• The commandant of the US Coast Guard has been removed from her position.
• Adm. Linda Fagan was the first uniformed woman to lead a branch of the US military.
• A senior DHS official said she was sacked over DEI initiatives, border concerns, and other issues.

The commandant of the US Coast Guard has been removed from her position over DEI initiatives, border security concerns, and other issues, a senior Department of Homeland Security official confirmed to Business Insider on Tuesday, just one day after the new Trump administration took over.

Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Benjamine Huffman said in a memo to the Coast Guard workforce on Tuesday morning that he had relieved Adm. Linda Fagan from her role. He did not provide any reason for the dismissal, which came just hours after President Donald Trump's inauguration.

"She served a long and illustrious career, and I thank her for her
service to our nation," Huffman, who was appointed to the acting role earlier in the day, wrote in the memo.

Fagan was the first uniformed woman to lead a branch of the US armed forces and had been serving in the top Coast Guard role since 2022. With her dismissal, she's now become the first top military officer to be removed under the new Trump administration. The president and members of his team had previously suggested that it would purge leaders across the armed forces.

A senior DHS official told BI that Fagan was fired "because of her leadership deficiencies, operational failures, and inability to advance the strategic objectives" of the Coast Guard.

The official listed several reasons for her removal, including an alleged failure to address key border security threats, delays and cost overruns in acquiring things like ships and helicopters, and the mishandling of investigations into sexual assault.

The official said that Fagan is to blame for shortfalls in recruiting personnel, although the Coast Guard met its recruitment goals for the first time in several years last October. They also criticized the insufficient interdiction of illicit substances despite numerous counter-narcotics operations that led to the interdiction of $2.5 billion in illegal drugs.

Fagan is also accused of putting "excessive focus" on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies, which the official said diverted resources and attention from "operational imperatives."

Trump has previously criticized the military and other federal agencies over DEI initiatives and has already taken some actions to combat these policies at a federal level.

The Coast Guard did not comment on Fagan's dismissal. The DHS official and Huffman identified Adm. Kevin Lunday as the new acting commandant of the service. Fox News first reported earlier on Tuesday about the leadership shake-up, which has since been condemned by some lawmakers.

"Firing a Commandant at will by a new President also sets a bad precedent," Washington Sen. Maria Cantwell wrote on social media. "The complexity of the Coast Guard's diverse missions require continuity to protect lives and American interests."

Connecticut Rep. Joe Courtney called the dismissal an abuse of power, saying the decision signals Trump's "enduring interest to put politics over the best interest of our servicemembers and national security."

Fagan graduated from the Coast Guard Academy in 1985 and has been in the service for decades. Her predecessor, Adm. Karl Schultz, previously described her as "a top performer and a trailblazer" with a "distinguished career."

The Coast Guard is a branch of the military, although it falls under DHS rather than the Pentagon. It has more than 50,000 active duty, reserve, and civilian personnel.

• Russia is believed to be behind dozens of hybrid attacks on NATO going back years.
• These incidents — part of a so-called shadow war — have escalated since the invasion of Ukraine.
• NATO is now surging its efforts to respond to the attacks and monitor threats to infrastructure.

Far beyond the front lines in Ukraine, Russia is waging a different kind of warfare against NATO. It is a covert, low-intensity conflict with serious consequences.

Moscow has long been waging a shadow war against the military alliance, but the war in Ukraine has led to an escalation of hybrid, or gray-zone, attacks on NATO since the conflict began.

"It's definitely escalating from where it started and where we are now," Gabrielius Landsbergis, who recently stepped down after four years as Lithuania's foreign minister, told Business Insider. A longtime critic of Russia's destabilizing hybrid warfare activities, he said that Moscow's ambition has grown, and its approach has become increasingly more aggressive.

The uptick in gray-zone attacks has raised concerns among current and former NATO and European officials that these activities could trigger more catastrophic outcomes, especially if deterrence efforts are insufficient.

"I believe they are accelerating," Philip Breedlove, a retired US Air Force general and a former Supreme Allied Commander Europe, told BI. "As long as they are working and there is little or no consequence to the antagonist, why would they not?"

'There's no incentive for them to stop'

Russia's hybrid warfare tactics emerged years ago, but they have become significantly more common occurrences since it launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in late February 2022. Since then, European countries have experienced many attacks and sabotage attributed to Moscow. These range from arson and signal jamming to assassination attempts and hacks.

The US Helsinki Commission, an independent government agency, has identified some 150 hybrid operations on NATO territory over the past three years that have been linked to Russia. These acts include critical infrastructure attacks, campaigns of violence, election interference, and weaponized migration.

The commission said in a report released last month that Russia is carrying out a shadow war on NATO in tandem with its war in Ukraine to "destabilize, distress, and deter" the alliance in order to negatively impact support for Kyiv.

But Russian activities are about more than Ukraine. James Appathurai, NATO's deputy assistant secretary general for innovation, hybrid, and cyber, said the Russian hybrid tactics and strategy predate the war and will continue long after it ends because Moscow views the West as an unacceptable obstacle to its great-power ambitions.

"It is an inherent part of Russian strategic thinking. The military is only part of it," Appathurai, the NATO secretary general's primary advisor on hybrid threats, told BI. "Their aim is to achieve political victory using the full spectrum of tools."

Not only are hybrid attacks on the rise, but Russia is also showing an increasing appetite to risk the lives of civilians in NATO countries, Appathurai said. A mass-casualty incident is among his biggest fears.

The most recent high-profile hybrid attack occurred just a few weeks ago, in late December, when several underwater cables were damaged in the Baltic Sea. Authorities suspect an oil tanker dragged its anchor along the seabed to damage a Finnish-Estonian power line and four telecom cables.

Finland seized the Eagle S tanker and prohibited the crew from leaving its territory. The vessel, flying the Cook Islands flag, is believed to be part of Russia's so-called "shadow fleet," a collection of hundreds of ships that Moscow uses to move oil and circumvent sanctions on its energy exports.

Critical undersea infrastructure, like the underwater cables facilitating massive amounts of global data transmission, is especially vulnerable to sabotage. There have been several incidents in recent months, as well as others in the past, and military leaders have long worried about the threats to these lines.

James Foggo, a retired US Navy admiral who previously served as the commander of Allied Joint Force Command Naples, told BI that Finland acted in defense of its sovereignty by detaining the ship accused of damaging the cables. He said responses to future assaults on critical undersea infrastructure "must be bold and have consequences for the perpetrator."

He wasn't alone on that point. Gray-zone tactics below the threshold of armed conflict can be difficult to respond to, but there's an argument that NATO needs to be more aggressive in punishing the Kremlin because it operates under the assumption that the alliance is too passive.

"We already know that Russia is taking these actions on us in hybrid space," Breedlove said, adding that NATO needs to take actions in response and "increase the cost on Russia, or else there's no incentive for them to stop."

'They control the escalation'

Beyond the physical damage some of the hybrid attacks have caused, there's a psychological element at play. Russia's actions have stoked anxiety, particularly among the front-line NATO countries which long warned of Moscow's malign activity, that the alliance could fail to deliver a sufficient response.

In the aftermath of the Eagle S incident, NATO countries have taken various steps to address hybrid attacks and the threats to critical infrastructure.

The British government said earlier this month that it deployed a UK-led reaction system to track potential threats to undersea infrastructure and monitor the shadow fleet. Last week, the White House announced sanctions on more than 180 vessels in the fleet. (The European Union had already blacklisted some 80 ships.)

On Tuesday, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte announced the start of a new operation that will see the alliance enhance its military presence in the Baltic Sea with warships, patrol aircraft, and naval drones.

Speaking to reporters, Rutte said, "We are also working with allies to integrate their national surveillance assets with NATO, ensuring comprehensive threat detection."

But these increased patrols may not be enough to eliminate the threat entirely, and they're not cheap. Foggo said bad actors wield a "cost-imposing strategy" on NATO by raising the price of protecting undersea infrastructure.

Still, the sweeping new measures appear to signal a new and more thorough approach from NATO as the Russian threat grows amid the grinding Ukraine war, nearing the start of its fourth year.

Appathurai said "time will tell" whether efforts like increased patrols and sanctions on the shadow fleet will be enough to protect NATO from Russian activities. However, he emphasized that these steps are significantly more robust than what the alliance has done in the past, thanks to political will and new technology. He also said member states would be firmer in their response to attacks, as Finland showed by seizing the Eagle S.

"We're satisfied that these are sufficient steps for now," he said. NATO also has other lines of efforts; for instance, it turned to special operations divers to test new protections just last fall.

NATO has also been strengthening its defenses against more conventional threats, beefing up its military presence throughout the eastern alliance members, specifically the Baltic states, which are considered to be the most vulnerable.

Meanwhile, the hybrid campaign shows no signs of slowing down as Russia looks to exert its influence over the continent. Landsbergis warned that in doing so, Moscow is "recreating the geopolitical environment" in which it operates.

"Now, they control the escalation in Ukraine — in the West — with everything that they do," he said. "As long as we stay silent and quiet and timid, not wanting to react, not wanting to escalate, and talking about de-escalation, this is the perfect environment for the Russians."

• Israel and Hamas appear close to a cease-fire deal to end 15 months of fighting in Gaza.
• The conflict has left Hamas battered, with thousands of its militants killed.
• But for Israel, an end to the conflict doesn't mean an end to its Hamas problem.

Israel and Hamas appear close to a cease-fire deal to end more than 15 months of devastating fighting in Gaza, though it's facing something of a last-minute crisis.

The agreement, which has hit a snag at the eleventh hour as Hamas reneges on certain parts and Israel pushes for last-minute concessions, is expected to eventually go through. The deal aims to facilitate the release of hostages from Gaza and a surge of humanitarian aid into areas ravaged by fighting, as well as create options for a permanent end to the bloodshed.

Regardless of how the negotiations ultimately work out, many of the issues that fueled this conflict remain, and Israel's Hamas problem appears to be an enduring challenge.

US officials have said that Israel's scorched-earth campaign in Gaza killed thousands of Hamas fighters and eliminated senior commanders, including Yahya Sinwar, its longtime leader. But after all this, the militant group remains alive, leaving Israel with a problem. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu set out to wipe out Hamas, but that hasn't happened.

That reality makes the next steps especially important.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that the US had long conveyed to Israel that it couldn't defeat Hamas through a military campaign alone and needed a postconflict plan for Gaza, or "something just as abhorrent and dangerous" would take its place.

"Each time Israel completes its military operations and pulls back," he said at an Atlantic Council event this week, "Hamas militants regroup and reemerge because there's nothing else to fill the void."

The latest war is the fifth Israel and Hamas have fought since 2008, though the scale has been significantly larger than past fights. Hamas, however, remains an issue for the Israeli leadership and military.

"We assess that Hamas has recruited almost as many new militants as it has lost," Blinken said, adding that this "is a recipe for an enduring insurgency and perpetual war."

The October 7, 2023, attacks, during which Hamas and other militants killed some 1,200 people across Israel and took another 250 people hostage, triggered a retaliatory Israeli bombardment and ground invasion of Gaza that reduced much of the enclave to rubble and left tens of thousands of Palestinians dead.

Israeli officials have said throughout the war that the goal is to crush Hamas and remove the group from power in Gaza. However, analysts were skeptical of this approach, arguing that Israel faced a no-win situation in its high-intensity campaign.

Even with a cease-fire agreement in view, Hamas — though heavily battered and bruised and devoid of the external support from Hezbollah in Lebanon it had enjoyed — remains a decision-making and militant power in Gaza.

"Hamas is not going to disappear," Avi Melamed, a former Israeli intelligence official, told Business Insider. "All this rhetoric about crushing Hamas and eliminating Hamas — it will never really stick. It was just political rhetoric."

Melamed, the founder of the Inside the Middle East institute, said that the big question was whether Palestinians would hold Hamas accountable for initiating the war with its October 7, 2023, massacre. He said the release of prisoners from Israel as part of the cease-fire deal could increase the popularity of the militant group in Gaza.

Polling data has indicated that the group maintains notable support within Gaza, where Hamas as an organization has ruled for nearly two decades. Its deeply entrenched position makes it more difficult for Israel to eradicate it. This has been a challenge with terrorist operations across the Middle East.

Bruce Hoffman, a counterterrorism expert at the Council on Foreign Relations, told BI that such groups, which have survived for so many years, "are enormously difficult — if not impossible — to completely eliminate."

He said that for the foreseeable future, Hamas would be incapable of launching another October 7-style attack against Israel but cautioned that the group still had considerable resources at its disposal. What Hamas needs most is leadership, and it may be able to fill that vacuum with prisoners released from Israel.

"The group is undeniably weakened and a shell of its former self, but the capacity to continue to regroup, I mean, this is a given," Hoffman said. "I don't think anybody's surprised by that."

• Israel's government approved a cease-fire and hostage deal with Hamas this week.
• The cease-fire began on Sunday as Hamas released its first few hostages.
• 3 hostages returned to Israel, where they were treated at a hospital near Tel Aviv.

A cease-fire in the war in Gaza went into effect on Sunday morning after an almost three-hour delay.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office announced that the cease-fire would commence at 11:15 a.m. local time.

The announcement came after Israel said it had received the names of hostages due to be released on Sunday.

Under the terms of the agreement, the cease-fire will last six weeks. During this period, 33 Israeli hostages are scheduled to be exchanged for 737 Palestinian prisoners.

The first three Israeli hostages — Emily Damari, Romi Gonen, and Doron Steinbrecher — were released on Sunday. Israel said the three women were returned to Israeli territory and underwent an initial medical assessment.

President Joe Biden had announced the deal in a farewell address earlier this week.

"After eight months of nonstop negotiation, my administration — by my administration, a ceasefire and a hostage deal has been reached by Israel and Hamas, the elements of which I laid out in great detail in May of this year," Biden said.

US officials helped broker the deal in Qatar.

In a statement on X on Saturday, Majed Al Ansari, a spokesperson for Qatar's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, confirmed that the cease-fire would begin on Sunday but advised caution to Gazans: "We advise the inhabitants to take precaution, exercise the utmost caution, and wait for directions from official sources."

How the cease-fire agreement could be implemented

The deal is set to include multiple phases.

The first stage is expected to include 33 hostages — most of whom are alive — released on "humanitarian" grounds, an Israeli spokesperson told reporters at a briefing. This will consist of women, children, older people, as well as hostages who are sick.

A second phase, which is still being worked out, would see a "permanent end" to the war, Biden has said.

The president added that this phase would include the release of the remainder of the living hostages, with the rest of the Israeli forces withdrawing from Gaza.

In the third phase, any remains of hostages who have been killed would be returned to their families, and a major reconstruction plan would be set in motion for Gaza.

So far, 117 hostages have been returned alive to Israel, including 105 freed as part of a prisoner exchange in November 2023.

The cease-fire deal intends to end the brutal conflict, which has seen large areas of Gaza destroyed and left the militant group severely battered. The Hamas-run health ministry says Israel's military offensive in the coastal enclave has killed more than 46,000 people. It does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.

Negotiations for a cease-fire deal have been ongoing for many months.

President-elect Donald Trump said his victory in November directly contributed to the deal coming to fruition. "We have achieved so much without even being in the White House," he wrote in a post on his Truth Social platform.

• Russia is accused of using aging tankers to damage undersea cables.
• Analysts say it gives the cover of plausible deniability.
• But it's a method that also comes with risks.

A series of apparent attacks on undersea internet cables show Russia exploiting a Western vulnerability, analysts say.

The incidents in recent months involve aging tankers dragging their anchors and severing undersea cables in the Baltic Sea, prompting outages.

The latest came on Christmas Day, when the tanker Eagle S dragged its anchor for hundreds of miles, damaged the Estlink 2 power line between Finland and Estonia and telecommunications cables.

Officials in Europe say Russia is deliberately using the vessels to target the crucial infrastructure used to transmit internet data and power.

They say the incidents add up to a campaign by Russia to sabotage infrastructure. At least one vessel is said to belong to a "shadow fleet" of ships not directly tied to Russia that it uses to evade oil sanctions.

The means employed, the officials say, are decidedly low-tech: aging tankers dragging their anchors along the seabed for miles, hoping to snag and damage a cable.

One Finnish official on Monday said that Eagle S and its crew were preparing to target more cables before the ship was boarded.

The Baltic and beyond

In November, a Chinese-flagged vessel, the Yi Peng 3, was accused of damaging another cable in the Baltic.

Another Chinese-flagged vessel, the NewnewPolar Bear, damaged subsea communications and gas cables in the Baltic in October 2023 by dragging its anchor. China admitted the vessel was responsible for the damage but said it was an accident, The South China Morning Post reported.

And on January 6, Taiwanese officials said that a Chinese-owned tanker severed cables near its north coast in a parallel incident it blamed on China.

Analysts classify the incidents as likely examples of "grey zone" tactics used by Russia and China to destabilize their rivals while falling short of acts of war.

"Attacks on CUI have become a viable weapon in grey zone warfare," said James Foggo, a retired US Navy admiral, using an abbreviation for Critical Undersea Infrastructure.

"More must be done to preserve CUI in the Baltic and other susceptible regions of the globe," he said in an interview with Business Insider.

Plausible deniability

Using commercial vessels for sabotage comes with risks, but also significant benefits for the attacker.

Henri van Soest, a senior analyst at RAND Europe, told BI that "Russia gets a number of advantages from using its shadow fleet for this purpose. The most important one is deniability and ambiguity: We currently have little insight into the make-up of the shadow fleet."

The ultimate ownership of a vessel can be difficult to establish.

The Eagle S, for instance, is owned by a company registered in the UAE, managed by a firm in Mumbai, and sails under the flag of the Cook Islands.

Analysts assert that Russia is directing the vessel, but there is no verifiable public link.

The Kremlin has itself denied any connection with the Eagle S, and other similar incidents in the Baltic.

The lack of an explicit tie to Russia also allows the ships to navigate freely, drawing less attention from national coast guards than a Russian ship.

A thousand threats, or more

Van Soest also pointed to the size of the fleet — which analysts say could exceed 1,400 vessels. It makes any single ship hard to monitor or counter.

"While currently only a small number of ships are suspected of engaging in sabotage activities, these actions make the entire shadow fleet suspect," said Van Soest.

He said there was a psychological component to the strategy in addition to the actual damage it can cause.

"Any ship that forms part of the shadow fleet could potentially be on a sabotage mission. It also sends the implicit message that Russia could swiftly order a larger number of shadow fleet vessels to start sabotage actions, leading to far greater damage and disruption," he said.

Clumsy strategy

The sabotage playbook comes with risks for Russia.

Pushing too hard with the fleet, Kaushal said, could prompt Western navies to treat it as a hostile entity and try to restrict its movements, reducing its value as a way of overcoming sanctions.

It's also clumsy, said Erin Murphy, deputy director of Chair on India and Emerging Asia Economics at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC.: "Anchors can bounce on the ocean floor and miss cutting the cable entirely, if that was the intent of a ship."

For all that, there is not much Western countries can do that matches the potential scale of the problem.

Limited counterplays

Sweden has said it'll be contributing 3 naval ships to boost NATO patrols in the Baltic to defend against subsea cable sabotage.

And late last year the alliance also deployed divers to test equipment to better defend the cables.

Two further measures proposed by European officials have been to tighten sanctions on vessels in the shadow fleet and boost naval patrols to deter sabotage.

"Increased patrols could help, but there's still the problem in terms of the size of the ocean and waterways," said Murphy.

In short: the sea is just too big to defend.

And Sidharth Kaushal, a research fellow at London's Royal United Services Institute, was skeptical that sanctions would deter the shadow fleet in practice.

Kaushal said that several vessels connected to recent cable-cuttings, including the Yi Peng 3, were not considered to be part of the shadow fleet.

Murphy, the author of a 2024 report on the threat to subsea cables, said nations could pressure the destination ports of suspected shadow fleet vessels to search them or deny them entry.

"This could work for a short time but countries and actors usually find ways to circumvent," she said.

It leaves Western nations with few options beyond chasing shadows.

• Ukraine carried out what it said was its "largest attack" against Russian military facilities.
• The operation early on Tuesday targeted military and energy sites across Russia.
• It marks Ukraine's latest effort to degrade the Kremlin's war machine.

Ukraine said its forces carried out what it described as their "largest attack" of the war against Russia's military facilities on Tuesday, hitting targets — including a key airbase — hundreds of miles across the border.

A Ukrainian military drone unit, the 14th Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Regiment, said it attacked infrastructure at the Engels-2 airbase, home to Russia's Tu-95 and Tu-160 bomber aircraft.

The strikes targeted an oil storage facility that supplied fuel for the bombers at Engels, a strategic base located nearly 400 miles into Russia in the Saratov region. It marked the second time in less than a week that Ukraine attacked the site, causing a fire.

"A multi-day complex operation to reduce the enemy's strategic aviation capabilities has been completed," the 14th wrote in a statement.

Closer to home, the Ukrainian military said that it hit a chemical plant in the city of Seltso in Russia's Bryansk region and destroyed two anti-aircraft systems. Kyiv said the Seltso facility produces artillery and rocket ammunition, as well as parts for Kh-59 cruise missiles.

Ukraine's Unmanned Systems Forces, a branch of the military that was formally established last year, said that drones were used to distract the Russian air defenses before missiles rained down on the site. Kyiv employed the same tactic in an attack on a warehouse last week.

During the huge overnight operation, the Ukrainian military also struck the Saratov Oil Refinery and the Kazanorgsintez Plant, causing fires at the sites. It vowed to continue striking facilities that provide Russia with ammunition, military equipment, and fuel.

Russia's defense ministry said that its forces shot down nearly 150 drones outside the "special military operation" zone, a term Moscow uses to refer to its invasion of Ukraine. It mentioned the attack in Bryansk and said Kyiv fired US-provided tactical ballistic missiles but did not provide any details about the other locations.

Business Insider could not independently verify all the reported details of the operation.

The widespread strikes this week are Ukraine's latest cross-border attacks inside Russia. Kyiv has used missiles and drones to target key military and energy facilities across the country as it looks to degrade Moscow's war machine and complicate its operations nearly three years into the conflict.

The strike campaign highlights Ukraine's long reach and its ability to threaten critical facilities hundreds of miles inside Russia using both locally manufactured and Western-provided weapons.

• The US deployed a top air-defense battery to Israel in October after a huge Iranian attack.
• The THAAD system has now been used in combat twice — once in December and another time in January.
• THAAD's combat debut comes amid an uptick in Houthi missile attacks on Israel.

A top American-made air-defense battery deployed to Israel has been used in combat multiple times since it arrived in the country last fall, a US defense official confirmed to Business Insider on Monday.

The THAAD, or Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense, battery was used to defend Israel once in December and again this month, the official said. They declined to provide additional details about either of the incidents, and it's unclear whether the THAAD system successfully intercepted the targets. The January employment has not been previously reported.

The two incidents come amid an uptick in Houthi attacks on Israel. The Yemeni rebels have launched a number of missiles and drones at the country in recent weeks. Most recently, on Monday, the Israeli military said it intercepted one missile and one drone.

The US sent a THAAD battery and around 100 soldiers to Israel in October after Iran launched a massive missile attack on the country at the start of the month. In late December, this newly deployed battery was used in combat for the first time.

THAAD is an American air-defense system made by the US defense contractor Lockheed Martin. It is designed to intercept short-, medium-, and intermediate-range ballistic missiles during the final phase of flight.

THAAD has a long reach and can engage targets at ranges of 93 to 124 miles both inside and outside the atmosphere. It intercepts an inbound missile by striking it rather than exploding nearby.

The US Army began developing THAAD in 1992, and it entered service in 2008.

Its first operational intercept in combat occurred in January 2022 when a battery used by the United Arab Emirates shot down a ballistic missile fired by the Houthis. Although the system has only been used a handful of times in the three years since, it is widely considered to be one of the best air defenses in the world.

The US has seven THAAD batteries, several of which are outside the continental US, including the one in Israel. A typical battery consists of nearly 100 soldiers, six truck-mounted launchers, a radar, and a fire control and communications element.

The October deployment of the THAAD battery added another layer to Israel's highly advanced air-defense network. The Israeli equivalent to THAAD, the Arrow 3 system, has been widely tested in combat since Hamas launched its October 7, 2023, massacre that sparked a wider war across the Middle East.

Israel also fields other air defenses, including David's Sling and the well-known Iron Dome system, designed to intercept rockets and artillery. The country is retiring its American-made Patriot batteries, which Ukraine has used to defend against Russian attacks.

THAAD's role in combat over the past few weeks underscores how Israel continues to face the threat of long-range missiles as it grapples with the Houthis. The rebels have stepped up direct attacks on Israel after spending a year menacing shipping lanes off the coast of Yemen, claiming that their actions are in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.

Israel has responded to the Houthi attacks by bombing the rebels in Yemen and has vowed to keep striking them in retaliation.

• The war in Ukraine has given rise to explosive-packed drones modified with fiber-optic cables.
• These drones are dangerous, as they can't be jammed with electronic warfare and are harder to detect.
• But one Ukrainian company is developing a solution so front-line soldiers can find the drones.

Russian forces are using explosive-packed drones connected to their operators by fiber-optic cables to deliver unjammable precision strikes on Ukrainian troops and military equipment, and Kyiv is looking for a fix to fight back.

Fiber-optic drones have been increasingly appearing in combat over about the last year, and they're a challenge. These drones are dangerous because they can't be jammed with traditional electronic warfare and are difficult to defend against, highlighting the need for a solution.

The drones are "a real problem" because "we cannot detect and intercept them" electronically, Yuriy, a major in an electronic-warfare unit of the Ukrainian National Guard, told Business Insider. "If we can see, we can fight."

The problem is one that the defense industry is looking into closely. Kara Dag, for instance, is an American-Ukrainian technology company that's developing software and hardware to defend against Russian drones for the military and working on a solution, but it's still early days.

The company's chief technology officer, who goes by the pseudonym John for security purposes, said the ongoing conflict is a "war of drones." He told BI Ukraine had managed this fight well with jamming techniques, but Russia has found ways to slip past some of its defenses.

Fiber-optic drones, which Russia appears to have started flying into battle last spring, are first-person view, or FPV, drones, but rather than rely on a signal connection, they are wired with cables that preserve a stable connection. As a result, these drones are resistant to electronic warfare, like radio frequency jammers, and produce high-quality video transmissions.

In August, combat footage from Russian fiber-optic drones began to circulate, indicating a more lasting presence on the battlefield. Now, both militaries are using these drones.

Fiber-optic drones are highly dangerous, John said, as they can fly in tunnels, close to the ground, through valleys, and in other areas where other drones might lose connection with their operators. They are also tough to detect because they don't emit any radio signals.

Russia can use these drones to destroy Ukrainian armored vehicles and study its defensive positions, he said. Since they don't have bandwidth problems, these drones "can transmit very high-quality picture and they literally see everything."

The drones aren't without their disadvantages, though. Yuriy shared that the fiber-optic drones are slower than the untethered FPV drones and unable to make sharp changes in direction. He said that Russia does not have too many of these drones, either, nor does it use them in every direction of the front lines. But where they are used, they're a problem.

Because jamming doesn't work on fiber-optic drones, there are efforts underway to explore other options for stopping these systems, such as audio and visual detection. But this kind of technology can be expensive and hard to manufacture.

John said that the company has developed a low-cost solution to find fiber-optic drones. One element of this system is an array of dozens of microphones that can be focused on one point in the sky to listen for any nearby drones. The second element is an unfocused infrared laser that highlights any object in a certain area of the sky while a camera records any reflected light coming back.

It's a single device that can be placed around a kilometer from troop positions. John said the device is in lab testing, and the next step is to deploy it in real combat conditions on the front lines next month. The plan is to eventually produce several thousand of these devices every month.

The introduction of fiber-optic drones into battle — and Ukraine's subsequent efforts to counter them — underscores how both Moscow and Kyiv are constantly trying to innovate with uncrewed systems before the enemy can adapt, a trend that has been evident throughout the war.

In a previous interview with BI, Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine's minister of digital transformation, described the technology and drone race playing out in this fight as a "cat-and-mouse game." He said that Kyiv is trying to stay several steps ahead of Moscow at all times.

The Ukrainian military said last month that it was testing fiber-optic drones, adding that "FPV drones with this technology are becoming a big problem for the enemy on the front line."

On Tuesday, a Ukrainian government platform that facilitates innovation within the country's defense industry shared new footage of fiber-optic drone demonstrations on social media. Russia, if it's not already, may soon find itself working to counter these new drones as well.

• Ukraine attacked a Russian warehouse full of reconnaissance drones on Friday.
• A security source said Ukraine targeted the facility with drones and a Neptune missile.
• Russia uses its reconnaissance drones to support deep strikes, which have been a problem for Kyiv.

Ukraine says that its forces attacked a Russian warehouse facility full of reconnaissance drones on Friday, hitting it with a homemade missile not often mentioned in disclosures of Kyiv's combat operations.

The cross-border attack targeted a drone and ammunition storage facility in Russia's southwestern Rostov region, a Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) source told Business Insider Friday.

The source said that Ukraine first launched drones to overwhelm Russia's air defenses in the area before striking the site, located near the small village of Chaltyr, with a Neptune missile.

The R-360 Neptune is a subsonic, long-range cruise missile made by the Ukrainian defense manufacturer Luch Design Bureau. It was initially developed as an anti-ship missile, but the weapon has since been modified to strike land targets.

The modified Neptune missile doesn't get as much attention as some of the country's other weapons, especially those provided by Kyiv's Western partners, but Ukraine has used it to strike high-value Russian targets, including high-end air-defense batteries and, more recently, oil terminals. Friday's attack appeared to be its first confirmed combat use in quite some time.

Footage of the attack, which was shared with BI, captures the buzz of what appears to be drones. A massive fireball can be seen at one point, followed by a loud blast. Other videos show fires at the site and plumes of smoke. Since ammunition was stored at the facility, secondary explosions may have occurred.

The source said that the strike operation was carried out by the SBU and Ukraine's navy. "Now these Russian 'birds' in the sky will be reduced. Work on military facilities in the enemy's rear will continue," they said, according to a translation of their remarks shared with BI. BI was unable to independently verify the details of the operation.

Russia uses its reconnaissance drones, like the Orlan, among other systems, to enable deep strikes on Ukraine by providing valuable intelligence, like targeting data on troop positions and critical equipment, from behind the front lines. Moscow then attacks these locations with guided tactical missiles.

Russia's reconnaissance strike complex has been a challenge for Ukraine, particularly amid strains on its air defenses.

Ukrainian officials, including President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, have routinely pressed the US and its NATO allies for more air defenses and interceptor missiles to help defend against Russian strikes. The Ukrainians have also been increasingly looking to interceptor drones as cheap alternatives to costly missiles.

Taking targets out on the ground is another option. The strike on Friday marked Ukraine's latest cross-border attack in Russia. Earlier this month, Kyiv launched drones at a major port near the city of St. Petersburg, hundreds of miles away, in a bid to disrupt operations at the facility. These strikes have become a problem for Russia.

• Russian glide-bomb attacks against Ukraine are down compared to a few months ago.
• Ukraine's long-range strikes on Russian airfields and ammunition depots helped to reduce the threat.
• A Ukrainian soldier on the southern front said attacks are down by 70 percent compared to months ago.

Russia is carrying out fewer glide-bomb attacks on Ukraine compared to a few months ago, but the highly destructive weapons are still a severe threat to soldiers and civilians.

Factors behind the recent decrease in bombing runs include a string of Ukrainian drone strikes on airbases and ammunition storage facilities inside Russia during the summer and fall. Kyiv's forces are also getting better at defending against the glide bombs.

Russian aircraft have launched glide bombs at Ukraine throughout much of the war. The weapons are equipped with special kits converting dumb bombs into precision-guided munitions. They are quite difficult to intercept because they fly on non-ballistic trajectories, have small radar signatures, and have fairly short flight times.

Glide bombs come in various sizes, but among the larger is one weighing over 6,000 pounds that delivers tremendous destruction on impact.

A Ukrainian soldier fighting on the front lines in the south told Business Insider that glide bombs cause a lot of problems, but there has been a significant decrease in attacks since the summer.

Yuriy, a major in an electronic warfare unit of the Ukrainian National Guard, said that in his sector of the front, Russia has reduced the number of its attacks by around 70 percent compared to the summer.

He attributed the decrease to Ukraine's long-range strike campaign inside Russia. He also suggested that the presence of F-16 fighter jets, which made their combat debut for Kyiv last August, might be making Russian pilots hesitant to fly too close to the border.

The only way really for Ukraine to defeat glide bombs is to either shoot down the warplane before it releases the munition or strike the aircraft on the ground at its base. They can also destroy the ammunition stores.

During the summer and fall, Ukraine used domestically produced drones to carry out a string of high-profile attacks on Russian storage facilities where glide bombs were kept and airfields where the warplanes carrying them were based.

Ukraine has also benefitted from the Biden administration's decision to lift restrictions on Kyiv's use of American-made tactical ballistic missiles, known as ATACMS, in cross-border strikes. Ukrainian officials long argued more freedom in this space would allow them to threaten Russian airfields and reduce glide-bomb attacks.

Yehor Chernev, the deputy chairman of Ukraine's parliamentary committee on national security, defense, and intelligence, explained to BI that Kyiv's strikes on the airfields forced Russia to move its tactical aviation deeper into the country and away from the front lines.

This campaign has led to a decrease in sortie rate — how often Russia can get its warplanes in the air to conduct the bombing missions — and has increased the detection time that Ukrainian forces have since the aircraft are approaching from farther out.

Chernev said that Ukraine has also been chipping away at the number of glide bombs in Russia's arsenal by targeting its ammunition depots.

But these strikes aren't a "magic tool," he said. The Russians can always build another storage depot to replace one that has been destroyed. Chernev said that while glide-bomb attacks are ultimately down, "it's still a problem for us because we cannot intercept these guided bombs."

Ukraine can, however, take actions short of interception. George Barros, the geospatial-intelligence team lead and a Russia analyst at the Institute for the Study of War, told BI that Ukraine has gotten better at using electronic warfare to interfere with the Russian glide bombs, reducing their efficacy.

On the front lines in the eastern Donetsk region, Barros said that he's observed a correlation between the decrease in the glide-bomb attacks and the rate of Russian advances, which have slowed over the past month or two.

"The Russian forces there are very tired and very much attrited," he said, acknowledging that as a contributing factor.

But hindrances impacting Russia's ability to drop glide bombs on Ukraine, coupled with the decreased effectiveness of these weapons, "also tracks with the observation of the Russian rate of infantry advance," given that Moscow uses these munitions to support its ground forces, Barros said, adding that "these all sort of align in a mutually supporting way."

He emphasized that to prevent the glide-bomb threat from reemerging, the US and NATO need to continue arming Ukraine with long-range missiles so it can keep the pressure on Russia's airbases.

Despite an overall decrease in glide-bomb strikes, these weapons are still causing death and destruction across Ukraine. On Wednesday, Russia attacked the city of Zaporizhzhia with two munitions, killing over a dozen people and injuring more than 30, authorities said.

"This shows once again what Russia truly seeks," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said later that evening. "They want only war, and only victims."

• The US Navy is officially referring to F/A-18s armed with nine air-to-air missiles as "Murder Hornets."
• This loadout was first observed during Red Sea combat operations last year.
• The loadout consists of four AIM-9X and five AIM-120 missiles.

The US Navy is officially using the term "Murder Hornet" to describe F/A-18 fighter jets armed with nine air-to-air missiles, a munition configuration first spotted amid Red Sea combat operations last year.

The office of the Chief of Naval Operations highlighted the new term for these missile-packed Super Hornets in a document outlining the Navy's achievements over the past year. It said the configuration, which was used in combat as the sea service faced off against numerous airborne threats, involves arming the jets with four AIM-9X instead of two and five AIM-120 missiles.

This air-to-air loadout was first seen on a Boeing-made F/A-18 Super Hornet during flight operations aboard the aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower in the Red Sea last April. The Ike and the other ships in its strike group had deployed to the region for several months in response to repeated Iran-backed Houthi rebel attacks on shipping lanes off the coast of Yemen.

The Navy took steps to boost the air-defense capabilities of its Super Hornets amid pressing threats in the Red Sea. Navy aircraft and warships have routinely shot down Houthi drones and missiles above the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden since October 2023.

The head of Naval Air Systems Command's Program Executive Office for Unmanned Aviation and Strike Weapons, Rear Adm. Stephen Tedford, said last year that the heavy air-to-air configuration, among other efforts, was brought about due to the need for "a lot more firepower and capability immediately in support of Red Sea operations and counter-UAS," The War Zone, which first reported the new nickname, previously reported.

The AIM-9X is the latest model in the decades-old Sidewinder family of short-range missiles, and the AIM-120 AMRAAM (Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile) is a beyond-visual-range missile capable of all-weather engagements. Both munitions are manufactured by US defense contractor Raytheon, now known as RTX Corporation.

The Eisenhower, where the Murder Hornet configuration was first showcased, is one of four carriers that, along with their strike groups, have participated in counter-Houthi operations. US forces are routinely tasked with intercepting rebel drones and missiles; the Navy said it has defended military and civilian ships from more than 180 attacks in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.

Using a range of other munitions, the US military has also carried out airstrikes targeting the Houthis. Just on Wednesday, for instance, American forces bombed two underground weapons storage facilities in Yemen.

Despite a year of combat action, the Houthis still maintain the ability to launch attacks, which they claim are done out of solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza. In recent weeks, the rebels have stepped up drone and missile attacks on Israel, which has responded by bombing their facilities.

• A Russian attack submarine that was stationed in Syria has officially left the Mediterranean Sea.
• The departure of the Kilo-class Novorossiysk leaves Russia without any known submarines in the region.
• The uncertain fate of Russia's naval presence in Syria amid other setbacks could spell trouble for its submarine force.

Strategic Russian naval bases have been upended by conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine, creating headaches for the Kremlin's navy, including its submarine force.

Moscow no longer appears to have any attack submarines in the Mediterranean Sea after NATO forces spotted its last known submarine leaving the region last week.

Portugal's military said that it observed a Russian Kilo-class submarine moving through the country's continental exclusive economic zone near northern Spain on Friday. NATO Maritime Command later identified the vessel as the Novorossiysk.

The Novorossiysk was spotted several weeks earlier at Tartus, a naval base in Syria that Russia had used for years. The future of Moscow's military footprint at the facility — and in the country in general — was, however, thrown into uncertainty after the shocking collapse of the Assad regime last month.

There are indications that Russia is drawing down forces at its bases in Syria. Losing Tartus for good would be a significant blow to Moscow's navy — including its capable submarine force — which relies on the warm-water port to project power across the region and beyond.

Early December satellite imagery showed the Novorossiysk docked in Tartus, but by the middle of the month, it was gone, along with the rest of the Russian warships that had been there. Some of the Russian naval vessels have been spotted in recent weeks loitering off the Syrian coast, but the whereabouts of this submarine were less certain.

Should Syria's new leadership decide Russia can no longer station its forces at Tartus, it would mark another setback for Moscow's navy, which has suffered a string of stunning losses in the nearby Black Sea since the start of the full-scale Ukraine war nearly three years ago.

Ukrainian forces have used missiles and naval drones to damage or destroy dozens of Russian naval vessels, including one of six improved Kilo-class submarines Moscow's Black Sea Fleet operates, during the conflict.

These attacks have forced Moscow to withdraw the Black Sea Fleet from its long-held headquarters in Sevastopol, a major city in the southwestern corner of the occupied Crimean peninsula, across the region to the port of Novorossiysk along western Russia's coast. If Russia is unable to move back into Sevastopol, that creates complications.

For Russia, losing the ability to keep submarines at Sevastopol and Tartus is less than ideal.

Bryan Clark, a former US Navy officer and defense analyst at the Hudson Institute, said that the remainder of the Kilo-class vessels are based in St. Petersburg, where there is a large naval facility and dry docks for maintenance.

"The Russians are now having to redeploy their submarine force back up to the north" instead of relying on warm-water ports that "you could get in and out of them year-round," Clark told Business Insider. "St. Petersburg, you can't get in and out of year-round."

Recent developments also seriously undermine Russia's military influence in the Mediterranean and southern Europe, Clark said.

The Novorossiysk is a newer improved Kilo sub. Submarines of this class are diesel-electric vessels and formidable long-range strike platforms that can attack ships and land targets, deploy for weeks on end, and stay relatively undetected. They are effectively Russia's most capable non-nuclear subs and can carry Kalibr missiles.

Russia has kept a Kilo-class vessel in the region for years. The boat's departure from the region, though Russia could ultimately opt to move another sub into the area later, may signal a broader decline in Russian naval might in the Mediterranean.

In four years, Russia appears to have gone "from being a pretty big player in the Med — in terms of naval forces — to now being a nonexistent player," Clark said.

Russia's basing challenges could ultimately hinder its ability to project power. The uncertainty with Tartus and nearby Hmeimim Air Base — underscores a broader issue for the Russian military.

Satellite imagery captured on Monday by Maxar Technologies, a commercial imaging company, shows no obvious signs of any major Russian naval vessels at Tartus, as has been the case for weeks. Ukraine's military intelligence agency has said Russia is withdrawing from the base.

Whether Moscow is able to negotiate an arrangement with the new Syrian leadership to stay in the country or is forced to relocate to a new hub in North Africa to sustain its operations remains to be seen.

• Ukrainian long-range drones attacked a key Russian port over the weekend, a security source said.
• Video footage shows a drone striking the facility and causing a massive fireball.
• Russia's Ust-Luga port is used to support a murky and deceptive "shadow fleet."

Ukrainian forces carried out an attack on a major commercial port in Russia over the weekend, using long-range drones to target and disrupt the operations of Moscow's sanctions-evading "shadow fleet."

The Security Service of Ukraine, known as the SBU, carried out the attack Saturday on Ust-Luga, a port in northwest Russia near the city of St. Petersburg, a source in the agency confirmed to Business Insider on Monday.

The SBU source said the drones flew over 550 miles and "successfully hit" their targets, with one drone striking containers filled with gas condensate, causing an explosion that severely damaged one container and sent shrapnel into three others nearby.

Video footage obtained by BI appears to show the moment the drone hits the containers. Sporadic gunfire can be heard ringing out in the background, suggesting Russia attempted to shoot down the drone as it drew closer to its target.

However, these efforts were ultimately unsuccessful, and the drone slammed into the Russian infrastructure, causing a massive fireball and a loud blast. The SBU source, citing unspecified experts, said repairing this facility will take a while and will cause a disruption to the port's operations.

BI could not independently verify the SBU-provided details of the attack.

Ust-Luga is Russia's largest commercial port in the Leningrad region and a key logistics hub along the Baltic Sea. The SBU source said Moscow uses the facility to sell oil and gas using its so-called "shadow fleet."

The "shadow fleet" refers to the collection of vessels that Moscow uses to evade the international sanctions on its energy exports placed in response to its invasion of Ukraine and sustain significant cash flow to support its war efforts.

According to the European Parliament, this murky, deceptive network consists of aging and poorly maintained vessels with unclear ownership and origins. The ships employ various tactics to conceal movements and operations, like transmitting false data, ship-to-ship transfers, automatic identification system blackouts, and other deceptive practices.

"As Russia depends increasingly on its 'shadow fleet' to maintain oil exports," the European Parliament wrote in a briefing published last year, "the EU and allied nations have implemented measures to counter these evasive tactics."

It said the approaches include sanctions on specific vessels and greater international collaboration to disrupt the malign activity that helps to boost Russia's war chest. However, Ukraine appears to favor direct military action.

"Drone sanctions from the SBU reduce the currency that Russia needs to wage war," the security source said, according to a translation of their remarks shared with BI.

The attack on Ust-Luga over the weekend marks the latest long-range Ukrainian strike on Russian soil. Kyiv has heavily relied on its arsenal of domestically produced drones for cross-border operations, using these explosive-packed uncrewed systems to target Moscow's energy and military facilities.

In recent months, Ukrainian drones have struck Russian ammunition depots, airfields, and weapons storage facilities.

• A Ukrainian company is producing steel armor for the country's Patriot air-defense batteries.
• The armor consists of small plates that wrap around the exterior of the Patriot's control unit.
• It is intended to protect the highly valuable systems from Russian missile shrapnel and debris.

A Ukrainian defense initiative is making steel armor for the country's inventory of American-made Patriot batteries, providing the air-defense systems with extra protection against shrapnel.

The MIM-104 Patriot is a surface-to-air missile system that has been a critical part of Ukraine's air-defense umbrella. Several Western nations, including the US, have sent Patriot control systems, launchers, and interceptor missiles to Kyiv to help it fend off massive Russian bombardments, but it only has a few Patriots, making protection key to maintaining Ukraine's defenses.

Rinat Akhmetov's Steel Front, a Ukrainian initiative that has built protective screens for tanks and armored fighting vehicles, announced on Friday that engineers from Metinvest, the country's largest steel producer, have developed new armor for the Patriot.

The heavy armor consists of around 200 steel plates, each around 8 millimeters thick, that wrap around the exterior of the Patriot's control unit, where the crew sits to operate the system. The protective plates are designed to shield the control unit from missile shrapnel and blast fragments.

Oleksandr Myronenko, the Metinvest Group's chief operating officer, said the company developed the project from scratch in under two months. "Air defenders also need reliable protection," he stressed in a statement. The total weight of the armor is 2.6 metric tons, but, the company said, it doesn't impact mobility or functionality.

Mass production of the armor is underway, but the first of the plates has already been installed on an undisclosed number of Patriot control units. Business Insider has reviewed video footage of the steel plates on one such unit.

The Patriot is a workhorse for the Ukrainian military and has been since the first air-defense battery arrived in April 2023. Kyiv has relied heavily on the system to defend its skies from Russian missiles and warplanes. It operates them alongside other Western-provided and Soviet-era air defenses.

The Patriot has specifically received praise for its success against the Kh-47M2 Kinzhal, a Russian air-launched ballistic missile that Moscow has said is impossible to intercept.

Beyond protecting the Patriots, Steel Front has also produced screens for various armored vehicles in service with the Ukrainian military, including Soviet-era tanks like the T-64 and T-72 and American-made systems like the M1 Abrams tank and M2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicle.

These welded screens are designed to protect these highly vulnerable vehicles from threats like the small, exploding first-person view (FPV) drones that have wreaked havoc on the battlefield, destroying armored vehicles sometimes worth millions for a tiny fraction of that cost. Cage armor has become increasingly common as the drone threat has become more prolific, but the designs vary significantly in both quality and sophistication.

• Ukraine's naval drones fired missiles at — and hit — three Russian helicopters earlier this week.
• The first-of-its-kind combat engagement occurred off the coast of Crimea.
• It's the latest achievement for Kyiv's naval drones, which have been modified to carry missiles.

Ukrainian naval drones armed with heat-seeking missiles shot down two Russian helicopters and damaged a third above the Black Sea earlier this week, Kyiv said on Thursday.

The unusual combat engagement marked the first known instance of a naval drone firing on and striking an aircraft. The Ukrainian military previously reconfigured its uncrewed boats for sea-based air defense.

The milestone combat operation unfolded on Tuesday off the western coast of the Russian-occupied Crimean peninsula. Ukrainian naval drones equipped with missile launchers fired at three helicopters, destroying two of them and damaging a third.

The crews of the destroyed helicopters, identified as Mi-8s, were killed, Ukraine's military intelligence agency, also known as the HUR, said on Thursday. The damaged helicopter managed to land.

The HUR credited the operation to a special forces unit called "Group 13," which fields the Magura V5, one of several naval drones in service with the Ukrainian military.

Earlier this week, the HUR said that a Magura V5 drone took down a single Mi-8 with R-73 air-to-air missiles. The R-73 is a decades-old, short-range missile that uses infrared homing technology. Two days later, Ukraine revealed that a second helicopter was destroyed and a third damaged.

The HUR published a radio intercept purportedly containing audio from one of the Mi-8 pilots after the Russian helicopter was hit. "There was a water launch," the pilot says in the recording, describing how a missile exploded near the aircraft. Business Insider could not independently verify any of the details of the operation.

This week's incident is not the first time that Ukrainian naval drones have engaged Russian helicopters in a firefight; last month, Kyiv shared footage showing a similar engagement on the other side of Crimea involving a drone outfitted with a machine gun. However, the downing of an aircraft marks a new chapter in naval drone warfare.

Kyiv's domestically produced naval drones have played a key role in its Black Sea operations. In addition to the Magura V5, Ukraine also fields other sea drones, like the Sea Baby platform in service with the Security Service of Ukraine.

Ukraine lacks a traditional navy, so it has relied on these naval drones to wage a successful campaign against Russian interests across the Black Sea, using them in attacks against Moscow's warships, aircraft, and infrastructure, like bridges and oil platforms.

Through this asymmetrical campaign, Ukraine's drones have effectively driven Moscow's Black Sea Fleet away from its long-held headquarters in Crimea and forced it to relocate across the region to the port of Novorossiysk in southwestern Russia.

Ukraine has innovated with its naval drones through various modifications that make them more threatening, like adding missile launchers to give them air-defense capabilities. Some of the drones have also been outfitted with rocket launchers, guns, and even other drones.

• It's been a rough year for Iran and its friends in the Middle East.
• Israel has degraded Tehran's proxy forces and delivered punishing airstrikes against Iran itself.
• And Iran just lost one of its most important allies in the region: the Assad regime.

From Gaza to Beirut, Damascus to Tehran, it's been a rough year for Iran and its allies and proxy forces across the Middle East.

Israel's wars against Hamas and Hezbollah have severely degraded these two Iranian proxies, while its military confrontations with Iran itself have left the country short on critical defenses. Tehran's key ally — Syria's longtime dictator, Bashar Assad — was just ousted by rebel forces.

A senior Biden administration official said earlier this month that Assad's fall can be traced to US support for Israel in its conflicts with Iran and its proxies and Ukraine in its defense against Russia.

"Hamas is on its back; its leaders are dead," the US official told reporters. "Iran is on its back. Hezbollah is on its back. Russia is on its back. It's just abandoned its only ally in the Middle East."

"Now, the Assad regime — Russia and Iran's main ally in the Middle East — has just collapsed," they said.

The Iranian proxies

Hamas' October 7, 2023, massacre, which killed around 1,200 people in Israel, sent shockwaves through the Middle East and triggered an immediate — and devastating — military response.

What began as an aerial bombardment later turned into an Israeli invasion of Gaza. After more than a year, Israel has eliminated Hamas' military leadership, including Yahya Sinwar, the mastermind of the October 7 attacks, in a scorched-earth campaign that local authorities in Gaza say has killed over 45,000 Palestinians and drawn international condemnation.

White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said after Sinwar's killing that Israel has "decimated" the military structure of Hamas, although he acknowledged the group is still a threat in Gaza.

Meanwhile, Lebanese Hezbollah started attacking Israel shortly after October 7, and the two longtime enemies regularly exchanged cross-border fire for nearly a year, displacing tens of thousands of people as fighting steadily escalated.

In September, Israel sharply increased the pressure with its audacious pager attacks, followed by a new campaign of strikes that wiped out Hezbollah's senior leadership and weaponry. Israeli forces then invaded Lebanon before a late-November cease-fire ended the fighting, which left thousands of people dead across the country.

Brian Carter, the Middle East portfolio manager at the American Enterprise Institute's Critical Threats Project, said earlier this month that the "Israeli operations in Lebanon have defeated Hezbollah and compelled the group to end its involvement in the October 7 War."

Iran itself

In early April, an Israeli airstrike on an Iranian diplomatic facility in Damascus killed multiple senior Iranian military officials, escalating what had long been a shadow war between Israel and Tehran.

Iran responded later that month by launching over 300 missiles and drones at Israel, but nearly all the projectiles were shot down in what was the first-ever direct attack on Israel from Iranian soil. Israel then struck Iran in retaliation.

In July, Iran accused Israel of executing the daring assassination of Ismail Haniyeh, the leader of Hamas' political wing. Haniyeh was killed at a guesthouse in Tehran — a tremendous security breach and a blow to Iran.

Iran waited months to retaliate over the killing of Haniyeh and other proxy leaders, but on October 1, it launched some 200 ballistic missiles at Israel — the second direct confrontation between the two bitter foes. Officials said a majority of the Iranian missiles were intercepted.

Israel then responded later that month, carrying out widespread airstrikes that nearly wiped out all of Iran's air-defense systems and degraded its ability to produce missiles. An Israeli security official told BI in the aftermath that the strikes were "powerful" and put Tehran at a "disadvantage," as they left the country vulnerable to follow-on military action.

The Assad regime

Iran long supported the Assad regime because it viewed Damascus as a crucial pillar for keeping weapons flowing to Hezbollah and projecting its influence across the region to Lebanon along the Mediterranean Sea.

But earlier this month, Syria's yearslong civil war ended in shocking fashion when rebel forces suddenly swept across the country in a lightning offensive that lasted just days and ended with their capture of Damascus. Assad and his family fled to Moscow.

US officials attributed the sudden collapse of the Assad regime to the fact that its main allies — Iran, Hezbollah, and Russia — were much weaker than in years past and simply couldn't intervene militarily as they had done earlier in the civil war.

President Joe Biden said after the rebels captured Damascus that the military setbacks Iran and Hezbollah have suffered fighting against Israel this year essentially made it "impossible" for them to continue to support the Assad regime.

The Houthis

One Iranian ally that has stood out among the others is the Houthis, a rebel group in Yemen that has spent over a year attacking civilian and military ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.

Armed with a large, diverse stockpile of missiles and attack drones, the Houthis have launched more than 130 attacks on vessels transiting shipping lanes off the coast of Yemen. They have struck a number of merchant ships, sinking two of them and hijacking one. Four sailors have been killed during the campaign.

The Houthis have said their campaign is in support of Palestinians in Gaza, although US officials often dismiss this claim since the rebels have targeted vessels sailing under many different flags. These attacks have caused a significant decline in activity along a key global trade route, forcing shipping companies to make longer and more costly trips around Africa.

A Western naval coalition, led by the US Navy, has so far been unable to defeat or deter the Houthis. American forces routinely intercept inbound missiles and drones and carry out strikes against the rebels in Yemen.

Though degraded, the Houthis still retain the ability to attack ships. Just this month alone, the rebels have targeted US warships and commercial ships with missiles and drones on multiple occasions. The vessels all emerged unscathed after the attacks, but the incidents underscore the enduring threat that shows no signs of stopping.

• A US air defense system in Israel was just used in combat for the first time since it was deployed.
• It's unclear if the THAAD battery successfully intercepted the incoming threat.
• The battery was reportedly used against a Houthi ballistic missile late last week.

A top US air defense battery deployed to Israel was recently used in combat in what appears to be the first known instance that the system fired an interceptor since it arrived in the country two months ago.

The THAAD (or Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense) battery was used in theater over the past couple of days, a US defense official confirmed to Business Insider on Monday. They did not elaborate on the circumstances of the incident, the kind of missile attack THAAD was designed to counter.

Footage shared on social media Friday purported to show the launch of a THAAD interceptor in Israel against an incoming ballistic missile fired by the Houthis in Yemen. A US soldier can reportedly be heard in the background of the video saying, "Eighteen years [I've] been waiting for this."

It's unclear whether the THAAD shot was successful. The Israeli military said early Friday local time that a missile launched from Yemen was intercepted before crossing into Israeli territory. It did not specify which air defense system was actually used to take down the threat.

The US deployed a THAAD battery and around 100 soldiers to Israel in October following a massive Iranian missile attack on the country at the start of the month. The Pentagon said then that the system would supplement Israel's advanced and multi-tiered air defenses.

THAAD, which is made by US defense contractor Lockheed Martin, is designed to defeat short-, medium-, and intermediate-range ballistic missiles during the final phase of their flight. The system can engage targets at ranges of 93 to 124 miles inside and outside the atmosphere and eliminates an incoming threat by hitting it rather than exploding nearby.

The US Army began developing THAAD in 1992, and it now has seven batteries, several of which are outside the continental US. A typical battery consists of nearly 100 soldiers, six truck-mounted launchers, an advanced radar, and a fire control and communications element.

THAAD's first operational intercept in combat came in January 2022 when a battery used by the United Arab Emirates took down a Houthi ballistic missile. Though it has rarely seen combat, THAAD is still considered to be one of the top air defenses in the world; Israel's equivalent to the THAAD, the Arrow 3, has also proved its worth in combat.

Last year, the US sent a THAAD battery to the Middle East to protect American troops after Hamas carried out its Oct. 7, 2023, massacre in Israel. The October deployment strengthens Israel's vaunted air-defense shield against missiles, consisting of David's Sling and the Arrow systems. The widely touted Iron Dome, by contrast, is designed to counter rockets and artillery shells.

Israel is retiring the US-made Patriot battery. The Israelis soured on the Patriot after their early version failed to defeat Scud missiles fired by Iraq in 1991. Later upgrades would transform Patriot into a critical defensive asset for Ukraine in its war against Russia.

The recent employment of the THAAD battery comes amid a notable uptick in Houthi missile and drone attacks on Israel over the past few weeks. Israeli forces have bombed the rebels in Yemen in retaliation.

• Russia has changed the way it attacks Ukraine with missiles and drones in recent months.
• Since August, Russia has likely been conserving its munitions for larger but less frequent attacks.
• Britain's defense ministry said this strategy differs from Russia's approach earlier this year.

Russia is likely conserving its missiles and building up stockpiles to launch larger — but less frequent — attacks on Ukraine, according to a new Western intelligence assessment.

The Russian military has launched several big aerial bombardments against Ukraine this month, including one large-scale attack that saw Moscow fire more than 90 missiles and 190 drones at its neighbor. The simultaneous attacks increase the chances of some munitions breaking through Ukraine's air defense network and likely also aim to terrorize Ukrainians wearied by nearly three years of barrage.

Ukraine said Russian forces launched ballistic and cruise missiles from fighter jets, bombers, and warships in the December 12-13 attack, which was directed at its energy grid. Most of the missiles and drones were either shot down or failed to reach their targets.

A few weeks later, on Christmas Day, Russia launched another large-scale attack against Ukraine's energy sector with nearly 200 missiles and drones. The two strikes appear to reflect a recent change in Moscow's bombardment tactics. Ukrainians celebrated Christmas on Dec. 25 again this year, but Russia's Eastern Orthodox won't observe it until Jan. 7, 2025.

Britain's defense ministry wrote in an intelligence update over the weekend that, since August, "it is highly likely Russia has chosen to take time to build stocks between strikes and then launch in larger, less frequent strike waves, rather than the more frequent smaller attacks conducted earlier in the year."

The characteristics of the December 12-13 attack were similar to those of previous assaults, as they targeted Ukraine's critical infrastructure while also trying to overpower the country's air defenses with exploding drone swarms.

Britain's defense ministry cautioned on Saturday that "Russia retains the ability and the stocks to allow such assets to be employed in smaller numbers, as a punitive measure, with little or no warning."

Russia maintains a formidable arsenal of more than 1,500 cruise and ballistic missiles, which can be launched from air, ground, and sea-based platforms, according to some local media estimates. However, Moscow has also been forced to rely on foreign shipments from other internationally isolated states like North Korea and Iran.

Conflict analysts and US officials have said Russia's strike campaign against Ukraine's energy facilities is intended to force Kyiv and the West into making policy decisions that favor Moscow.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has repeatedly pressed his Western military backers for more air defenses and munitions to help the country defend against Russian assaults. After the Christmas Day attack, President Joe Biden said the US has sent Kyiv hundreds of air-defense missiles in recent months, with more on the way.

"I have directed the Department of Defense to continue its surge of weapons deliveries to Ukraine, and the United States will continue to work tirelessly to strengthen Ukraine's position in its defense against Russian forces," Biden said last week.

Meanwhile, the US on Monday announced nearly $2.5 billion in new security assistance to Ukraine, including air-defense munitions like the National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems and other high-profile military aid.

• Ukraine is facing critical manpower challenges on the battlefield.
• An analyst recently back from Ukraine said Russia is trying to exploit this challenge by using small assault waves.
• "It's death by a thousand cuts. It's very stressful to units who are undermanned," she said.

Ukraine is facing increasingly serious manpower challenges all along the front lines, and Russia is relying on a brutal, albeit costly, tactic to stress Kyiv's defenses.

Dara Massicot, a senior fellow in the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Russia and Eurasia Program, recently returned from a research trip to Ukraine, where she met with different units that are all facing manpower shortages and other struggles.

"What the units are experiencing from the Russians is a significant amount of strain from Russian tactics," Massicot recounted from her trip on a podcast this month with the Center for Strategic and International Studies earlier.

She said that the Russians "are attacking [the Ukrainians] in very small groups all the time, day and night. It's death by a thousand cuts. It's very stressful to units who are undermanned."

Russia's small assault wave attacks, sometimes called human wave attacks or meat assaults, have been a problem for Ukraine throughout the conflict, but they have especially been a challenge for Kyiv as it faces critical manpower shortages.

To address this problem, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has lowered the mobilization age from 27 to 25, but the Biden administration has pushed Kyiv to lower it even more to expand the number of civilians who can fight. So far, Kyiv has been unwilling to do that.

Ukraine is not isolated in grappling with manpower challenges. Russia faces its own mobilization issues. They are much less urgent than Kyiv's, but Moscow is taking serious casualties on the battlefield, raising questions about troop sustainment and replacement down the road.

These human wave tactics come at a tremendously high cost. Conflict analysts at the Institute for the Study of War, a US think tank, said earlier this month that Russia's commitment to maintaining its theater-wide initiative in Ukraine is putting strains on its domestic labor pool.

The "constrained labor pool is likely unable to sustain this increased casualty rate in the medium-term," they wrote in a war update.

Russia experienced its highest number of casualties in any month of the war in November, averaging more than 1,500 soldiers killed and wounded every day, Britain's defense ministry said in an intelligence update earlier this month, citing Ukrainian military figures.

This made November the most costly month of the conflict for the Russian military, with nearly 46,000 total casualties, Britain's defense ministry said. It also marked the fifth straight month that Moscow saw an increase in its monthly losses. ISW said that the West needs to be boosting support to increase Russian losses, which are not sustainable.

"The high rate of casualties is likely reflective of the higher tempo of Russian operations and offensives," the British defense ministry said of the losses, adding that Moscow will likely continue to see over 1,000 soldiers killed and wounded every day as its forces push along the front lines.

Russia employs Soviet-style tactics in which any gained ground justifies the losses, no matter how heavy. It sends wave after wave of soldiers, offering undermanned and undersupplied Ukrainian units little rest or respite. Such tactics have been seen in Bakhmut, Avdiivka, and Pokrovsk, among other places.

The Russian leadership has signaled it is willing to suffer these losses in a grinding, attritional campaign that is just not to Ukraine's advantage, given that it is the smaller combatant with fewer resources to throw into this fight.

Massicot said that even though Russia is suffering its highest casualty rates of the Ukraine war right now, Moscow is still applying overwhelming pressure on the Ukrainian forces trying to hold the line against continuous Russian attacks, and these attacks are taking ground.

"The casualties are not causing a cessation of this tactic or these waves of attacks," she said.

Russia is trying to advance against Ukrainian defensive positions in several different directions of the front. One important area of focus is the city of Pokrovsk, a key logistics and rail hub that Moscow is closing in on.

Russia is also trying to push Ukrainian forces out of its own Kursk region, which Kyiv invaded in a stunning move in early August. Thousands of North Korean soldiers have been deployed to this area in recent weeks to help Moscow with its efforts, putting more stress on Ukrainian troops struggling to hold territory.

US and Ukrainian officials have confirmed that North Korean soldiers have engaged in combat alongside Russian forces in Kursk. They have also suffered losses in battle, in part because they don't have any recent experience with this kind of war.

• A US Navy warship accidentally shot down an American fighter jet over the Red Sea on Sunday.
• The crew members survived, but it marks the second friendly-fire incident of the Houthi conflict.
• These incidents highlight the complex operating environment in which NATO forces have engaged.

Though there are still a lot of unanswered questions, the accidental downing of a US Navy fighter jet by an American warship in the Red Sea over the weekend underscores the risks and complexity of intense combat in a high-tempo operating environment.

The shootdown marks the second known friendly-fire incident for American and allied forces this year as they continue to battle the Houthi rebels in Yemen. In February, a German warship mistakenly targeted an American military drone, but a malfunction spared the uncrewed aircraft from getting hit.

Early Sunday morning local time, the guided-missile cruiser USS Gettysburg mistakenly fired on an F/A-18 Super Hornet flying above the Red Sea, downing the carrier-based fighter in what the US military said was "an apparent case of friendly fire."

US Central Command said that two naval aviators ejected safely from the aircraft and were recovered by the Navy. It added that an initial assessment suggests one of the crew members sustained minor injuries. A two-seater F/A-18 typically has a pilot and weapons officer.

Centcom, which oversees US forces in the Middle East, said the incident "was not the result of hostile fire, and a full investigation is underway." It did not respond to Business Insider's requests for more information.

Friendly-fire engagements aren't uncommon occurrences in combat, especially high-intensity fights.

During the Gulf War, for instance, an A-10 Warthog killed nine British soldiers when the ground-attack aircraft opened fire on their armored personnel carriers, mistaking them for Iraqi vehicles. A few years later, F-15s shot down two Black Hawks on a humanitarian mission, killing 26 people. The pilots mistook the helicopters for Iraqi targets they thought were violating a "no fly" zone.

There are numerous examples across military conflicts, a more recent incident being a US airstrike in Afghanistan that killed five American servicemembers in 2014.

Bradley Martin, a retired Navy surface warfare captain, said friendly-fire incidents are "likely to eventually occur in the complicated and rapidly changing environment of air defense." There are a wide range of things that can go wrong.

"Friendly and enemy aircraft can be in the engagement areas. Identification systems can malfunction," Martin, now a senior policy researcher at the RAND Corporation, told BI. "Friendly aircraft profiles can look like threat profiles. And certainly, human error can enter into the equation. Operators may have minutes or even seconds to make a determination and, mistakes occur."

"I think it's important to remember that the Navy has been reacting to intense air attacks now for over a year, with more engagements in a month than we'd seen in decades," Martin said, referring to the Navy's tireless efforts to fend off Houthi missiles and drones.

"These have been largely successful, but with a large number of engagements comes the increased risk of mistakes and malfunctions," he said.

And mistakes have been made, though nothing fatal. In February, a German frigate accidentally targeted an American MQ-9 Reaper drone while it was on a mission in the vicinity of the Red Sea. The missiles never reached the drone, though, thanks to a technical error in the warship's radar system.

The German military said at the time, it engaged a drone that lacked a "friend or foe" identification and coordinated with allies in the area before opening fire. It's unclear where the disconnect occurred, but it almost ended in the destruction of an expensive combat and reconnaissance drone.

The F/A-18 Super Hornet that was shot down was part of the air wing attached to the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman. The Truman and its strike group, which consists of the Gettysburg and two destroyers, entered the Middle East region earlier this month, becoming the latest assortment of Navy warships to join the conflict against the Houthis.

The F/A-18 is a multi-role fighter jet made by US defense contractor Boeing that has been in service with the Navy for decades. A single aircraft is estimated to cost around $60 million.

The military's acknowledgment of the Red Sea friendly-fire incident came shortly after a combat bout between the US and the Houthis. Centcom said it carried out strikes against Houthi facilities in Yemen, and during the operation, its forces shot down multiple drones and a cruise missile.

It is unclear if the friendly-fire incident occurred during the operation, which took place at some point on Saturday local time. Centcom said that F/A-18s were involved in the mission.

The Houthis said that they launched eight cruise missiles and 17 drones during the battle with the US military. The rebels said this led to the downing of the F/A-18 and ultimately forced the Truman to withdraw to another part of the Red Sea.

The Houthis have spent the past year launching missiles and drones at military and civilian vessels operating in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. The rebels claim they are acting in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza and have stepped up their long-range attacks on Israel in recent days. US, British, and Israeli forces have carried out extensive strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen.