The delivery is to be financed by Germany. However, the final technical, logistical and financial details still need to be clarified, German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said after his talks with U.S. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, saying these “appear to be solvable for both of us, so we will get to work quickly,” and underlining Ukraine’s urgent need for additional air defence systems.
The U.S. State Department said ‘TRF, a Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LeT) front and proxy, claimed responsibility for the April 22, 2025, Pahalgam attack which killed 26 civilians. This was the deadliest attack on civilians in India since the 2008 Mumbai attacks conducted by LeT. TRF has also claimed responsibility for several attacks against Indian security forces, including most recently in 2024.’
Three seconds after liftoff, both Fuel Control Switches ‘transition from RUN to Cutoff.’ ‘In the cockpit voice recording, one of the pilots is heard asking the other why did he cutoff. The other pilot responded that he did not do so,’ according to the Preliminary Report of India’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau on Air India Boeing 787-8 crash at Ahmedabad on June 12, 2025. These are the Timeline and Notes compiled from the report.
The Ukraine war and expanding global conflict showered a windfall on German arms companies like Rheinmetall and TKMS, with some startups like Helsing becoming the upstarts of the weapons industry, and other legacy companies like Heckler & Koch even experiencing a dramatic reversal of fortunes.
As the German Bundeswehr grapples with a shortage of 60,000 soldiers, Chancellor Freidrich Merz said, “We will probably … not be able to manage with the current voluntary system alone, but will need additional elements of compulsory military service.”
The poll, conducted by the Forsa polling institute for the magazine Internationale Politik, found that 64 percent of German respondents were in favour of establishing a European nuclear shield as a deterrent, while only 29 percent were opposed.
Some 45 percent of German respondents favour spending 5 percent of GDP on defence that compared to 37 percent who oppose it, with 18 percent saying they don’t know, a poll from YouGov conducted for the Munich-based newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung showed.
A survey published on Monday by the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) found that support for increased defence spending is highest in Poland and Denmark (70 percent), followed by Britain (57 percent), Estonia (56 percent) and Portugal (54 percent).
Over 56 percent of respondents polled by the opinion research institute Innofact said private investments in the arms industry were justifiable, in a significant change from 2022 when 53 percent of respondents still had reservations about investing in defence companies. Since then, the prospect of higher government defence spending in Germany and many other countries has driven many stocks to record highs.
Italy’s Leonardo, British BAE Systems and the Japan Aircraft Industrial Enhancement Co. Ltd. have set up Edgewing for the design and development of their next generation combat aircraft under the Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP).
Airbus Helicopters and Singapore’s Defence Science and Technology Agency will pair a H225M medium lift helicopter with the Flexrotor UAS via its crewed-uncrewed teaming system called HTeaming, integrated on board the helicopter, to allow its crew to take full control of the drone.
Boeing and the Royal Australian Air Force have successfully demonstrated Manned Unmanned Teaming of two MQ-28 Ghost Bat drones with an E-7A Wedgetail AEW&C aircraft, with plans for future teaming with the F/A-18 and F-35 fighters.
Thales plans to install its AirMaster S radar on the Skydweller solar-powered, carbon-fibre, autonomous, Medium-Altitude Pseudo-Satellite (MAPS) aircraft that has a payload capacity of 400 kilograms and endurance that could extend to months.
Italy’s Leonardo and Turkey’s Baykar are equal partners in LBA Systems, with Baykar to focus on design and development of advanced unmanned platforms and Leonardo to provide electronic systems, payloads, and implement Manned-Unmanned Teaming and swarming capabilities.
Sweden’s Saab has partnered with General Atomics to build a new Airborne Early Warning drone based on Saab’s AEW solutions, integrated on the General Atomics MQ-9B UCAV, intended to operate from naval warships in a manned-unmanned teaming configuration.
