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Serco and Damen: A Risky Gamble with the Royal Navy
The Ministry of Defence’s (MoD) decision to award a £200 million contract for 24 auxiliary vessels to Dutch shipbuilder Damen, under the wider £850 million Serco-managed support deal for Royal Navy bases, has drawn sharp criticism. While concerns about outsourcing…
MiG-31s over Estonia expose a NATO posture Moscow now expects
Estonia’s report that three Russian MiG-31s penetrated its airspace near Vaindloo Island on 19 September is the fourth such violation this year and the most serious to date: the jets reportedly remained inside for around 12 minutes, with transponders off,…
Estonia summons Russian envoy after MiG-31 incursion; Poland reports low passes over Petrobaltic Baltic platform
Estonia summoned Russia’s chargé d’affaires in Tallinn on Friday, 19 September, after three Russian MiG-31 fighter jets entered Estonian airspace over the Gulf of Finland and remained for around 12 minutes. The Estonian Foreign Ministry issued a formal note of…
Ukraine targets Russian energy sites in Bashkortostan and Volgograd
Ukrainian forces struck two major energy facilities deep inside Russia overnight on 17–18 September, hitting the Gazprom Neftekhim Salavat petrochemical complex in Bashkortostan and the Lukoil-operated Volgograd oil refinery. Regional authorities in Bashkortostan reported a fire at the Salavat site…
University Cadets in Germany Reveal Britain’s Future Military Elite
It’s often said that the character of a nation is defined by its youth—by what they choose to believe, whom they choose to trust, and how far they are prepared to go. Last week, 140 UK university officer cadets from…
Polish media: F-16 missile likely damaged house during drone incursion
A house damaged during Russia’s mass drone incursion into Polish airspace on 10 September was likely struck by a malfunctioning air-to-air missile fired from a Polish F-16, rather than by a falling drone, according to a report by the daily…
Soldier F: This is not justice — it is scapegoating
More than half a century after Bloody Sunday, the British state has chosen its scapegoat. Soldier F, a former Paratrooper now in his seventies, stands accused of murdering two men and attempting to murder five others during the 1972 shootings…
Eastern Sentry Looks Reactive as Russian Drones Test NATO’s Eastern Flank
Repeated air alerts in Poland and Romania this week, coupled with NATO’s launch of the Eastern Sentry mission, underscore an alliance still reacting to events rather than shaping them. On 9–10 September, Poland became the first NATO member state to…
Project Bromo: can Europe’s satellite champions escape gravity of Brussels bureaucracy?
If Europe needed a symbol of its belated awakening to the new age of great-power competition, it could do worse than the news that Airbus, Thales and Leonardo — the continent’s aerospace titans — are preparing to fuse their satellite…
Ukraine’s Bufalo UGV: what a 4-tonne, diesel-powered, AI-assisted ground drone is designed to do
Ukraine’s defence sector is enlarging the role of uncrewed ground vehicles (UGVs) in logistics, demining and engineering tasks. A recent entrant, the Bufalo, is a 4-tonne diesel platform developed by a Ukrainian company that has withheld its name for security…