• It's Ukraine's turn to adopt an unusual battle tactic from Russia: motorcycle assaults.
• One unit has formed its first motorcycle attack company for storming Russian positions quickly.
• It said its troops have trained "hundreds of hours" to shoot assault rifles from off-road bikes.

As the battle with drones continues, motorcycles have become a rising star in Ukraine's war.

The Ukrainian military's 425th separate assault regiment, nicknamed "Skala," announced on Tuesday that it had officially formed the country's first motorcycle attack company.

"As a result, we now have a modern 'cavalry' whose main task is to rapidly break through to enemy positions, conduct assault operations, and quickly shift the direction of attack," it said on its Telegram channel.

The use of motorcycles to carry troops into battle is well-documented in Ukraine. Since early last year, Russian troops have been increasingly seen riding on light vehicles such as ATVs and motorbikes as both a means of transport and a way to attack Ukrainian positions rapidly.

Their rise is largely viewed as a direct consequence of drone warfare, since armored vehicles are often vulnerable to exploding drones on Ukraine's flat terrain.

While motorbikes leave the rider more exposed, they're faster, nimbler, and smaller, which makes them better able to evade attacks from small drones.

"Russia's increased use of motorcycles is an adaptation in response to pervasive Ukrainian drone strikes against Russian armored vehicles and the unsustainable armored vehicle losses that Russian forces suffered in late 2023 and 2024," the Institute for the Study of War wrote in early May.

Ukraine's troops initially balked at the attack method, which the Russians used in suicide assaults to wear down Ukrainian defenses and munitions.

But the 425th's announcement on Tuesday means that some Ukrainians are now adopting the same tactic.

In its statement, the 425th said its motorbike-riding troops had trained for "hundreds of hours" to shoot while on the move. The statement did not indicate whether the unit has started fighting or when its motorcycle troops will hit the front lines.

The 425th released a video of about two dozen soldiers riding tandem on off-road motorbikes, with each pair involving one driver and an infantryman wielding an assault rifle.

"The goal is to ride in, strike quickly at enemy positions, dismount, storm in, secure a foothold, and complete the mission successfully," a Ukrainian soldier says in the video.

Deploying motorbikes in a direct assault is an unusual tactic for modern war, where such vehicles are typically used for reconnaissance or infiltration. US special forces, for example, have used commercial bikes to navigate difficult terrain or traverse deserts in the Middle East.

But in Ukraine, the number of motorbikes sighted on the front lines has grown dramatically. In April, Ukrainian troops said they repelled a Russian assault on Pokrovsk that involved over 100 motorcycles.

Several Russian motorized attacks last month were also reported to be comprised wholly of motorcycles and civilian vehicles. The latter have been increasingly appearing in the warzone, with Moscow's troops often sighted traveling in sedans and tractors at the rear — a likely sign of strain on Russian logistics and resources.

Analysts from the ISW said in late April that it's likely Russia will start further incorporating motorcycles into its tactics for future attacks.

Lt. Col. Pavlo Shamshyn, spokesperson of Ukraine's ground forces in Kharkiv, told local media that week that Kyiv believed the same.

"Our intelligence records the fact that in training centers on the territory of the Russian Federation and in the units themselves, active training of motorcycle drivers is taking place, and all this indicates that the assault operations of spring-summer 2025 will be carried out on motorcycles," Shamshyn told Ukrainian outlet Suspilne.

• A new North Korean naval destroyer had part of its hull smashed after a disastrous launch.
• State media wrote that the ship's stern slid off a ramp too early, causing the vessel to become stuck.
• Kim Jong Un, who watched, slammed the mishap as a "criminal act" and censured the officials involved.

A new North Korean naval destroyer was badly damaged during a botched shipyard launch that caused part of its hull to be "crushed," Pyongyang state media reported.

The Korean Central News Agency reported on Thursday morning local time that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was attending the ceremony at the Chongjin Shipyard when the "serious accident" occurred.

Blaming "inexperienced command and operational carelessness," KCNA wrote that the stern of the 5,000-ton ship started sliding down a ramp too early and that a flatcar meant to support its weight didn't move with the vessel.

This report said this caused the ship to lose balance, leaving "some sections of the warship's bottom crushed" while the rest of the ship was stuck.

Per KCNA, Kim blasted the disastrous launch, saying it was "out of the bounds of possibility and could not be tolerated."

He also called the launch a "serious accident and criminal act caused by absolute carelessness, irresponsibility, and unscientific empiricism," state media wrote.

It reported that Kim censured the officials responsible for the ship and its launch, including the country's munitions department and ship designers, and said their mistakes would be "dealt with" at a party meeting next month.

The North Korean leader was further cited as saying that the mishap "brought the dignity and self-respect of our state to a collapse in a moment."

The failed launch is a blow to Kim's military agenda, given his emphasis over the last two years on building up North Korea's maritime forces.

"A new historic time is coming before our naval forces," Kim said during a 2023 speech, declaring North Korea would focus on capabilities for projecting naval power beyond its own waters.

The same year, Pyongyang launched a ballistic missile submarine, the Hero Kim Kun Ok, which is a redesigned Soviet model equipped to fire cruise missiles.

Last month, North Korea launched the largest warship it had ever built, a 5,000-ton "multipurpose" destroyer, which it said was a new class of armed vessel.

That was at Nampo, a different shipyard. However, its tonnage could indicate that the vessel that failed to launch on Wednesday was in the same class. State media didn't provide further details about the damaged ship at Chongjin.

In March, North Korea said it was also building its first nuclear-powered submarine.

• Trump has officially unveiled his plan for the Golden Dome missile defense system.
• He told reporters on Tuesday that it would likely cost $175 billion and take three years to complete.
• Much of the cost is expected to come from an ambitious constellation of space-based interceptors.

President Donald Trump officially announced his plans on Tuesday for a Golden Dome system that focuses on countering potential missile threats from China and Russia.

The plan is ambitious, with the system meant to officially put American anti-missile weapons in space for the first time.

Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, Trump estimated that the Golden Dome would be completed within three years and cost about $175 billion.

He's requested an initial $25 billion "to help construction get underway" through a tax break bill that Congress is deliberating.

"That's the initial sort of down, deposit," Trump said of the first tranche. "And we have, probably, you're talking about $175 billion total cost when this is completed."

The Congressional Budget Office has estimated in early May that it could cost between $161 billion and $542 billion to launch and operate a full constellation of space-based interceptors — the core aspect of the Golden Dome — for 20 years.

These satellite weapons would be designed to shoot down intercontinental ballistic missiles from orbit, and the congressional cost projection varies so much because it depends on how many interceptors would be purchased.

That answer would largely rely on how many interceptors the US thinks it needs to counter China and Russia, which Trump outlined in his January executive order as one of the Golden Dome's priorities.

"This design for the Golden Dome will integrate with our existing defense capabilities and should be fully operational before the end of my term," Trump told reporters. "So we'll have it done in about three years."

Overall, the Golden Dome is envisioned as a multi-layered shield, meaning it would mix both space and ground capabilities. Trump initially called it an Iron Dome, inspired by Israel's missile defense, but renamed it in February.

The system would be built to detect enemy strikes before they launch and destroy the missile before it can get in the air. If that fails, it would try to down the missile in mid- or early flight.

A final stopgap would be aimed at intercepting the missile just before it reached its target.

"It will be capable of intercepting missiles launched from the other side of the world," Trump said. "Even if they're launched from space."

Countering China and Russia from space

The president has repeatedly emphasized space warfare as a centerpiece for the Golden Dome. To that end, he also announced that Gen. Michael Guetlein, the Space Force's vice chief of space operations, would lead the project.

"While we have been focused on keeping the peace overseas, our adversaries have been quickly modernizing their nuclear forces," Guetlein said at Tuesday's announcement, warning that US rivals were "building space weapons."

Russia was reported last year to be building a nuclear space-based weapon, though it was unclear if this meant the asset was nuclear-armed or nuclear-powered. The 1967 Outer Space Treaty, of which Russia is a signatory, prohibits nuclear weapons or "weapons of mass destruction" from being put into space.

Guetlein also mentioned hypersonic missiles, which China has been developing in recent years. In 2021, Beijing startled the US with a successful test of a nuclear-capable missile that uses a hypersonic glide vehicle to travel faster than five times the speed of sound and potentially strike anywhere on the planet.

The missile also demonstrated an ability to exit and drop back into Earth's atmosphere during flight, also known as fractional orbital bombardment. This means that it can be fired from an unexpected direction and be even harder to detect or intercept.

The Golden Dome's focus on countering China and Russia marks a shift from the US's past stated goal for missile defense, which traditionally has been to prevent strikes from rogue states such as North Korea.

Washington's usual strategy for deterring nuclear strikes from Beijing and Moscow, which are designated as peer or near-peer rivals, was instead to rely on American nuclear weapons as a counterthreat.

The Congressional Budget Office has said that if the Golden Dome were to deal with Chinese and Russian missile threats, it would need a much larger constellation of advanced space-based interceptors, thereby driving up the cost.

Speaking on Tuesday, Trump said he was confident he could get Congress to approve the needed money.

"You know, some funding is tough and some is easy," he said. "When we say we're going to save everyone's lives in a crazy world, it seems to be very easy to get."

Meanwhile, China and Russia have jointly condemned the Golden Dome as an "unconstrained, global and multi-tier missile defense system," saying on May 8 that it had a "deeply destabilizing character."

• Ukraine has approved a new ground-based drone, which fires thermobaric rounds, for combat use.
• It's now one of 80 uncrewed ground vehicles codified by the military to fight in the war.
• The Krampus is a tracked UGV meant to carry multiple RPV-16 launchers on rough terrain.

Ukraine's defense ministry has officially approved what it described as a flamethrower robot for its military units.

The Krampus, a locally invented uncrewed ground vehicle, now joins more than 80 other supported ground drone designs that Kyiv's forces can use, the ministry said in a statement Monday.

The ministry said the remotely piloted vehicle is equipped with RPV-16 rounds, which are rocket-propelled thermobaric rounds originally designed by Ukraine for infantry to fire from a portable launcher. Thermobaric rounds disperse a cloud of fuel into the air that is then ignited, creating a powerful blast.

Built to "perform assault and defensive missions" against infantry and light armor, the Krampus is a tracked UGV that runs on two silent motors and can fit in the back of a pickup truck, the ministry added.

The statement said its controls were jam-resistant and designed to withstand cold, heat, snow, and rain. It's also supposed to effectively cross off-road terrain such as thick forest, sand, swamps, and steep inclines.

"The platform's battery capacity allows for several hours of continuous movement," the statement said. "Thanks to this, it can remain in position for extended periods in standby mode."

The ministry didn't specify the drone's operational range or ammo capacity. Photos of the Krampus appear to show a tracked platform with a video camera that could fit four RPV-16 launchers. These launchers are typically single-use, so it's likely the Krampus can fire four times before having to be resupplied.

Authorization by the defense ministry can be important for how widely a drone is used, since Ukrainian weapons manufacturing and innovation are dispersed across the country. As the war rages, various firms and military units work simultaneously on their own battlefield tech and often share them with one another.

Official approval means Ukrainian forces can use their budgets to purchase the Krampus UGV.

Their heavier frames offer more deployment options than a typical flying drone, such as carrying larger explosive payloads for attack missions, evacuating the wounded as a last resort, or clearing mines.

"These drones allow us to replace infantry soldiers on the battlefield," Oleksandr Chernyavskiy, an enlisted soldier who helps with fundraising in the 241st Territorial Defense Brigade's drone prototyping team, told Business Insider of UGVs like the Krampus.

His own brigade has created a similar tracked UGV with mounted belt-fed machine guns that he says runs on an operational range of 20 kilometers, or about 12 ½ miles. Typically, such assault UGVs fly in tandem with aerial drones that can help them scout for mines, traps, and targets, Chernyavskiy said.

"It appeared to be quite effective in some kind of operations, like against well-equipped positions and traps," Chernyavskiy said of his brigade's weapons-mounted UGVs. "Usually, it's been used remotely without our infantry nearby."

Ukraine has set a goal of fielding 15,000 UGVs on the battlefield by the end of the year.

• Anduril is competing with General Atomics for the US Air Force's drone wingman program.
• The startup says it's designed its drone, Fury, with commercial parts like a business jet engine.
• The Air Force has cited the project as a way to bring "affordable mass" to its aerial missions.

Anduril Industries has revealed new details on how it plans to keep costs down for the US Air Force as it competes with defense heavyweight General Atomics for the drone wingman program.

The defense startup, cofounded by Palmer Luckey, was featured in a CBS "60 Minutes" segment on Sunday. During the segment, Anduril's CEO, Brian Schimpf, said the firm designed its AI-powered fighter jet, Fury, to be built from commercial parts to make manufacturing easier.

"We tried to eliminate really every bottleneck we could find around what makes an aircraft hard to produce," said Schimpf.

Schimpf said the Fury's designers, for example, chose to go with a commercial business jet engine instead of a military one.

The Warzone reported in 2023 that the Fury was designed with a Williams International FJ44-4M turbofan engine, which is popular in light business jets such as those in the Cessna Citation Series. Anduril didn't say in the Sunday CBS segment if the Fury still uses the same engine.

Schimpf also said that the Fury avoids "very exquisite, big aircraft landing gear" in favor of a simpler model.

"We designed it so that it can be built in any machine shop in America," he said of the landing gear.

"We've designed nearly every part of this that can be made in hundreds of different places within the US from lots of different suppliers," Schimpf added.

The Fury, designated YFQ-44A by the Air Force, is Anduril's bid to win the Pentagon's Collaborative Combat Aircraft contract, which seeks to build large autonomous or semi-autonomous drones that can fly in tandem with piloted advanced fighter jets for Next Generation Air Dominance.

The service wants these new aircraft to be much cheaper than regular fighter jets. Gen. David Allvin, the Air Force Chief of Staff, said in November that the purpose of the drone wingman program was to bring "affordable mass" to aerial missions.

It's a priority that reflects mounting concerns in the US that the American military could run out of weapons and ammo in a matter of weeks or even days if it were to go to war with a rival such as China.

Now, the Air Force says the drone wingman program is a core part of its mandate to recalibrate itself for near-peer conflict.

Frank Kendall, who served as Air Force Secretary until January, said he'd accelerated plans to develop Collaborative Combat Aircraft when analyses showed the drones would "change air warfare in some very fundamental ways."

Anduril was one of two contractors selected to be the drone project's lead in April 2024, meaning it already beat Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman to reach this phase of development.

General Atomics, which manufactures the MQ-9 Reaper and MQ-1 Predator, has also billed its offering — the XQ-67A — as a "low-cost, modular" uncrewed system.

Both companies' prototypes were shown on May 1 at California's Beale Air Force Base, which Allvin said would be the home site for initial testing and assessments. The Air Force is expected to make early selection decisions in its fiscal year of 2026, which starts in October.

Anduril and General Atomics did not respond to comment requests sent outside regular business hours by Business Insider.

• Anduril Industries has revealed a few more details about its new drone fighter for the Air Force.
• A new TV segment shows the drone's wing being fixed by two engineers with screwdrivers.
• Anduril's CEO said the AI fighters are meant to fly ahead of piloted jets and screen for enemies.

Palmer Luckey's Anduril just gave the world an inside glimpse of its new project for the US Air Force — an uncrewed fighter jet that teams up with piloted aircraft.

The military startup was featured on Sunday in a CBS 60 Minutes segment, during which a few clips showed Anduril's Fury drone being assembled in a hangar or warehouse.

It's not the first time the drone was shown to the public — the Air Force unveiled a test representative model on May 1. But the TV segment reveals a few more details about the drone's make.

In one clip, two engineers are seen fixing a wing on the Fury, the defense startup's offering for the Air Force's collaborative combat aircraft program.

That speaks to the aircraft's modular design. Anduril says the Fury, like many of its other products, is built so that its parts can be easily swapped out and customized.

Both engineers are also filmed using screwdrivers to secure the wing onto the aircraft. The company has said that it wants the Fury to be manufactured at scale and possibly in many different workshops in the US instead of relying on a few highly specialized facilities.

CBS also showed a conceptual clip of a scenario in which three Fury drones flew as a team in front of a crewed fighter jet and helped it strike an enemy aircraft.

"These fly out ahead of manned fighters, and they're able to find the enemy first, able to engage the enemy well before a manned fighter has to be seen or is in range," Brian Schimpf, Anduril's CEO, told CBS.

Such a mission is part of the Air Force's vision for its advanced fighter jets to fight alongside drones that act as "loyal wingmen," or for the drones to be used in missions on their own.

It's expected to be a key feature of the F-47, the sixth-generation stealth fighter developed by Boeing. But the Air Force has also said it hopes to integrate the program with F-35 Lightning IIs and F-22 Raptors.

Air Force leadership has said its priority is making the drones affordable and easy to manufacture, as it hopes to bring mass to the skies since its fleet has shrunk in favor of more advanced aircraft.

Anduril was chosen to compete for the program, but the Fury hasn't clinched the contract yet. Dubbed YFQ-44A by the Air Force, the aircraft is competing for the bid with General Atomics, which is also offering a drone with a modular design.

The Pentagon is expected to make early decisions during the fiscal year of 2026, which starts in October.

Anduril didn't respond to a comment request sent outside regular business hours by Business Insider.

• Bad weapons handling and storage likely caused Russia's 51st GRAU arsenal to blow up, the UK MOD said.
• The depot, described as one of Russia's largest, suffered severe damage from huge blasts in April.
• The MOD said on Wednesday that Moscow has a history of "ineptitude" with munition safety.

A combination of poor weapons handling and bad storage practices likely led to the blasts that rocked Russia's 51st GRAU arsenal in late April, the UK Defense Ministry said on Wednesday.

In an intelligence update, the ministry estimated that the explosions likely resulted in the Kremlin's largest loss of its own munitions due to its own troops' actions since the full-scale war in Ukraine began.

"It is highly likely that poor weapons handling procedures alongside negligent storage of munitions resulted in this loss," the ministry wrote.

"This is in keeping with a long-standing trend of regularly evidenced Russian ineptitude with regards the safe and proper handling of its own munitions," it added.

The ammunition depot, about 50 miles northeast of Moscow and in the Vladimir region, suffered multiple explosions after it caught fire on April 22.

Though it didn't name the facility, the Kremlin had said on the same day that a fire at a depot in the Vladimir region caused munitions to detonate. The Russian defense ministry's statement blamed the "violation of safety requirements when working with explosive materials."

Satellite images previously obtained by Business Insider last month showed that the Russian arsenal sustained serious damage, with large portions of the facility affected.

The UK defense ministry said satellite images showed that more than one square kilometer of the depot had been damaged by the detonations, which suggested "massive losses at a key strategic depot supplying Russia's war in Ukraine."

Footage circulating on social media of the blast also appeared to show secondary explosions in the civilian areas around the ammo depot, which is one of Russia's largest.

The UK's defense ministry cited Ukrainian figures that said the 51st GRAU depot held about 105,000 tons of munitions, including ballistic, air-launched, and air defense missiles.

Andriy Kovalenko, the head of Kyiv's Center for Countering Disinformation, said at the time of the blasts that the depot had also stored artillery shells.

The same depot has likely suffered explosive mishaps before. Russian state media reported in June 2022 that four people were killed by the "spontaneous detonation" of a shell while ammo was being loaded and unloaded at a depot in the Vladimir Region.

• Ukrainians have fitted a Bulgarian Bulspike-AP grenade launcher on a large quadcopter FPV drone.
• It's been tested for months, but Wild Hornets released new combat footage of the platform on Tuesday.
• A weapon like this would allow drones to attack without having to directly fly over or into a target.

A Ukrainian drone maker released footage on Tuesday showing what's believed to be the first time a grenade launcher was fired in combat from a first-person-view uncrewed aerial system.

The Wild Hornets firm published the clips on its Telegram channel, crediting the "Bulava" drone unit of the 3rd Mechanized Battalion in the Bohdan Khmelnytsky Separate Presidential Brigade.

The footage shows two instances of the mounted grenade launcher firing over open terrain.

In the first clip, a soldier can be seen caught in the resulting explosion and being knocked to the ground. Their fate was unclear based on the footage, but the Wild Hornets said the target was a Russian soldier who died. The target in the second clip was not clearly visible.

The drone maker said both clips featured one of its designs, the "Queen of Hornets" drone, as the platform for the grenade launcher. With a 15- to 17-inch frame, the quadcopter is among the largest FPV drones commercially produced for combat in Ukraine, and it's typically used as a bomber.

Wild Hornets did not say when the footage was shot, nor did it specify which grenade launcher was used. But during September testing with the "Bulava" unit, the company said the "Queen of Hornets" drone was fitted with the Bulspike AP, a Bulgarian anti-personnel grenade launcher. The platform is meant to be reusable.

The Bulspike AP fires a 2-kilogram fragmentation grenade at an effective range of about 100 meters, or 328 feet.

A drone mounted with such a weapon could thus give Ukrainian operators far more options to strike, since FPV combat drones are typically either used to fly directly into a target as a munition or to drop explosives from above.

The clips released on Tuesday demonstrated the launcher's range capability, showing the mounted weapon firing at enemy targets positioned well ahead of the drone itself.

"From now on, an ordinary rocket launcher can work at a distance of 5+ km. This opens up new opportunities for the military," Wild Hornets wrote at the time of testing in September.

Still, it's unclear whether Ukraine can or will produce and deploy these drone-mounted launchers at scale. Dozens of Ukrainian companies have developed and tested a massive variety of drone weapons, such as mounted shotguns and Kalashnikov rifles, but troops are still widely relying on loitering munitions and bombers as their bread and butter.

Wild Hornets, in particular, has been recognized for producing some of the war's most exotic drone weapons, including FPV drones that spew thermite from above or interceptors designed to fly faster than 100 mph.

• Russia's previously toned-down Victory Day parades sought to bring back its military splendor this year.
• That was evident by the appearance of modern tanks, fighter jets, drones, and even Xi Jinping.
• But it wasn't just military and political leaders in attendance. Steven Seagal showed up too.

As dozens of Russia-aligned world leaders gathered in Moscow to pay homage to its military, state media spotted one guest standing out from the crowd — the '90s Hollywood action star Steven Seagal.

Between shots of armored vehicles rumbling down the cobbled streets near the Kremlin, Seagal appeared briefly in a close-up during the state media outlet Izvestia's coverage of Russia's Victory Day.

A separate clip of the movie martial artist moving through the crowd on Friday also circulated on social media over the weekend.

The French news agency Agence France-Presse reported from Moscow that Seagal was seen sitting near a Russian nationalist biker gang called the Night Wolves.

Seagal, a longtime friend of Russian President Vladimir Putin, has been vocal about his support for Moscow and gained Russian citizenship in 2016. Russia's foreign ministry made Seagal a special representative in 2018 to promote Russian culture to the US, and he continued to publicly align himself with the Kremlin after it invaded Ukraine.

He wasn't the only US movie personality to attend Friday's parade. Oliver Stone, a three-time Oscar-winning director who's made a four-hour documentary about Putin, was also photographed at the event.

Stone has also often praised Putin, calling him a "great leader" in a May 2023 interview with The Guardian. The director was photographed shaking Putin's hand during a reception for foreign leaders on Friday.

Their appearance at the parade marks how Russia sought to elevate the grandeur of this year's event for the 80th anniversary of Nazi Germany's surrender in World War II.

The past two years' Victory Day parades had featured scaled-back processions, largely believed to be because of Russia conserving resources such as tanks and aircraft for the war. A few world leaders — mostly from eastern European and central Asian states — had appeared to watch the event.

On Friday, however, Moscow put on a full show for roughly two dozen leaders, including China's Xi Jinping, in attendance.

Iskander and Yars ballistic missiles, Tornado-S multiple rocket launchers, and modern T-90 main battle tanks wheeled past a raft of cameras on the street, and Su-25 fighter jets roared over central Moscow with colored smoke.

Also featured in the procession for the first time were Russian attack drones, which have become the Kremlin's staple weapons in the war.

The days leading up to the parade, meant to be a demonstration of Russia's strength and confidence in its military, saw Ukraine threatening Moscow with several waves of attempted drone strikes that forced nearby airports to close temporarily.

Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy had warned world leaders earlier that week that they could face risk by attending the Victory Day parade.

"Our position is very simple for all countries travelling to Russia on May 9: We cannot be held responsible for what happens on the territory of the Russian Federation," Zelenskyy said.

During the actual parade, Russia cut off internet access in central Moscow and said it had stepped up measures to counter drone threats.

• Russia is worried that its medical graduates aren't working in hospitals after finishing school.
• A new draft bill would force many of them to find healthcare jobs within a year of graduation.
• The country is short of 23,300 doctors, but poor wages are keeping new ones from taking up work.

Russia's health ministry has drafted a new bill that requires fresh medical and pharmacy graduates from state-affiliated programs to start working within a year of finishing school.

If they fail to do so, they'll have to pay a fine worth three times the amount spent by the government on their education, whether it be funds from a state, federal, or local budget.

This latest version of the federal education bill, made public on Tuesday, also proposes that after finding a healthcare job, medical graduates from state-funded schools must continue working for three years. Their other option is to continue their studies.

The vast majority of Russia's medical schools are funded by or affiliated with the government, with lawmakers saying 154 institutions and scientific organizations draw from federal, state, and local budgets.

Russian business daily Kommersant estimated in February that it costs the state about $2,480 a year to train a medical student. As such, under the new bill, if a Russian medical student undergoes the typical six years of training, they could face a fine of $42,000 or higher if they don't find a job within a year of graduation.

Calculations for the fines would be up to the Russian government, the bill added. If these measures become law, they would take effect on January 1, 2026.

Sergei Leonov, the head of the Russian State Duma's healthcare committee, told local media on Monday that parliament was ready to support the bill, but could tighten it with further amendments.

"In fact, they violate their obligations to the state," he said of graduates avoiding hospital work.

A bleak outlook for Russia's medical workers — and their country

The proposal underscores a shortage of doctors and nurses in Russia, which authorities fear will escalate into a national crisis.

In February, Russia's health minister, Mikhail Murashko, told local media that the country was short of about 23,300 doctors and 63,500 "midlevel" personnel, which includes nurses and technicians.

That's out of a total of about 550,000 doctors already in Russia's workforce, per Murashko. But he added that nearly a fifth of these professionals are over 60 years old.

Meanwhile, the country is struggling to recruit young doctors and nurses, even after they finish school.

In a note attached to the new bill, the health ministry said that in state-affiliated schools, 35% of graduates from higher medical education and 40% of graduates in vocational medical education don't work in state or public health organizations.

Low and inconsistent pay is often blamed for young medical graduates shirking hospital careers.

Russian lawmaker Galina Izotova, who serves in the government chamber that audits federal budgets, said in March that doctors' salaries in 21 of Russia's 89 regions hadn't reached the minimum level mandated by law.

"There remains significant variation in salary levels between neighboring regions, contributing to labor migration. In some regions, salary differences can be three times or greater," Izotova told the Duma that month.

When the Doctors of the Russian Federation, a professional community for medical workers, surveyed 2,030 doctors in March 2024, 78.9% of them said they had to work more than one job to make ends meet.

About two-thirds of them, including doctors in the Moscow region, said that they were drawing monthly salaries of $727 or less. That could indicate a wide imbalance in wages across the country, since Russia's federal statistics service reported that the average physician's salary was about $1,400 from January to June of 2024.

Russia is also struggling with a brain drain of highly educated and skilled workers since it invaded Ukraine in 2022, with a million citizens, mostly young and college-educated people, leaving that year.

The effects of the departures, compounded with the war's toll on Russian lives, led to a reported shortage of some 5 million workers in 2023.

The UK's Defense Ministry said in a February 2024 intelligence update that the war has likely exacerbated Russia's shortage of doctors, with about 2% of its medical personnel fleeing the country to avoid a mobilization in September 2022.

Another 3,000 medical staff were also likely assigned to help treat the war's wounded, the ministry added.

• As Russia prepares to celebrate Victory Day, its airports were plunged into chaos by drone attacks.
• At least 350 flights were canceled or delayed for hours, a Russian tourism body said.
• Russia's Defense Ministry said it shot down hundreds of Ukrainian drones on Wednesday.

At least 60,000 passengers had their flights delayed or canceled at airports across Russia as Ukraine unleashed large-scale drone attacks this week, according to a national tourism body.

Russia's association of tour operators said in a statement on Wednesday that at least 350 flights were affected by the threat of drone strikes, including trips out of the country to destinations such as Istanbul and Dubai.

The affected facilities included Moscow's four airports and air travel hubs in the regions of Sochi, Kazan, and Kirov, per the association. Its statement said many of the flights were delayed overnight, while some flights that did manage to depart had to wait up to seven hours.

Russian independent Telegram news channels posted photos of large crowds gathering in airports and stranded passengers resting in departure hall areas.

"This delay will provoke subsequent delays according to the domino principle," the tourism operators' association warned.

"The aviation infrastructure is working at its limit," it added.

It advised travelers across the country to prepare for further disruption by bringing cash to buy food and drink at airports and taking a "small supply" of water with them.

The chaos comes as Russia is set to hold an annual Victory Day parade on May 9 that commemorates the Soviet Union's role in ending World War II — a major source of national pride promoted by Moscow nowadays.

Russia says it's expecting 29 world leaders to attend the parade, including Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who arrived on Wednesday afternoon.

Meanwhile, Kyiv has warned visiting leaders that it can't guarantee their safety if they fly into Moscow, which has been harassed by Ukrainian drone strikes for years.

"We cannot be held responsible for what happens on the territory of the Russian Federation," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told reports on Saturday.

The week leading up to Russia's Victory Day parade has seen Ukraine launch an intensified series of drone strikes over three consecutive days.

They appear to be ramping up in severity, with the Kremlin saying on Wednesday that it shot down 524 drones. Business Insider couldn't independently verify that figure, but if accurate, it would record one of Ukraine's largest drone attacks on Russian territory.

Oleksandr Kovalenko, a popular Ukrainian military observer, wrote on his Telegram channel that Wednesday involved the "most massive raid of Ukrainian attack drones" since the full-scale war began. However, he also accused Russian reports of overplaying the number of drones launched by Ukraine.

Moscow's mayor, Sergei Sobyanin, wrote in his Telegram channel that Russian forces had repelled at least 14 drone attacks on the capital on Wednesday. Emergency services were dispatched to several locations where debris had fallen, he added.

No casualties were reported as of press time.

Previous Ukrainian drone attacks have caused Moscow's airports to close before, including a wave of strikes in September that shut three of the region's four air travel hubs.

Russia also regularly attacks Ukrainian cities, primarily with ballistic missiles and Iranian-designed Shahed exploding drones. Most recently, Kyiv reported that a mother and son were killed during a missile and drone attack on Tuesday evening.

• Ukraine said it uncovered a conspiracy that ended with 120,000 bad mortar shells sent to its troops.
• Its security service said a defense plant had tried to cut costs by knowingly using cheap parts.
• Officials made four arrests as Ukraine remains hard-pressed to keep its ammo supplies flowing.

Ukraine's internal security bureau said on Tuesday that it had detained four people after investigating the supply of 120,000 defective mortar shells to its troops.

The Security Service of Ukraine, also known as the SBU, wrote on its Telegram channel that the persons arrested included a military official, a quality control official, and two heads of a defense manufacturing business.

The announcement comes six months after Ukrainian media reported complaints from some frontline units that their 120mm mortar shells weren't firing or would fail to explode.

In a video that went viral in November, one soldier said only about one in 10 rounds would make it out of its launcher and detonate effectively. At the time, Ukrainian journalists reported that up to 100,000 shells were due to be recalled.

The SBU said it investigated a defense plant in the Dnipropetrovsk region, home to the key city of Dnipro, and found that the four people arrested had conspired to "supply defective mortar shells to the frontline."

"For mass production, the suspects used substandard materials and performed faulty workmanship, causing the main charge primer to fail and resulting in unstable performance of the entire propellant charge," the SBU's statement said.

The security service did not name the arrested persons, but it accused all four of conspiring to "reduce production costs to increase their profits."

The SBU said the military and quality control officials "deliberately ignored" the defective ammunition and falsified records to cover up the scheme.

"Consequently, 120,000 unusable shells reached the front line," it added. If found guilty, the four detainees face up to 15 years in prison, the SBU said.

Artillery ammunition has been especially key to Ukraine's defense as the war has dragged into an extended battle of attrition. One of Kyiv's most pressing issues is the war's strain on the number of soldiers it can field at a time, and it faces a dilemma of whether to lower its draft requirements to include men as young as 18.

But Ukraine is also trying to prevent a shortage of ammunition, which Europe and the US have been working in overdrive to supply. Amid the rush, Kyiv has been trying to boost its local defense manufacturing scene, which is already cranking out millions of first-person view drones.

• Moscow released a new video on Monday of North Korean troops training with Russian small arms.
• The clips show them drilling and clearing trenches with newer weapons such as the AK-12.
• Washington and Seoul have been voicing concern about what North Korea may learn from the war and Russia.

Russia's defense ministry released a new video on Monday of North Korean troops training with modern small arms used in the Ukraine war.

The 77-second montage, published by state media outlet TASS, showed the soldiers drilling fire movements, shooting from cover, clearing trenches, and being taught how to use Russian standard service hand grenades.

Some troops can be spotted with the AK-12, a fifth-generation modular assault rifle that entered service in Russia around 2020. Several of the rifles can be seen equipped with reflex sights and foregrips.

Back home, North Korean troops are primarily known to train and fight with the Type-88, a localized version of the Soviet-era AK-74 rifle.

Additionally, the clips feature soldiers training with the SVD sniper rifle, also known as the "Dragunov," and the belt-fed PK machine gun.

Another clip showed a soldier handling an RPG-7, the rocket-propelled grenade launcher that Russia uses in service now. He fires a high-explosive anti-tank round from the weapon.

Notably, all of these small arms fall under the list of guns and equipment that Ukraine's military intelligence said Russia was providing to North Korean troops in November 2024.

The footage also showed a soldier firing into the air with a semiautomatic 12-gauge shotgun known as the Vepr-12, which can be seen equipped with an extended choke. This muzzle attachment is typically used to turn the shotgun into an anti-drone weapon because it reduces pellet spread and extends the gun's range.

Both Ukrainian and Russian troops have been known to rely on shotguns to take down drones at close range. TASS wrote that North Korean troops were training with the 12-gauge shotguns for this purpose.

The state media outlet also wrote that the soldiers in the clip had been part of North Korea's force in Kursk, where Pyongyang had sent thousands of troops to reinforce Russia. Business Insider could not independently verify the authenticity of that claim.

Russia and North Korea's alliance poses concerns for the West

The new clip comes after Russia and North Korea both openly acknowledged last weekend that North Korean troops had been fighting against Ukrainian forces, after months of staying silent on the matter despite mounting evidence of Pyongyang's involvement.

Their partnership has sparked alarm in the West and South Korea, who fear that North Korean troops may be gaining vital combat experience and learning to fight with and against modern weapons and drones.

Many of these soldiers were sent on ground infantry assaults that often resulted in death or heavy injury. This tactic has become a hallmark of Russia's strategy to exhaust Ukraine's resources. Initial reports from the front lines described Pyongyang's troops as unprepared, not knowing how to deal with exploding drones and taking heavy losses.

But there are signs they've been adapting, such as a drawing that Ukraine said it obtained from a captured North Korean fighter detailing how to bait out a drone using a fellow soldier. North Korean troops are likely also getting their first chance to observe Ukraine's use of advanced weapons such as HIMARS and the Abrams tank.

On the battlefield, they've proved far more tenacious than their Russian counterparts, charging in frontal "human wave" assaults and advancing without armor support. Ukrainian troops have said they struggled to capture North Koreans because the latter would often try to kill themselves rather than surrender.

A US State Department spokesperson told media outlets earlier this week that Washington was still concerned by Pyongyang's troop deployment, saying that third countries like North Korea "perpetuated the Russia-Ukraine war" and bear responsibility.

• Moscow and Pyongyang have confirmed that North Korean troops are fighting in Russia's war.
• It's the first time either government has admitted to Kim Jong Un sending soldiers to fight Ukraine.
• Both praised North Korean and Russian troops as fighting "shoulder to shoulder" against Kyiv.

Moscow and Pyongyang have, for the first time, officially acknowledged that North Korean troops are fighting in Russia's war against Ukraine.

It's been widely reported for months that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un had sent thousands of his elite troops to assist Russian ground assaults in Kursk.

But Russia and North Korea remained silent on the matter even as evidence mounted of Pyongyang's direct involvement, until now.

On Saturday, the Kremlin quoted Valery Gerasimov, the chief of staff of Russia's armed forces, thanking North Korean troops at a meeting with Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

"I would like to separately note the participation of the servicemen of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea in the liberation of the border areas of the Kursk region," he said in Russian.

Gerasimov praised Pyongyang's troops as showing "courage and heroism," and said they had been "performing combat missions shoulder to shoulder with Russian servicemen."

On Monday morning, Pyongyang time, North Korea issued its own official recognition of its troops' fighting against Ukraine.

State media wrote that North Korean combat units had "participated in the operations for liberating the Kursk areas."

The North Korean report used similar wording to Gerasimov, writing that its troops had been "shedding blood in the same trench shoulder to shoulder" with Russian forces.

Neither the Kremlin nor Pyongyang outlined specific plans for any further involvement of North Korean troops in the war.

However, North Korean state media added that Kim was "determined to make the combat sub-units of our armed forces participate in the war." Kim further described strengthening ties with Russia as a "sacred mission."

North Korea's direct involvement in hostilities in Ukraine has been widely interpreted as a significant escalation to the war, and there are fears that Pyongyang's troops, who have so far been seen fighting in Russia's Kursk region, could be used to fight on Ukraine's sovereign territory.

That could create spill-over effects for South Korea's military, as well.

As reports first emerged in the fall of 2024 that Russia was receiving direct assistance from Pyongyang, South Korea had said it may consider sending lethal aid to Ukraine, which stands to pull Asia further into the war.

Ukrainian reports estimate that about 14,000 North Korean troops were sent to fight in Kursk. Many were likely killed or wounded as they were deployed in high-attrition infantry assaults.

Seoul and Washington have also repeatedly voiced concerns that North Korean troops are gaining valuable combat experience, such as lessons on how to deal with drones, from fighting in a modern war against Ukraine.

Both Gerasimov and North Korean state media reported that Kursk, which Ukraine invaded in a surprise attack in the summer of last year, had been effectively cleared of Kyiv's forces.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, however, posted on social media on Sunday that Ukraine was still fighting at "defensive positions" in Kursk.

• Russia's artillery strikes were bizarrely ineffective in the early stages of the war, but that's changed.
• Analysts say several major overhauls have helped Russia make its kill chain faster and more precise.
• NATO would have to learn quickly to prepare for a more experienced and refined Russian artillery complex.

Russia's kill chain, or how quickly the army moves from finding a target to firing on it, is now far more responsive and precise than it was at the start of the war in Ukraine.

Federico Borsari, a resident fellow researching war technology and innovation at the Center for European Policy Analysis, told Business Insider that "the Russians are adapting, and this is definitely something that NATO is noticing."

Russia is outpacing the West in artillery production, raising the prospect that NATO must deter an adversary with more battlefield firepower and the fleets of reconnaissance drones that guide it.

Russia's rough start to the war

One of the more serious problems for Russia early in the conflict was that the time between finding a target and firing on it was far too slow. It took hours for indirect fires like artillery and mortars, and even longer for cruise missiles.

Borsari wrote in a report published in early April that Russian strikes were sometimes delayed by up to four hours, making them ineffective against Ukrainian units that had long since moved on to a new position.

"In the case of the tactical ballistic missile, this was very much the case," he told BI. "Sometimes, it took even longer."

Researchers at the London-based Royal United Services Institute think tank wrote in November 2022 that Russian forces "have missed targets because of self-imposed frictions in their kill chains, usually striking too late rather than not at all."

A challenge is that Russia's reconnaissance strike complex was ineffective, dependent on aging satellites and a smattering of drones that couldn't keep up with the pace of the fighting.

Russia used surveillance drones like the Orlan-10 and Forpost early in its invasion, as evidenced by Oryx's open-source records showing several were destroyed in the spring of 2022. But there were too few of these intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) assets to be effective.

Target selection suffered. Sometimes, the invading Russians would waste tactical missiles on small groups of Ukrainian infantry while peppering vast airfields with a handful of cruise missiles.

Another issue was that Russia's early command and control systems were too rigid, outdated, and confused, carrying the top-down hallmarks of the Soviet command structure. After collecting timely intelligence, troops on the ground had to wait for strikes to get approved through different rungs of command.

And confusion only slowed that down. Many Russian soldiers and officers were also often unclear on their responsibility areas, problems that were exacerbated by communication and tech issues.

For example, in the early war, many Russian units didn't have the Strelets laptops that allowed them to target Ukrainian forces effectively, RUSI researchers wrote in May 2023. The software consolidates intelligence data from drones and recon units, displaying it on a live map for commanders.

Yet Russian units that did have the computers, the researchers wrote, often left them sitting in baggage or didn't know how to set them up.

How Russia fixed its kill chain

Now, Russia uses a wide range of tactical drones to acquire targets in Ukraine, flooding the airspace with hundreds of observer systems at different altitudes and depths. Sometimes, these ISR platforms can work together to feed Russian commanders different visual angles of the same target.

As the Kremlin started to surge drone production, what was a scarce resource in the early invasion soon became the backbone of Russia's reconnaissance. In 2023, Moscow's state media outlet TASS reported that Russia had increased its supply of the Orlan drone by more than 50 times.

Insufficient Ukrainian air defenses have also given Russia more freedom of maneuverability with its bigger recon drones, allowing it to collect intelligence on Ukrainian operations in the rear and conduct effective strikes reminiscent of the HIMARS strikes that proved tremendously effective against the Russians.

With the drones providing Russia a better view of the battlespace, it's been increasingly using short-range ballistic missiles like the Iskander-M and its devastating glide bombs to hit high-value targets in the Ukrainian rear more precisely.

A temporary dearth in artillery ammunition in 2023 also meant Russia had to learn to switch from mass bombardments — a bread-and-butter tactic — to precision strikes.

Additionally, Russia's command structure has evolved since the early days of the war.

RUSI land warfare researchers Jack Watling and Nick Reynolds wrote in a 2023 report on Russian battlefield tactics that "Russian artillery has begun to significantly refine the Reconnaissance Strike Complex" after watching the Ukrainians devastate their ammunition stores and their command and control centers with HIMARS strikes.

"This has resulted in much closer integration of multiple UAVs directly supporting commanders authorised to apply fires," they said, noting that "Russian artillery has also improved its ability to fire from multiple positions and to fire and move."

And Russia began better employing the Strelets system for greater coherence in combat.

Other technology has also played a part. Like Ukraine, Russian troops have been integrating civilian tech into their operations, such as smartphones and satellite communications terminals. That approach has made Russian units at the lower level more cohesive and able to merge intelligence and strike command in a single picture.

In October, for example, Russian troops were widely seen using the video gaming messaging app Discord to relay real-time information about the battlefield and coordinate strikes.

While these systems are easier to use, there are notable drawbacks. For instance, smartphone use on the battlefield has resulted in strikes on the user's position, intel leaks, and other problems. Military leaders, from Russia to the US, caution against this behavior.

NATO needs to pay attention

Russia's faster, improved kill chain means that Western forces bracing for the possibility of a great-power conflict should focus even more on training troops to fight while moving quickly and in small formations to reduce exposure to strikes, Borsari said.

"Since the full-scale invasion started, there has been an incredibly higher emphasis on the need for more dispersed and disaggregate forces on the part of NATO," he said.

Disaggregation has been increasingly recognized as a necessity on the modern battlefield. It's a driving factor behind Western training activities like highway operations for combat aircraft, but there's more work to be done.

Sam Cranny-Evans, the director of the UK consultancy Calibre Defence, wrote in January for the Centre for Historical Analysis and Conflict Research that NATO should expect a more experienced Russia ready to fight with precision.

"This is important for the British Army and its allies," he wrote, "as the available evidence indicates that Russia has moved away from the Soviet roots that informed its counter-battery doctrine, toward one that is precise, lethal, and operable at scale."

Borsari said a more immediate action the US and Europe can take is targeting Russia's manufacturing for high-tech drones and precision munitions, which often rely on parts from overseas.

"Western sanctions have, in a way, slowed down the procurement of components for that production. That would affect Russia's ability to deploy at scale and sustainably," he said.

• Russia's Yelabuga zone, where it makes Shaheds, came under drone attack on Wednesday.
• Yelabuga is about 700 miles from Ukraine.
• Ukraine previously struck the local Shahed facility in 2024, using aircraft converted into a drone.

Russian air defenses were seen battling a drone over the Yelabuga special economic zone on Wednesday, where Moscow builds its Shahed loitering munitions.

Footage on Russian and Ukrainian Telegram channels showed air-defense munitions struggling to destroy what appears to be a drone resembling a small airplane. Business Insider geolocated one of these clips, which was filmed by a person standing near an Aurus car factory in Yelabuga.

In the video, the flying object maneuvers over the special economic zone, avoiding munitions that miss and explode in midair.

Yelabuga is some 700 miles from the Ukrainian border, making this one of Ukraine's longer-range drone attacks into Russia. There have been conflicting reports on the outcome, and it is unclear if Russia's Shahed production suffered any damage.

Andriy Kovalenko, the head of Ukraine's Center for Countering Disinformation, alluded to a strike in a Telegram post, writing of an event that occurred "somewhat loudly, and somewhat successfully in places" in Yelabuga.

He did not say directly that Ukraine had carried out a strike on Yelabuga, a 7.7 square-mile area in the Republic of Tatarstan that the White House said in 2023 was home to a joint Russian-Iranian facility for producing Shaheds.

Kovalenko wrote: "This year, the Russians have set a target of producing between 8,000 and 10,000 Shahed/Geran drones annually in Yelabuga, as well as 15,000 decoy drones."

As the video of the drone evading Russian defenses circulated on social media, the Telegram channel Operation Z, run by pro-Kremlin bloggers, posted a clip on Wednesday of a similar drone descending in a ball of flame after being struck by an air-defense missile.

The Russian Defense Ministry said on Wednesday that it had shot down an "aircraft-type" drone over Tatarstan but did not mention Yelabuga.

Ukrainian and Russian channels said more drones were present, but both sides reported different outcomes. The popular Ukrainian Telegram blogger Nikolaevsky Vanyok, who posts regular updates on the war, wrote that five drones hit their target while one was shot down. Operation Z wrote that four drones were destroyed. BI couldn't independently verify the authenticity of either claim.

Ukraine struck Russia's Shahed production facility in Yelabuga in early April 2024 using a drone that resembled the fixed-wing ones filmed this week.

Kyiv used a Cessna-style ultralight sporting aircraft, the Aeroprakt A-22 Foxbat, that was converted into an uncrewed aerial vehicle that can be packed with explosives.

The Iranian-designed Shaheds have been core to Russia's operations in Ukraine, where the Kremlin has deployed thousands of the loitering munitions to harass and attack Ukrainian cities and military targets.

The day before Wednesday's attack at Yelabuga, another major Russian facility, an ammunition depot near Moscow, suffered a massive explosion.

Ukraine did not comment on the cause of the explosive incident. It regularly carries out long-range drone and missile strikes on ammunition depots and military production facilities within Russia. The Kremlin said the blast was the result of a mishandling of explosives.

• James Taiclet says he has a new idea for Lockheed Martin: Beef up the F-35 with its failed bid for NGAD.
• Lockheed Martin lost the bid for the NGAD, now called the F-47, to Boeing.
• Taiclet wants his engineers to integrate tech and ideas from their sixth-gen research into the F-35.

Lockheed Martin didn't win the bid for America's next-generation fighter, but its CEO still wants to build a jet that's in almost the same league.

At the company's first-quarter earnings call on Tuesday, James Taiclet said he has set a new goal for his staff: To soup up the F-35 so it can match 80% of the F-47's capabilities for half the cost.

"My challenge to my aeronautics team is, let's get 80% of sixth-gen capability at half the price," Taiclet said.

"And that's something that — and these are engineers, they wouldn't have agreed to this if they didn't think there was a path to get there — that's something we're going to go out and do," he added.

Taiclet called this "fifth-generation plus." Lockheed's plan to get there, he said, would leverage its experience from years of working to win the bid for the next-generation fighter.

The firm ultimately lost the bid for the sixth-generation stealth fighter to Boeing, which President Donald Trump announced in late March as the selected manufacturer. That decision rocked Lockheed's reputation in the stealth fighter game, which it had dominated with the Nighthawk, F-22 Raptor, and F-35 Lightning II.

At Tuesday's earnings call, Taiclet said Lockheed wants to move on from losing the award.

"We are not going to protest the NGAD decision of the US government," he said, referring to Next-Generation Air Dominance, which is the US program to create the sixth-generation successor to the F-22. "We are moving forward and moving out on applying all the technologies that we developed for our NGAD bid onto our embedded base of F-35 and F-22."

"It's a little kind of — not uncomfortable — but novel for our industry to think that way," Taiclet added. "But we are thinking that way."

He compared his ambition to beefing up a road vehicle so much that it becomes a race car.

"So, the F-35. So we're basically going to take the chassis and turn it into a Ferrari. It's like a NASCAR upgrade, so to speak," he said.

Taiclet said Lockheed had worked on developing better sensors and stealth techniques for its sixth-gen bid, and could apply those technologies to improve the F-35. He also mentioned a newer tracking system and longer-range weapons.

He told analysts that the idea is for advanced aircraft to avoid dogfights if they can. "We want to shoot the other guy, as I said, before he even knows we're there," he said.

Boeing's F-47 is meant to be America's most advanced stealth fighter yet, with plans for the aircraft to fly in tandem with semiautonomous "wingmen" drones. With air superiority as its priority, one of the next-generation fighter's primary roles is to destroy enemy aircraft.

Meanwhile, the F-35, a multi-role fighter that entered service in 2015, is Lockheed's headline export. Taiclet said the company expects to deliver between 170 and 190 F-35s in 2025, with a backlog of about 360 more aircraft.

Lockheed reported a net profit of $1.7 billion for the first quarter ending on March 30, up from $1.5 billion in the first quarter of 2024. Earnings of $7.28 per share beat Wall Street's expectations of $6.34 per share.

The company's stock price climbed 0.82% to $462.08 at market close on Tuesday.

Boeing and Lockheed Martin did not respond to requests for comment sent outside regular business hours by Business Insider.

• China's "lying flat" counterculture phenomenon has spawned a new trend of doing absolutely nothing.
• Young workers are posting videos of themselves lying in bed all day, and relishing in the new lifestyle.
• It's part of being one of the "rat people," who enjoy being shut-ins as China's economy struggles.

They call themselves the "rat people."

The phrase has become the latest viral trend among China's unemployed millennials and Gen Zs, who now proudly say they're spending entire days in bed, surfing the internet, and eating takeout.

It's an extreme version of the "lying flat" counterculture movement young employees popularized as they rebelled against China's grueling 72-hour workweeks and the "996" tech culture that saw employees working from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. six days a week.

"I refuse to be ashamed of being a dependent, I'm defending the name of the rat people," one young woman says in a montage of what she calls her 83rd day lounging in her bedroom. She shared the video montage on RedNote, a Chinese photo-based app popular among women.

"After three years of hard work, I finally got my parents to realize that holding a job wasn't building wealth for myself," she adds.

China's burned-out counterculture

Lying flat has seen different iterations over the years. The movement included young adults saying they've given up by "letting it rot." Others resigned themselves to living as "full-time children" who mooch off their parents.

After the pandemic, lying flat became so prominent on social media that it sparked alarm in Beijing as the central government tried to reinvigorate its devastated economy.

But being one of the "rat people" is more than lying flat or giving up.

"Lying flat was: 'I might not be doing anything, not working a 9-to-5, but still doing things that I like,'" Ophenia Liang, the director of Digital Crew, a marketing agency that focuses on Asia, told Business Insider.

"The rat people want to be the exact opposite of the rest of the self-disciplined and glamorous internet that goes to the gym," she said.

Many "rat people" posts are, in a sense, the antithesis of the influencer routines one might find on Instagram or TikTok, or, if you're in China, Weibo and RedNote.

Vital to the trend is the embrace of this low-energy lifestyle. "Rat people" are meant to be content as shut-ins.

American Instagram stars like Ashton Hall tout waking up at 4 a.m. for a run. Young "rat people" on RedNote, by contrast, relish in posting "daily schedule" videos of lying in bed at 4 p.m. and doom-scrolling on iPads.

A change in generational fortunes

Attitude is one motivator driving the "rat people" trend; affordability is another.

Millennials and Gen Zs are the first generations in China who can afford to stay jobless and still survive, Liang said.

"Many of their parents were born in the '60s and '70s and benefited from China's economic growth, so they have some savings," Liang said.

"This is the first economic slowdown these younger people have had in China," she added. "They're not as resilient as people who were born in the '60s or '70s. So some of them come up with this sentiment of: 'Why try so hard?'"

Liang warned that many popular posts of "rat people" schedules on Weibo and RedNote are likely exaggerated by clout-chasers trying to go viral. But their success implies a broader sentiment in the country.

"It fulfills some people's thinking, because you might look at other people your age being very disciplined, and you feel guilty," she said. "Having these 'rat people' as the other extreme, you feel less guilty."

A byproduct of China's slowing economy

China's battered economy and competitive professional environment has left many of its youth feeling despondent.

The average Chinese youth today has to contend with a tougher and more demanding job market than their parents did.

Last month, China's urban jobless rate for those between ages 16 and 24 stood at 16.5%. The country briefly stopped reporting its youth unemployment rate after it hit a record high of 21.3% in the second quarter of 2023.

China's National Bureau of Statistics started publishing the statistics again in January 2024 after it amended its methodology to exclude students.

But the troubles don't necessarily end even for those who secure a job. China's gruelling "996" tech culture fueled an expectation for people to observe a punishing work schedule.

That sense of disenchantment led to the rise of the lying flat movement in 2021, which promoted rejecting constant competition in favor for a more relaxed, minimalist lifestyle.

Eric Fu, a senior research fellow at the University of Melbourne's Youth Research Collective, told BI the rise of self-mocking social media trends like being a "rat person" or "lying flat" isn't necessarily a bad thing — it's an evolution of how the country's people see work.

"It shows people are starting to really give some consideration about the work they really want to do, and the meaning of their life. It also shows that Chinese society has become more diversified in a sense," Fu said.

Fu said it's easy to misunderstand where these Chinese youths are coming from when they extol the virtues of the "rat person."

"This group of people is still, to a certain degree, a privileged group. They have the luxury to do this, but it doesn't mean they just want to waste their life," he said. "They're probably just taking some time off."

"It will be really naive to assume these people just simply want to live like that forever," he added.

• The Pentagon's former top spokesperson says Pete Hegseth likely won't last long in his role.
• John Ullyot wrote that the Pentagon has been distracted by a month of "endless drama" after Signalgate.
• Ullyot said he supports Hegseth, but that Trump "deserves better" from his Cabinet.

John Ullyot, who until recently was a top Pentagon spokesperson, says Pete Hegseth's time as defense secretary is likely running out.

In a scathing opinion piece published by Politico on Sunday evening, Ullyot suggested that President Donald Trump may consider dismissing Hegseth as the Pentagon grapples with a string of public affairs crises.

"President Donald Trump has a strong record of holding his top officials to account. Given that, it's hard to see Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth remaining in his role for much longer," Ullyot wrote.

Ullyot has vocally backed Hegseth, writing in another piece in December that the veteran and former Fox News host was "well qualified for the job" of leading the Defense Department. Even when he stepped down from the Pentagon earlier this week, Ullyot said he supported his old boss.

He continued to praise Hegseth in his op-ed. "I value his friendship and am grateful for his giving me the opportunity to serve," Ullyot wrote.

"Yet even strong backers of the secretary like me must admit: The last month has been a full-blown meltdown at the Pentagon — and it's becoming a real problem for the administration," he added.

A 'Month From Hell'

Ullyot's criticism comes after his tenure leading Defense Department public affairs at the start of the Trump administration. He oversaw the Pentagon's mandate to remove DEI images and its reassignment of its media office spaces, booting outlets such as The New York Times and NBC in favor of right-leaning outlets like Breitbart.

However, in February, Ullyot's role as chief spokesperson was taken over by Sean Parnell, the Pentagon's current press secretary. Ullyot eventually resigned on Wednesday, saying he told Hegseth when he was hired that he "was not interested in being number two to anyone in public affairs."

In his op-ed days later, he described the Pentagon's recent struggles as a "Month from Hell" that began with Signalgate — The Atlantic's bombshell report in March that its chief editor was mistakenly added to a Signal group discussing US strikes.

Ullyot wrote that Hegseth's initial response was a disaster.

"Nobody was texting war plans, and that's all I have to say about that," Hegseth had told reporters. The Atlantic followed up by publishing details of F/A-18 strikes Hegseth sent to the chat.

"This was a violation of PR rule number one — get the bad news out right away," Ullyot wrote of Hegseth's comment to the press.

Other, separate reports soon piled on top of Signalgate, and Ullyot wrote that it's likely more will continue to emerge.

"Unfortunately, after a terrible month, the Pentagon focus is no longer on warfighting, but on endless drama," Ullyot wrote.

These included reports that Hegseth had brought his wife to sensitive meetings with foreign counterparts and that the Pentagon was set to give Elon Musk a top-secret briefing. Three of Hegseth's top aides were also reportedly fired this week amid an investigation into leaks, while the secretary's chief of staff has resigned.

On Sunday, The New York Times reported that Hegseth had also put sensitive information about US strikes in a second Signal chat that included his wife and brother. The Times' report was based on four anonymous sources.

In a statement to Business Insider, Parnell, the Pentagon's current spokesperson, called the report "garbage" and praised Hegseth's office as becoming more efficient. "There was no classified information in any Signal chat, no matter how many ways they try to write the story," he said.

Still, Ullyot wrote that all of these crises combined mean Hegseth would likely lose his job.

"In short, the building is in disarray under Hegseth's leadership," Ullyot wrote.

He wrote that Trump had previously dismissed other Cabinet members whom Ullyot respected, including Jim Mattis, Rex Tillerson, and Mark Esper.

The former Pentagon spokesperson ended his opinion piece by suggesting that a similar firing of Hegseth would benefit Trump.

"The president deserves better than the current mishegoss at the Pentagon," he wrote. "Given his record of holding prior Cabinet leaders accountable, many in the secretary's own inner circle will applaud quietly if Trump chooses to do the same in short order at the top of the Defense Department."

Ullyot and the White House did not respond to requests for comment sent outside regular business hours by BI. The Pentagon similarly did not respond to questions about Ullyot's op-ed as of press time.

• Two Chinese prisoners of war spoke to the press on Monday, describing life under Russian forces.
• Both Chinese men said they were duped into becoming frontline soldiers for Russia.
• One of them said it was impossible to escape because he was constantly being watched.

A Chinese man who said he was tricked into fighting for Russia's military told reporters on Monday that he was guarded so closely he couldn't go to the bathroom alone.

Identified by Ukraine as 34-year-old Wang Guangjun, the man said at a Kyiv press conference that he had entered Russia believing he would be a rehabilitation therapist for Moscow's troops, only to discover he was being deployed on the front lines.

Ukraine said on Wednesday that Wang and another Chinese man, 27-year-old Zhang Renbao, were captured in Donetsk. Business Insider could not independently verify statements from the prisoners of war.

Both men said they were speaking to the press in hopes that China would notice their situation and negotiate for their release. They also denied fighting against Ukraine voluntarily.

Wang described himself as being trapped after reporting for work in Moscow in early 2025, after which he was sent for a few days of training and later to Ukraine's front lines.

"Escape is impossible. Because from the moment you enter the training camp, if you go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, there will be a guard with a loaded gun following you," said Wang.

"And during training, your commander will keep a close eye on you. You have totally no opportunity to escape. Anyway, Russia is filled with military police, even if you try to run, there is nowhere to go," he added.

Zhang — who said he was previously a rescue worker and firefighter in Shanghai — and Wang told Ukrainian and international reporters that they were promised monthly salaries of up to 280,000 rubles, or about $3,400.

But they said they were often left in the dark and couldn't communicate well with their Russian-speaking officers. Wang added that he surrendered his mobile phone and was unsure if he was paid at all.

"I can very honestly tell everyone that I absolutely don't know the specifics," Wang said. "Because everything that involved us was kept secret."

Russia's Defense Ministry did not respond to a request for comment sent outside regular business hours by BI.

Wang and Zhang describe their capture

Wang said he was deployed on April 1 in Donetsk with a unit that went by the "7th" — which could be a reference to Russia's 7th Motorized Rifle Brigade. The Chinese man said he could only communicate with his commanders via sounds and hand gestures.

He told reporters that on April 4, he and several soldiers were sent to advance on the front lines in northern Donetsk. Wang said that as they neared their destination, a Russian soldier called his name and mimicked the sound of a gun firing, urging him to begin attacking.

"On the way there, we had gone through many Russian bunkers, so I thought we had arrived at our own friendly position. I thought he was joking," he said. "So I hid to one side."

Wang then said that the "sky was filled with countless drones" that killed several of his comrades. The survivors soon surrendered to Ukrainian forces, he added.

Meanwhile, Zhang said he arrived in Moscow as a tourist in December and, after seeking work there, was eventually shipped to Donetsk for a month.

He said he and a small Russian squad were sent in late March to advance on foot at the front lines, then spent hours hiding and trying to survive repeated drone attacks.

"I just ran and ran and ran, until I eventually encountered Ukrainian soldiers," Zhang said.

Ukraine says it has evidence that over 150 Chinese people are fighting for Russia, but added that there's no sign their presence is sanctioned by Beijing. On Friday, Reuters cited unnamed US officials saying that Washington believes most Chinese citizens fighting for Russia are mercenaries.

China, meanwhile, said it has always told its citizens to stay away from the war.

"We call on the relevant party to be correct and sober about China's role and refrain from making irresponsible remarks," a spokesperson for Beijing's foreign ministry said on Thursday.