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.
German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said any European protection force for Ukraine would depend on Russia’s response and unresolved legal and command issues, following talks in Berlin for a force to help secure a possible ceasefire.
Germany will contribute at least €150 million toward the purchase of US-made military equipment for Ukraine, Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said during a meeting of the “Group of Five” European defence ministers in Berlin under NATO’s PURL scheme.
The British foreign intelligence service, MI6, has launched a new dark-web portal for informants to get in touch with it securely, and a new YouTube channel with instructional videos in eight languages, including poorly-composed Hindi.
Turkey signed separate agreements at the International Defence Industry Fair in Istanbul last week, with plans to purchase 40 Eurofighter aircraft from the United Kingdom and sell 48 of its indigenous Kaan fighter aircraft to Indonesia.
The meeting is to take place on Friday in Istanbul at the level of deputy foreign ministers and would be the first round of negotiations since a ceasefire came into force after Israel’s war against Iran, which mainly targeted Iran’s nuclear and military facilities.
The treaty underscores the countries’ mutual defence obligations as NATO allies, which is made especially significant given the UK’s status as a nuclear power. The goal is to boost European deterrence and defence over the next decade. The two sides plan to jointly develop a European-made long-range weapons system capable of striking targets up to 2,000 kilometres away, addressing a capability gap with Russian medium-range missiles.
Offering the latest look at the form of the future next generation fighter, the model of the flying demonstrator for the next generation Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP) combat aircraft was published on Thursday, with the demonstrator expected to be ready for flight by the end of 2027, becoming the first such aircraft developed in the UK in the last 40 years.
The €150 billion SAFE fund will come into force on May 29, offering loans to EU states for defence procurement, that will require 65 percent of all purchases to be of European origin, with contractors required to fully control design to avoid new dependencies.
An agreement between the EU and the UK has included the first steps towards allowing British companies to compete for orders paid for by a €150B loan program intended to boost European defence, that would otherwise only be serviced by European firms.
Damage to submarine communication cables between new NATO members Finland and Sweden and their alliance partners Germany and Lithuania was likely sabotage, German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said on Tuesday. “No one believes that these cables were cut by mistake,” Pistorius said in Brussels at an EU defence ministers meeting to discuss the different threats facing the European Union.
German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said that the Bundeswehr needs around €58 billion ($63 billion) in 2025 to quickly close capability gaps. “As things stand, we will be allocated around €52 billion”, he said, adding, “That means we will be short of almost €6 billion next year.”
Germany stopped selling weapons to Saudi Arabia over the war on Yemen’s Houthi militia. It has now started selling weapons to Saudi Arabia again, to intercept missile attacks from the same Houthis aimed at Israel.
The British defense ministry has admitted the loss of over 700 laptops and over 300 CDs, DVDs and USBs in 18 months in the latest of a long line of Brit security losing stuff.
Steven Gillard of Rolls-Royce spoke to StratPost about the Naval Aircraft Yard milestone of overhauling the 50th Sea Harrier Pegasus engine and the role played by his company in helping achieve it.
