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US Air Force Global Strike Command will conduct two test launches of its Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles from Vanderberg Space Force Base this coming week. The tests come amid raging tensions between Russia and NATO amid the escalating proxy war in Ukraine, but likely aren’t worth panicking over, observers have told Sputnik.

The chairwoman of the Defence Committee in the German parliament, Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann, has called for the recruitment of 900,000 German reservists in light of Russia's belligerent stance under President Vladimir Putin. "Putin is training his people for war and positioning them against the West. We must therefore become capable of defence as quickly as possible," Strack-Zimmermann of the liberal Free Democrats (FDP), a junior partner in Germany's governing coalition, told the Funke media group in remarks published on Saturday. Russian industry is focused on manufacturing weapons, the defence expert said. "School books are printed that portray Germany as an aggressor...

On May 23 drones launched from Ukraine hit a Russian strategic radar station in Armavir, Russia. This is not the first time that nuclear facilities in Russia have been targeted and hit, but it represents a significant escalation that could trigger Russian retaliation on NATO suppliers or even a nuclear response by Russia. The core of Russian angst about Ukraine is that the country would become a NATO base for nuclear missiles. It isn’t clear if the attack was entirely on Ukraine’s initiative or whether Ukraine’s NATO partners were involved.

The U.S. Navy's Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carriers, intended to replace the aging Nimitz-class, are the largest and most expensive warships ever built, costing $13.3 billion each. Despite advanced technology and automation reducing crew requirements, these carriers face challenges due to anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) systems deployed by potential adversaries like China. The new carrier's high cost and potential vulnerability to cheaper A2/AD systems raise concerns about its effectiveness in future conflicts.

A Georgian parliament committee on Monday, May 27, rejected the president’s veto of the "foreign agents" legislation that has sparked massive protests for weeks. The move by the parliament’s judiciary committee sets up the possibility of a vote of the full legislature on Tuesday to override President Salome Zourabichvili’s veto of the measure, which she and other critics say will restrict media freedom and obstruct Georgia’s chances of joining the European Union.

‘Maoré na Farantsa paka tcho!’, Emmanuel Macron declared five years ago campaigning in Mamoudzou, speaking the local language of Shimaoré in the capital city of Mayotte, a French-ruled archipelago-commune in the Indian Ocean. Translation: Mayotte and France, for ever, in life until death. The French president returned to the islands this week to play emperor but his empire looks like it’s falling apart. Even by the standard of Macron’s habitual wishful thinking, Mayotte is a disaster. Like much of the French empire – an empire that pretends not to be one – Macron indulges a fantasy that its remote colonies...

The Conservative Party has said it would bring back mandatory national service if it wins the general election. It said 18-year-olds would have a choice of either joining the military full-time, or volunteering one weekend every month carrying out a community service. The party is proposing a Royal Commission to consider the details but would plan for the first teenagers to take part in September 2025. The cost is expected to be around £2.5bn per year. Under the plans, young people could choose a full-time, 12-month placement in the armed forces or UK cyber defence, learning about logistics, cyber security,...

The reform of Ukraine's General Staff will see a 60% reduction in the number of staff, with some of them being sent to combat units, Brigadier General Yevhenii Ostrianskyi, Head of the Main Department of Defence Planning of Ukraine's General Staff, has stated.

Ukrainian attack on annexed Crimea using U.S.-supplied missiles is reported to have struck a space radar station used by occupying Russian forces. The local Crimean Wind Telegram channel reported on Friday that Kyiv's forces attacked military installations in Crimea on Thursday evening. At least six ATACMS ballistic missiles hit a communications center used by the Russian army that houses "a radio antenna of a space observation station," it said. Newsweek could not independently verify the report and has contacted Russia's Defense Ministry for comment by email.

The plane of Viktor Yanukovych, the pro-Russian former president of Ukraine who fled the country after the Revolution of Dignity in 2014, has arrived in Belarus. Source: Belaruski Hajun, an independent Belarusian military monitoring media outlet Quote: "Viktor Yanukovych's Dassault Falcon 900C (RA-09617) landed at Gomel airport at 12:50." Details: Analysts do not indicate who might be on board, but note that Yanukovych last visited Belarus in March 2022. At that time, Ukrainska Pravda's intelligence sources reported that the Kremlin was preparing Yanukovych for a special operation – following one of the scenarios, they could try to declare him "president...

BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — Hungary will seek to opt out of any NATO operations aimed at supporting Ukraine, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said Friday, suggesting that the military alliance and the European Union were moving toward a more direct conflict with Russia. Orbán told state radio that Hungary opposes a plan NATO is weighing to provide more predictable military support to Ukraine in coming years to repel Moscow’s full-scale invasion, as better armed Russian troops assert control on the battlefield. “We do not approve of this, nor do we want to participate in financial or arms support (for Ukraine), even...

A map of Russian territory has been trotted out by House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul as a prop in Congress, as seen from footage published by C-SPAN. McCaul was fervently advocating dropping US restrictions for Ukraine to hit targets inside Russia. McCaul rattled off a list of weapons funneled to the Kiev regime, including long-range Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) and HIMARS, claiming that restrictions on their use meant that Ukrainians had “they hands tied behind their backs.”

Russia on Tuesday announced the start of tactical nuclear weapons drills close to Ukraine, in what it said was a response to Western "threats". Throughout its two-year offensive on Ukraine, Moscow has repeatedly talked-up its arsenal of nuclear weapons and its readiness to deploy them if it senses an existential threat. The West has accused President Vladimir Putin of irresponsible nuclear sabre-rattling. Russia's defence ministry said Tuesday the drills were taking place in its Southern Military District, which borders and includes parts of Ukraine that Moscow claims to have annexed. It did not specify exactly where.

Iranian media report that a helicopter carrying President Ebrahim Raisi encountered an accident in East Azerbaijan Province and some of his companions in the helicopter "managed to make contact with the center." Meanwhile, IRIB News Agency wrote, "Rescue teams are continuing their efforts to reach the crash site."

🔹 The West turns a blind eye on Ukraine carrying out terrorist acts on Russian territory 🔹 Russia and its partners are not satisfied with the state of affairs in the world when the West prevents other nations from choosing who to cooperate with 🔹 Ukraine and its Western patrons are not ready for equal, honest and open dialogue 🔹 Western elites are trying to “punish” Russia, isolate it, and weaken it, seeking to illegally appropriate its assets

NIAMEY, Niger — A crucial military relationship between the United States and its closest West African ally, the country of Niger, ruptured this spring after a visiting U.S. official made threats during last-ditch negotiations over whether American troops based there would be allowed to remain, according to the country’s prime minister. In an exclusive interview, Prime Minister Ali Mahaman Lamine Zeine put the blame for the breakdown squarely on the United States, accusing American officials of trying to dictate which countries Niger could partner with and failing to justify the U.S. troop presence, now scheduled to end in the coming...

There is a large Russian operation underway in Ukraine focused on the Kharkov area. At the same time, the Russians are also attacking elsewhere, primarily in Donbas but also in Zaphorize. The threat in the north has compelled Ukraine to pull troops deployed elsewhere, including Chasiv Yar, to try and hold the line in the Kharkov area. If Russia intended to force Ukraine’s army to move its troops northwards, then it looks like a success so far. These troop movements will offer the Russian army the chance to do more damage to Ukraine’s army.

MOSCOW, May 14. /TASS/. Head of the Main Personnel Directorate of the Russian Ministry of Defense, Lieutenant General Yuri Kuznetsov, was detained, law enforcement agencies told TASS. "Lieutenant General General Kuznetsov was detained as a suspect in a criminal offense. The case is being investigated by the Main Military Investigation Department of the Russian Investigative Committee," the source said.

Ukraine’s military is confronting a “critical” situation in the country’s northeast, facing troop shortages as it tries to repel a Russian offensive that has been advancing for several days, a top Ukrainian general said on Monday. Russian troops surged across the border last week to open a new line of attack near Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city after Kyiv, capturing at least nine settlements and villages and forcing thousands of civilians to flee. “The situation is on the edge,” Gen. Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, said in a video call from a bunker in Kharkiv. “Every hour...

As the Commander of a Ukrainian Special Reconnaissance Unit, he fought in Ukraine’s surprise offensive in Kharkiv in the autumn of 2022, which pushed back an initial Russian invasion all the way back to the border. But now Denys and his men are facing the prospect of doing the same all over again. Russian forces have, in recent days, made small but significant gains right along the border in the Kharkiv region.