The United Kingdom will contribute autonomous mine-hunting systems, Typhoon fighter jets and HMS Dragon to a planned multinational mission aimed at securing commercial shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. The deployment package includes £115 million in new defence funding.
The United Kingdom and France will host a multinational meeting on Tuesday involving more than 40 nations to discuss a defensive mission aimed at securing the Strait of Hormuz. HMS Dragon will deploy to the Middle East to support possible future operations.
The Government of India has appointed Lieutenant General NS Raja Subramani (Retd) as the next Chief of Defence Staff and Vice Admiral Krishna Swaminathan as the next Chief of the Naval Staff. Both officers will assume charge following the retirement of the current incumbents at the end of May 2026.
India has conducted a successful test of an Advanced Agni missile equipped with a MIRV system and separately completed a long-duration scramjet combustor test linked to its hypersonic cruise missile development programme, according to the Ministry of Defence and DRDO.
Ukrspecsystems has opened a £200 million drone production facility in Suffolk, creating up to 500 jobs and expanding UK-based manufacturing to support Ukraine’s Armed Forces. The site will produce surveillance and related drone systems as part of ongoing UK military assistance.
The Ministry of Defence has signed five-year Letters of Offer and Acceptance with the U.S. for sustainment support of the Indian Navy’s MH-60R helicopters, covering spares, repairs, training and new in-country maintenance facilities.
Airbus has delivered the first A400M military transport aircraft to Indonesia; the first of two ordered in 2021, to support transport, humanitarian, and potential firefighting missions across the archipelago. With this delivery, Indonesia has become the tenth operator of the tactical airlifter.
Larsen & Toubro and General Atomics-ASI have signed a partnership to manufacture Medium Altitude Long Endurance drones in India for the armed forces, with L&T as prime bidder and GA-ASI as technology partner under the Ministry of Defence’s 87-MALE RPAS programme.
HAL’s Nashik facility has conducted the first flight of the Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) Mk1A and inaugurated new production lines for the fighter and the HTT-40 trainer aircraft. The expansion is intended to increase LCA output to 24 aircraft annually and represents a major boost to India’s indigenous manufacturing capacity.
Russia has set up manufacturing of the Mango armour-piercing tank round in India, designed to be fired from the guns of T-72 and T-90 Main Battle Tanks and penetrate composite armour. It has also announced the delivery of 35,000 AK203 rifles to the Indian defence ministry, manufactured by the Indo-Russian Rifles Private Limited joint venture at Korwa Ordnance Factory in Amethi in Uttar Pradesh.
The German Ministry of Defence said in order to “compete for the best minds, the use of TikTok is indispensable”. Special measures are being introduced for the use of TikTok. These include the technical separation between the Bundeswehr‘s networks and the TikTok platform. Dedicated end devices should be used without access to the Bundeswehr‘s IT structure. TikTok software is still neither authorized nor technically possible on official IT.
The U.S. Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit and the Indian defence ministry’s iDEX will throw open two challenges ‘focused on undersea communication and maritime intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance’ to start-ups later this month.
Part III of this analysis examines the implications of the single most interesting data point to emerge from the report of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India. This date has never been mentioned in earlier media reports, and what is almost startlingly significant is not only what transpired on this date, but the fact of the date, itself.
Part II of this analysis examines how the defence ministry’s Contract Negotiation Committee (CNC) interpreted an inflated cost analysis of the Eurofighter bid and undervalued the cost of the Rafale bid, five times.
Part I of this three-part analysis is a contextual reading of the February 2019 CAG report and outlines how the IAF’s MMRCA contest was fixed to get the Rafale back into the contest after it was rejected, three times, and how the threats to a Rafale win were removed.
