTO reported two ships had been hit off the coast of the UAE, and the Emirati oil company ADNOC said one of its empty oil tankers was hit by Iranian drones.

IRAN SETS UAE OIL PORT ABLAZE

After reported drone and missile attacks inside the UAE throughout the day, including one that caused a fire at Fujairah, an important oil port, the UAE said Iranian attacks marked a serious escalation and it reserved the right to respond.

Fujairah lies beyond the strait, making it one of few export routes for Middle East oil that does not require passing through it.

Its government also said that it was implementing remote learning for school students for safety reasons.

Iran’s state television network said military officials had confirmed they attacked the UAE in response to the “U.S. military’s adventurism.”

Earlier, Iran said it had fired on a U.S. warship approaching the strait, forcing it to turn around. An initial Iranian report had said a U.S. warship was struck, but the U.S. denied this and Iranian officials later described the fire as warning shots.

Reuters could not independently verify the full situation in the strait on Monday as the warring sides issued contradictory statements.

Iran’s unified command has told commercial ships and oil tankers that they needed to coordinate with its armed forces.

“We warn that any foreign armed forces, especially the aggressive U.S. Army, will be attacked if they intend to approach and enter the Strait of Hormuz,” it said.

The U.S. and Israel suspended their bombing of Iran four weeks ago, and U.S. and Iranian officials held one round of face-to-face peace talks. But attempts to set up further meetings have failed.

Iranian state media said on Sunday that the U.S. had conveyed its response to a 14-point Iranian proposal via Pakistan, and Iran was reviewing it. Neither side gave details.

The Iranian proposal would postpone discussion of Iran’s nuclear energy and research programs until after an agreement to end the war and resolve the standoff over shipping. Trump said over the weekend he was still studying it but would probably reject it.

The latest U.S. intelligence shows limited damage to Iran’s nuclear program, which Iran says is a purely peaceful civilian nuclear program, since the war began, officials told Reuters.

Iran’s nuclear facilities were bombed by the U.S. and Israel in attacks last year. Trump wants to remove Iran’s stockpiles of enriched uranium to prevent Iran from processing it further to the point where it could make a nuclear weapon.

He spoke after the Kremlin reported the two leaders discussed a temporary Ukraine ceasefire to mark the anniversary of the end of World War II next month.

“We had a good talk, I’ve known him a long time,” said Trump. The two leaders had their last publicly reported phone call on March 9, although Trump has indicated they speak regularly.

Trump, speaking to reporters as he met with astronauts from the Artemis II mission in the Oval Office, said he suggested “a little bit of a ceasefire” in the war in Ukraine in his phone call with the Russian leader.

“And I think he might do that,” Trump said, then asked reporters whether Putin had already announced a ceasefire.

Putin announced a similar truce last year that lasted three days but was not agreed with Kyiv.

Trump has a history of making positive comments about Putin and sharply criticizing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy for not agreeing to make a deal with Russia to end the war.

Help with Iran’s uranium

Trump said Putin offered to help on the issue of Iran’s enriched uranium, a key obstacle to a deal to end the Iran war, but “I said I’d much rather have you be involved with ending the war with Ukraine.”

“I said, before you help me, I want to end your war,” said Trump.

Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov did not say what proposals Putin had made on Iran. Moscow has previously offered to take enriched uranium out of the country.

Ushakov told reporters Putin had proposed the temporary ceasefire in Ukraine for celebrations on May 9 to mark the Soviet Union’s part in the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War Two. He said Trump reacted positively.

Ushakov added that Trump, in a friendly and businesslike conversation lasting over 1-1/2 hours, had said he believed a deal to end the Ukraine war was close.

The Iranian-flagged M/V Touska was transiting the north Arabian Sea toward Bandar Abbas, Iran, when it was intercepted by the guided-missile destroyer USS Spruance and issued warnings that it was in violation of the blockade, U.S. Central Command announced on Sunday.

“After Touska’s crew failed to comply with repeated warnings over a six-hour period, Spruance directed the vessel to evacuate its engine room,” the CENTCOM release stated. “Spruance disabled Touska’s propulsion by firing several rounds from the destroyer’s 5-inch MK 45 Gun into Touska’s engine room.”

U.S. Central Command published a brief video of the encounter.

U.S. Marines assigned to the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit subsequently boarded the vessel, the release stated. The Touska remains in U.S. custody.

Acknowledging the encounter in a post on Truth Social, U.S. President Donald Trump stated that “an Iranian-flagged cargo ship named TOUSKA, nearly 900 feet long and weighing almost as much as an aircraft carrier, tried to get past our Naval Blockade, and it did not go well for them.”

“The Iranian crew refused to listen, so our Navy ship stopped them right in their tracks by blowing a hole in the engineroom,” Trump added. “The TOUSKA is under U.S. Treasury Sanctions because of their prior history of illegal activity. We have full custody of the ship, and are seeing what’s on board!”

The U.S. Navy blockade, which involves 10,000 troops, over a dozen warships and more than 100 fighter and surveillance aircraft, went into effect on April 13 following failed peace talks between the U.S. and Iran.

Any vessels transiting to and from Iranian ports are subject to the blockade, CENTCOM officials stated, while ships not visiting Iranian ports can still navigate the Strait of Hormuz.

Iran, meanwhile, said it would retaliate for Sunday’s incident, as tensions continued to escalate Sunday amid a fragile ceasefire.

“We warn that the armed forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran will soon respond and retaliate against this armed piracy by the U.S. military,” an Iranian military spokesperson said, according to state media.

Iranian state media also reported that Tehran had rejected new peace talks, citing the ongoing blockade, threatening rhetoric and Washington’s shifting positions and “excessive demands.”

“One cannot restrict Iran’s oil exports while expecting free security for others. The choice is clear: either a free oil market for all, or the risk of significant costs for everyone,” Iran’s First Vice President Mohammadreza Aref wrote on social media.

U.S. forces have encountered and redirected 25 commercial vessels since launching the blockade, according to CENTCOM.

Military Times reporter Riley Ceder and Reuters reporters Daphne Psaledakis, Trevor Hunnicutt and Saad Sayeed contributed to this report.

Several commercial vessels tried to transit the strait after receiving a notice to mariners a day earlier saying passage would be allowed but restricted to lanes Iran deemed safe.

On Saturday, at least two ships reported that Iranian boats fired shots, shipping and maritime security sources told Reuters. The incidents were reported in waters between the Qeshm and Larak islands. The vessels turned back without completing the crossing, the sources said.

The United Kingdom Maritime ​Trade Operations (UKMTO) agency said it had received a report of an incident 20 nautical miles northeast of Oman. The captain of a tanker said it had been approached by two Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps gunboats that fired on the vessel. The tanker and its crew were safe.

A container ship was also hit by gunfire, a maritime security source said.

Some vessels reported that Iran’s navy had been broadcasting a VHF message saying the Strait of Hormuz was closed again.

“Attention all ships, regarding the failure of the U.S. government to fulfill its commitment in the negotiation, Iran declares the Strait of Hormuz completely closed again. No vessel of any type or nationality is allowed to pass through the Strait of Hormuz,” the radio message said.

Hundreds ​of ships and about 20,000 seafarers remain stranded in the Gulf, waiting to pass through the key waterway, which handles about 20% of global oil and liquefied natural gas flows.