Drones (Pilotless Planes)

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    Israel and Ukraine Show How Drone Smuggling Is Powerful New War Technique

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    Launching weapons from within their territory forces adversaries to look not only outward but also inside for threats, one expert said.Small, difficult to detect and able to pack a powerful punch, attack drones have become a formidable weapon in modern warfare. But when launched from deep inside enemy territory — as in Iran and in Russia this month — their impact is all the more devastating.The surprise factor of having to fend off drones attacking from within combines a classic military strategy with modern technology. Spy craft and covert operations have long been a part of combat, but using them to build or deploy deadly drones behind enemy lines is a new tactic in the ever-evolving art of war, officials and weapons experts said.That was the case two weeks ago, when more than 40 Russian war planes were hit by a swarm of 117 drones that Ukraine had secretly planted near military bases in Russia months earlier. Some were thousands of miles from Ukraine.It was also the case in Iran, which lost missiles, interceptors and air defense systems that were destroyed on Friday by drones and other weapons that Israeli intelligence operatives had smuggled in earlier.Many of the details about the secretive operations, and how they were carried out, remain murky to protect methods of intelligence collection and sources of covert information.But Israel’s approach gave it an edge in its wide-ranging attack against Iran “because it’s coming from left flank,” said Assaf Orion, a retired Israeli brigadier general and defense strategist at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump Signs Executive Orders Intended to Jolt U.S. Drone Manufacturing

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      President Trump also eased restrictions on commercial drone flights and called for the revival of supersonic flights for nonmilitary aircraft.President Trump on Friday signed executive orders aimed at bolstering the U.S. drone industry, cracking down on unauthorized, unmanned flights and countering threats to national security and public safety.The orders sought to expand opportunities for commercial and recreational drone use, and tighten restrictions to address security threats. American officials have been concerned about foreign adversaries using drones to spy on sensitive areas, including military installations, and about China’s dominance of the drone market, which they see as a national security threat.“Building a strong and secure domestic drone sector is vital to reducing reliance on foreign sources, strengthening critical supply chains and ensuring that the benefits of this technology are delivered to the American people,” one of the orders said.Mr. Trump’s drone orders were part of a broader federal push into airborne technology. A third order he signed on Friday sought to revive high-speed commercial air travel, by repealing regulations prohibiting cross-country supersonic flights, which for decades have precluded nonmilitary air travel over land at faster-than-sound speeds.Democratic and Republican administrations, as well as Congress, have grappled in recent years with the risks posed by Beijing’s role in drone manufacturing. The United States has struggled to develop alternatives at a scale necessary to wean drone operators, including the U.S. military, completely off Chinese components.At the same time, the growing popularity of both commercial and recreational drones, and an increase in incidents of drones flying over sensitive sites, have heightened demand for regulations.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Russia Launches Broad Assault on Kyiv and Other Cities in Ukraine

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      Air defense crews in the capital were racing to combat a large-scale bombardment before dawn on Friday, officials said. Explosions rocked Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, before dawn on Friday as air defense crews raced to combat a large-scale Russian bombardment, the authorities said. The Ukrainian Air Force reported that Russia had begun launching ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and drones at the capital and other cities overnight. Multiple fires were reported across Kyiv, including at a 16-story apartment block. Mayor Vitali Klitschko said at least three people had been injured, and officials cautioned that the toll could rise as the attack was still underway. Russia has launched more than 1,000 drones per week at military and civilian targets in Ukraine in recent months, including more than 300 in a single night last week. On Wednesday, Russia’s leader, Vladimir V. Putin, warned President Trump that his country would retaliate against Ukraine for its audacious drone attack last weekend on airfields across Russia, according to Mr. Trump. On Thursday, Mr. Trump compared Russia and Ukraine to two fighting children who needed to work out their differences before their bloody war could end. “Sometimes you’re better off letting them fight for a while and then pulling them apart,” he said in the Oval Office as Germany’s chancellor, Friedrich Merz, urged him to leverage the power of the United States to end the conflict. Mr. Trump avoided answering a question about whether he was willing to increase pressure on Russia. The Kremlin has repeatedly resisted his calls for an unconditional cease-fire. Since the beginning of this year, the Russian military has carried out attacks against Ukraine using nearly 27,700 aerial bombs, almost 11,200 Shahed drones, around 9,000 other attack strike drones and more than 700 missiles, including ballistic ones, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said on Thursday. “This is the pace of Russian strikes, and they deliberately set this tempo from the very first days of the full-scale war,” Mr. Zelensky said. “Russia has restructured its entire state, society, and economy to be able to kill people in other countries on a massive scale and with impunity.” Before the overnight bombardment, Russia launched high-explosive aerial bombs at the center of the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson on Thursday morning, partially destroying the Regional State Administration building and damaging several surrounding structures. On Wednesday night, the Russians attacked the city of Pryluky in the northeastern Chernihiv region, killing at least five people, including a 1-year-old baby, Ukrainian officials said. More

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      Ukraine Hid Attack Drones in Russia. These Videos Show What Happened Next.

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      <!–> –><!–> [–><!–> –><!–> [–><!–> –><!–> [–><!–> –> <!–> –><!–> [–><!–>Strategic bombers in at least two airfields, Belaya and Olenya, were destroyed. In total, Ukraine targeted bases in five regions, according to Russia’s Ministry of Defense, which said attacks on three other locations had been repelled. The Times was not able to verify those claims, […] More

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      Ukraine Says Russian Strike on Military Base Killed 12 Soldiers

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      The commander of Ukraine’s Ground Forces, Maj. Gen. Mykhailo Drapatyi, submitted his resignation after the attack, saying that he felt a “personal sense of responsibility for the tragedy.”A Russian missile attack on a Ukrainian military training base killed at least 12 soldiers and wounded more than 60 others on Sunday, the Ukrainian military said, in a rare statement acknowledging casualties within its ranks.The commander of Ukraine’s Ground Forces, Maj. Gen. Mykhailo Drapatyi, submitted his resignation after the attack on the base, in the Dnipro region, saying in a statement that he felt a “personal sense of responsibility for the tragedy.”Ukraine’s military said it was investigating the circumstances, but emphasized that there was not a mass gathering at the time of the attack — an apparent attempt to demonstrate lessons learned from previous incidents.“At the time the air raid alert was announced, all personnel were in shelters, except for those who may not have had time to reach it,” Vitalii Sarantsev, a spokesman for Ukraine’s Ground Forces, said in an interview with Ukrainian news media.Ukraine’s military does not typically disclose official casualty figures, which are treated as a state secret and are a highly sensitive topic in the country. Past attacks with large numbers of military casualties — like when a Russian missile killed soldiers gathered for an awards ceremony in southern Ukraine in late 2023 — have raised questions about security protocols.The strike on the training base came on the eve of another round of peace talks in Istanbul, proposed by Moscow. While Kyiv had insisted it see a promised memorandum outlining Russia’s cease-fire terms before sending any officials to the talks, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine announced on Sunday that Kyiv would in fact send a delegation.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The Indian Aircraft Pakistan Says It Shot Down

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      Tensions between India and Pakistan have risen sharply in the weeks since a terrorist attack in Kashmir. On Wednesday, India hit Pakistan and appears to have lost aircraft in the strike.Indian aircraft went down after the country launched attacks against Pakistan this week, in what it said was retaliation for a terrorist attack in Indian-controlled Kashmir that killed 26 people and caused tensions between the two nations to boil over.The exact number and variety of lost aircraft is not yet clear.Two or three Indian aircraft went down inside India’s border, according to Indian officials, Western diplomats and local media reports. Pakistan, for its part, claims it shot down five planes and at least one drone: three Rafale fighter jets, one MIG-29 fighter aircraft, one Su-30 fighter jet and one Heron drone.The New York Times was unable to independently verify these claims.John E. Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, a nonprofit research group based in Alexandria, Va., said those five aircraft and the drone could have been downed by surface-to-air or air-to-air missiles. “Pakistan has both,” he said.Here is what to know about the aircraft Pakistan’s military says it shot down.RafaleThe Rafale is a twin-engine fighter jet that can take off from an aircraft carrier or a base onshore, according to its French manufacturer, Dassault Aviation.In April, the Indian government signed a deal with France to purchase an additional 26 of the aircraft for the Indian Navy, to be delivered by 2030. According to Dassault Aviation, India had previously ordered 36 Rafales.Photos from the village of Wuyan in India-administered Kashmir, showed debris identified as an external fuel tank for a plane. Trevor Ball, an associate researcher at Armament Research Services, said that the tank was likely from a French-made Mirage or Rafale fighter jet, but he could not confirm whether the fuel tank came from an aircraft that had been hit by enemy fire.MIG-29The Soviet-designed MIG-29 is a twin-engine fighter aircraft developed to counter U.S. fighters like the F-16. The Soviet Air Force began using MIG-29s in the 1980s, and after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, many former Soviet republics continued to use the plane. It has also been a popular export; over 30 nations have used or operated it, according to the U.S. Army Training Command.The plane was originally intended for dogfighting enemy aircraft, though some MIG-29s have been outfitted for attacking ground targets.The MIG-29 is often a competitor with the F-16 in international arms sales Mr. Pike said, adding that it was a “competition which it frequently loses.”Su-30The Su-30 is a twin-engine fighter jet developed in the Soviet Union in the 1990s by Russia’s Sukhoi Aviation. It can be used for air-to-air combat, or missions striking targets on the ground, according to a U.S. Army analysis.It’s significantly bigger than the MIG-29, at nearly 72-feet long and with a wingspan of over 48 feet. (The MIG-29 is nearly 57-feet long and has a wingspan of around 37 feet.)Heron DroneHeron drones encompass a family of Israeli-made unmanned aerial vehicles. U.S. government assessments list India as having at least one variant.Shawn Paik More

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      Ex-Army Sergeant Gets 7 Years for Selling Military Secrets to Chinese Conspirator

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      Korbein Schultz, 25, who was an intelligence analyst, accepted $42,000 in bribes for sensitive documents, prosecutors said. He pleaded guilty in 2024.A former U.S. Army intelligence analyst with top secret security clearance was sentenced to seven years in prison on Wednesday for selling classified military information to a foreign national who was most likely connected to the Chinese government, federal prosecutors said.The analyst, Sgt. Korbein Schultz, 25, sent at least 92 sensitive documents to a conspirator, who was not named, in a period of less than two years, the authorities said. The material included technical manuals for intercontinental ballistic missile systems and information on Chinese military tactics, they said.Mr. Schultz, of Wills Point, Texas, received $42,000 in exchange for the information, according to the Justice Department.He pleaded guilty last August to six criminal counts that included conspiracy to obtain and transmit national defense data, bribery of a public official and exporting technical defense data. The counts all together could have brought a sentence of up to 65 years in prison.Mr. Schultz will also be required to complete three years of supervised release as part of his sentence, which was handed down in federal court in Nashville.“Protecting classified information is paramount to our national security, and this sentencing reflects the ramifications when there is a breach of that trust,” Brig. Gen. Rhett R. Cox, the commanding general of the Army Counterintelligence Command, said in a statement on Wednesday. “This soldier’s actions put Army personnel at risk, placing individual gain above personal honor.”Mary Kathryn Harcombe, a federal public defender who represented Mr. Schultz, declined to comment on the sentence.Mr. Schultz, who was assigned to the 506th Infantry Battalion, was arrested in March 2024 at Fort Campbell in Kentucky.Prosecutors said that he had shared his Army unit’s operational order with the conspirator before the unit was deployed to Eastern Europe to support NATO operations. The conspirator contacted him shortly after he had received his top secret security clearance, they said.He also supplied the person with details on U.S. military exercises in South Korea and the Philippines, in addition to lessons learned by the U.S. Army from the Ukraine-Russia war that are applicable to Taiwan’s defense, the authorities said.Military officials said that Mr. Schultz had given his contact in China technical manuals for the HH-60 helicopter and the F-22A fighter aircraft, along with a tactical playbook on how to counter unmanned aerial systems in large-scale combat operations.According to the indictment, Mr. Schultz unsuccessfully tried to recruit another Army intelligence officer to help him obtain more sensitive documents for the conspirator, who reportedly lived in Hong Kong and worked for a geopolitical consulting firm overseas. More

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      The Secret History of America’s Involvement in the Ukraine War

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      <!–> [–><!–> [–><!–>On a spring morning two months after Vladimir Putin’s invading armies marched into Ukraine, a convoy of unmarked cars slid up to a Kyiv street corner and collected two middle-aged men in civilian clothes.–><!–> –><!–> [–><!–> –><!–> [–><!–> –><!–> [–><!–> –><!–> [–><!–> –><!–> [–><!–> –><!–> –> <!–> [–> <!–> ]–> <!–> –><!–> –><!–> […] More

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      Russia Presses Offensive in Kursk Amid Cease-Fire Talks With U.S.

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      Moscow said it had retaken two villages outside the town of Sudzha in Russia’s Kursk region. Ukrainian officials did not immediately comment on the claim.Moscow is pressing its offensive to retake the full territory of Russia’s Kursk region from Ukraine as negotiations between the White House and the Kremlin continue over a possible cease-fire in the three-year war.Russia’s Defense Ministry said on Saturday that its forces had retaken two villages outside Sudzha, the main Russian town that Ukraine occupied since its surprise offensive into Russia last summer but appears to have lost in recent days. Ukrainian officials did not immediately comment on Russia’s newest claim and have not confirmed a retreat by its forces from Sudzha.Moscow’s advances on the Kursk front came a day after President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia called on Ukrainian forces still fighting in the region to lay down their arms. Mr. Putin said he would spare their lives if they surrendered.The Kremlin spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, reiterated Mr. Putin’s demand in comments to the state news agency Tass on Saturday.“It’s still valid,” Mr. Peskov said, although he added that “time was running out.”The Russian leader has said that Ukrainian forces are encircled in the region, an assertion that President Trump repeated in a message on Truth Social.But President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine denied that the Ukrainian troops were surrounded.“Our troops continue to hold back Russian and North Korean groupings in the Kursk region,” Mr. Zelensky said in a post Saturday on Facebook, referring to North Korean fighters who have been assisting Russia in Kursk. “There is no encirclement of our troops.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More