• Lockheed Martin's F-35 is widely recognized as a top fighter jet.
• However, the program has been troubled by cost and readiness concerns for years.
• The makers of this fifth-generation aircraft told BI their thoughts on how to address these.

Lockheed Martin's F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter is a combat-proven fifth-generation jet, but the supersonic stealth plane has consistently faced cost and readiness concerns.

Business Insider recently visited the factory where these advanced aircraft are produced and asked the makers about the challenges facing this program and potential changes that might help reduce sustainability costs and improve mission capability rates.

The lifetime F-35 program costs are now expected to top $2 trillion, and sustainability costs are rising. Yet the Government Accountability Office assessed last year that the F-35 isn't hitting mission-capable rates and hasn't for years. These are key criticisms the fighter has faced.

A Lockheed representative said that addressing these issues comes down to reliably investing in parts and maintenance. Edward Smith, the company's F-35 business development director, said that "to maintain a fleet at any given readiness level, you have to fully fund your supply system."

The Joint Program Office previously told BI that readiness tends to improve with a healthy supply of parts for maintenance.

Smith said that the F-35 has historically been underfunded in terms of the supply purchased for the aircraft and depot repair capacity, adding that it's important to get the supply of sustainment parts at a level that matches the jet's readiness needs.

"If the parts are available and on the shelf," he said, then "we can get to the readiness rates that are desired by all of our customers that are out there."

And for overall costs, he said that as more F-35s roll off the production line and the supply pool of parts grows, the aircraft will become increasingly cheaper to operate. Over the last decade, explained Smith, it has seen a 50% reduction in cost-per-flight-hour, in some cases making it as expensive to fly as fourth-generation jets being made today but delivering more capability.

Smith said that the average mission capability rates for the F-35, which is the percentage of time it can perform one mission, tend to be between the high 50s and high 60s.

This figures are higher on combat deployments; the US military averages an 80% mission capability rate for the F-35 on every combat deployment it's done, and for the Israelis, since the October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks, the number is almost 90%, he said.

"It exactly matches our funding level for parts. Traditionally, we've been funded at about 70% availability, and that's if nothing broke," Smith said. "If you don't fund supply, you cannot have the readiness," he added.

A combat-proven fifth-gen fighter

The F-35 is the US military's second fifth-generation fighter jet after the air-superiority F-22 Raptor. The jet comes in three variants designed for conventional runway and ship-based operations and is flown by the Air Force, Marine Corps, and Navy.

The US military has flown all three F-35 variants — the A, B, and C variants — in strike missions against terror groups in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Yemen.

The Israel Defense Forces were the first to fly the jet into battle. They operate their own version (the F-35I) and have flown it into combat, battling Syrian missile batteries, shooting down drones, and striking Iranian military sites.

The jets, however, were built for a higher level of warfare, which would demand the advantages offered by its all-aspect stealth, sensor suite, networked systems, and combat power, all capabilities required for combating next-gen aircraft and high-end surface-to-air threats.

The F-35 was developed and manufactured as part of a multinational partnership, and over 1,110 jets have been delivered. Many US allies operate the aircraft, with more countries looking to acquire this plane in the future. It's considered a cornerstone for US airpower.

Improving the program

The F-35 program relies on a shared contractor and government-based maintenance system. How contracts are issued may affect how readiness issues are fixed. To increase efficiency, "we need to drive to more performance-based sustainment contracts," Smith said.

He said sustainment for the F-35 is contracted on an annual basis. He called this process inefficient and "very costly," arguing that it doesn't allow the industry to plan and invest strategically because it's uncertain what the next annual contract could look like.

"There's definitely room to increase efficiency in how we contract for these systems and put the onus on industry to perform," he said.

"That's what we continue to strive for is those performance-based contracts that we not only get as a prime, but also with our suppliers," Smith said, noting this gives them "long-term certainty and forecasting so we can invest to improve the metrics for this airplane."

Performance-based contracting is centered on the results achieved from a specific program in terms of requirements rather than the cost or time needed to ultimately achieve them.

Michael Bohnert, a licensed engineer at the RAND Corporation, said that longer-term contracts tend to be more efficient than annual contracts for long-term acquisition because they provide the industry an opportunity to plan.

Performance-based contracts "can be an effective tool," he told BI, "but they require a deeper understanding of the systems to set adequate performance goals with accurate pricing."

The F-35 JPO, which leads the aircraft's life-cycle program management, acknowledged that annualized sustainment contracts are not ideal for reducing costs and improving readiness. However, it said bad performance contracts can arguably be worse.

"Key considerations for performance contracts include funding stability for sustainment, confidence in data for forecasting and cost modeling, and contract structures that balance risk between industry and government," a JPO spokesperson told BI.

"Performance contracts must align with warfighter needs, potentially requiring a mix of contracting strategies," the office said.

A Lockheed Martin spokesperson told BI that the company is committed to working with the JPO "on delivering mission-essential and effective sustainment support for the F-35 program now and in the future."

The spokesperson said pursuing a performance-based contracting strategy is a decision made by the Pentagon. "I would defer you to them for further comment. We support any model that can increase readiness and reduce cost for our customer," they said.

• Drones have changed the way that artillery units are fighting in Ukraine.
• They offer constant surveillance of the battlefield and can deliver devastating precision strikes.
• A US Army general says artillery will need to be more mobile and dispersed in future wars.

US Army gun crews are studying the war in Ukraine and how artillery battles are fought under the never-ending surveillance of drones, any one of which could be carrying a bomb.

A senior Army officer told Business Insider that mobility and dispersal will be key to survival in future fights.

"When we're under constant or near-constant observation, primarily from overhead, we must be more mobile," Brig. Gen. Rory Crooks, director of the long-range precision fires cross-functional team at Army Futures Command, told Business Insider.

"We must be more dispersed," he said, "and we must have a rate of fire that allows us to stop or emplace our artillery, fire sufficient munitions, and then displace well before the anticipated effects of counter-battery [fire] are able to come to bear."

Drones are everywhere in Russia's war against Ukraine. Both militaries are using them for reconnaissance and strike missions.

The presence of drones has complicated the work of artillery units, as uncrewed systems can be used directly to attack the firing position or indirectly to help guide counter-battery fire.

A National Defense Authorization Act of Fiscal Year 2025 report said that "observations from Ukraine reinforce the critical role of mobile cannon artillery." It said that "the extensive employment of unmanned aerial systems and near ubiquitous sensing only increase the risks."

Crooks said it's important for artillery forces to constantly be on the move. Anytime the gun crews are static, they are putting themselves at risk. With drones becoming more prolific, one could destroy a cannon or wipe out its crew.

Rate of fire and resupply, ensuring there's enough ammunition on tap to keep the guns blasting without interruption, are critical as well. Resupply must match the rate of fire, or it will create serious problems.

"We have to have the ability to quickly resupply in smaller capacities but continue to move and resupply at short halts," Crooks said, adding "that's going to be important for our survival moving forward."

The high-intensity artillery fire in the Ukraine war has underscored the need for sufficient ammunition stockpiles and the ability to deliver ammunition to front-line artillery crews. Elevated demand has driven the US and European countries to boost production of key shells to not only support Kyiv but also ensure they are prepared for future conflicts.

Researchers at the Royal United Services Institute, a London-based think tank, wrote in a report this month that the constant presence of drones above the battlefield has forced Ukraine and Russia to change how they employ artillery.

Hundreds of meters separate the guns, and firing positions are dug in with protection on all sides. Ammo and the resupply vehicles are kept concealed and away from the firing positions.

The heavy "guns tend to fire for a protracted period as the dug-in positions offer significant protection from counter-battery fire, the volume of which is itself reduced by the dispersion of guns," the report said. It added that the guns are periodically moved to avoid being knocked out by glide-bomb strikes.

Crooks said that the Ukraine conflict has also seen the introduction of ground-launched attack drones like loitering munitions being used to execute missions that have historically been almost exclusively done by artillery. But that doesn't necessarily mean that cannons are going anywhere.

The general said that "you absolutely need artillery to set the right conditions to exploit and perform maneuver warfare adequately in large-scale combat operations."

• The US Army has long known that it has artillery shortcomings that need to be addressed.
• As it readies for possible future large-scale combat operations, the Army is looking to plug these gaps.
• A general told BI the Army wants new cannons that will increase the range of fire.

Satellite images of eastern Ukraine show pockmarked battlefields left scarred by relentless artillery fire. The craters are a constant reminder that these deadly cannons still play a crucial role in modern warfare.

The US Army is watching this conflict closely as it prepares for potential large-scale combat operations overseas. The importance of artillery isn't new to it, though.

The military knows the value of being able to lob a shell or rocket down range, but it also knows it needs to step up its game. Russia and China are both stepping up theirs.

A general looking into this matter said that there are three areas where Army artillery faces serious capability gaps. He added that the hunt for artillery solutions to bridge these shortcomings is already underway.

"We saw some capability gaps against adversaries in two different theaters as we projected forward into 2030 - 2035," Brig. Gen. Rory Crooks, director of the Army Futures Command long-range precision fires cross-functional team, told Business Insider in a recent interview.

The first deficit is range. Army artillery doesn't have the necessary reach compared to US adversaries. "You provide enemy sanctuary, in some cases, when the enemy has a range overmatch," Crooks explained.

Then there is capacity. The US doesn't have enough artillery systems to match the enemy. Simply put, he said, "we're out-gunned."

And lastly, there are survivability concerns. Although some US rivals are divesting of their towed artillery systems, the US Army isn't.

Typically, when soldiers fire their artillery cannons at enemy positions, they want to disperse immediately before the anticipated counter-battery fire — a tactic known as shoot-and-scoot. Towed artillery pieces like the M777 are slower and more difficult to relocate quickly compared to the self-propelled systems, which are mounted on tracked vehicles. That diminishes survivability.

"Those three problems — range, capacity, and survivability based on mobility — are really hard to overcome individually," Crooks said, adding that "collectively, they're very hard to overcome and put us at risk for mission success moving forward."

In recent years, the Army has sought to extend the reach of its guns. One such effort, the Strategic Long Range Cannon, was intended to fire projectiles some 1,000 nautical miles away, but Congress halted funding for the research in 2022.

Another Army initiative, the 58-caliber Extended Range Cannon Artillery, or ERCA, began in 2018 with the aim of extending the range of artillery fire from 18 to 43 miles.

The weapon — a 30-foot gun tube mounted on the chassis of an M109 Paladin self-propelled howitzer — concluded the prototyping stage but did not end up moving into production due to problems observed during live-fire testing. The Army canceled the ERCA program last year, shifting focus to the new Self-Propelled Howitzer Modernization effort.

A Congressional Research Service report published in early February said a study of new conventional fires concluded last year found the Army should focus its efforts on "more autonomous artillery systems with greater range and improved mobility."

It also noted the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2025 report that said even though the Army canceled the ERCA program, starting again on its hunt for artillery solutions, "a recently conducted tactical fires study validated the capability gap that the ERCA sought to fill. Observations from Ukraine reinforce the critical role of mobile cannon artillery."

Moving forward, Crooks said that the Army is going to take the success it had with the ammunition work for ERCA and partner that with guns available on the market. He said the service is already looking into allied and partner capabilities.

The Army is specifically eyeing self-propelled howitzers with 52-caliber gun tubes. It is a middle ground between the larger 58-caliber ERCA and the smaller 39-caliber M777 towed howitzer.

"The work that we're doing with introducing, potentially, modernized platforms that are 52-caliber in length, along with the ammunition work that we did that started with ERCA, we think we'll be able to address the requirement that we needed from the ERCA platform and prototyping effort," Crooks said.

Last fall, the Army announced that it had awarded contracts to five vendors for the Self-Propelled Howitzer Modernization effort. The $4 million contracts went to American Rheinmetall Vehicles, BAE BOFORS, Hanwha Defense USA, General Dynamics Land Systems, and Elbit Systems USA.

The next step is getting prototype artillery systems out to Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona, where the systems will be put through a series of firing tests. The service could make a decision on its new cannon as early as next year.

But finding a suitable and available 52-caliber gun is just one piece of the puzzle as the Army looks to overcome its range, capacity, and survivability deficits, Crooks said.

The Army also needs to continue the ammunition innovation that was started under the ERCA program, such as the XM1155 sub-caliber projectile developed for the ERCA's 155 mm XM907E2 58-caliber cannon, and scale up its one-way attack drones so these explosive-packed weapons can be used in lieu of traditional artillery rounds.

Artillery is just one element of combined-arms warfare, but as Army leaders continue to closely watch Russia's invasion of Ukraine, it is clear that strong cannons will be needed to achieve success in future large-scale combat operations.

"I think what we're seeing is when you don't have adequate artillery to achieve local fire superiority, then that battle devolves quickly to attritional warfare — static warfare," Crooks said. And that's not the kind of war the US military was built to fight.

• Lockheed Martin's F-35 Lightning II is one of the world's most advanced fighter jets.
• Business Insider toured a facility where the stealth jet is made.
• The production line in Fort Worth, Texas, is cranking out over 150 aircraft a year.

In a sprawling factory in Texas, thousands of people are working around the clock to assemble the US military's most advanced multi-role fighter jet: the F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter.

The facility, operated by defense giant Lockheed Martin, stretches more than a mile and cranks out over 150 aircraft a year. It's enormous, with people riding golf carts or bikes to travel from one end to the other.

Business Insider recently toured the factory, officially called Air Force Plant 4. An overhead view of the production line, looking from right to left, reveals the tremendous scale of the operation. F-35s can be seen going from just the bare bones — chunks of metal largely unrecognizable to the untrained eye — to a jet that's nearly in its final form: a single-engine, supersonic stealth fighter jet made to dominate a range of combat operations.

The F-35 is the world's most expensive weapons program, with an expected lifetime cost of more than $2 trillion. Elon Musk and others have sharply criticized the aircraft amid rising program costs, sustainability challenges, and developmental setbacks. However, it is constantly being upgraded and is widely recognized as a top fifth-generation fighter.

Lockheed says that production of the jet contributes roughly $72 billion annually to the US economy through its network of suppliers and hundreds of thousands of workers spread across the country.

It takes about a year and a half to build a new F-35

Air Force Plant 4 has been making warplanes for decades. It began producing bomber aircraft during World War II before transitioning to the now-retired F-111 Aardvark in the 1960s. Several years later, it started building F-16s.

The first F-35 Joint Strike Fighter rolled off the factory floor in 2006, and since then, more than 1,110 of these fighter jets have been delivered to the US and its allies.

After significant delays, the F-35 program last year achieved full-rate production.

A single F-35 takes around 18 months to build, and this production facility can turn out 156 fighters annually from across all three variants — the A, B, and C variants are designed for conventional and ship-based take-off and landing. It is a 24-hour-a-day operation, with thousands of workers moving in and out of the plant on any given day, surrounded by heavy machinery.

Building the fighter jet starts with the assembly of its wing section. Constructing the airframe then moves down the production line to an area where the four major structure pieces of the jet — the tail section, wings, center fuselage, and forward fuselage — are brought together.

Maintaining a steady parts supply is a big challenge

This is where the aircraft really starts to take its highly recognizable shape. Small screens next to the aircraft show which country it's being made for: a stroll down the production line reveals the US, UK, Poland, Israel, and Japan, to name a few.

Parts for the F-35 — of which there are thousands — come from all over the world because the jet is a multinational project. One of the biggest challenges with building the fighter, BI learned, is ensuring that an adequate supply of parts is flowing to the Fort Worth production site.

When the fighters reach the end of the production line, they are ready to be painted their signature gray color. The paint, according to the company, is designed to reduce and absorb radar signals, which contributes to the aircraft's stealth profile.

The painting process happens in a separate building equipped with hangers that can close off during the coloring process. Some automation is involved in the construction of an F-35 jet, including when building its wing structure and during the painting stage.

Every aircraft is then flown several times as part of testing before it is ready to be sold.

The largest F-35 final assembly facility is in Fort Worth, but there is one smaller plant in Italy and another in Japan. These sites underline the global nature of the operation, as planes are shipped off to militaries in North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia.

The F-35 has been used in combat since its first flight nearly 20 years ago. The US military has flown all three variants in strike missions against terror groups in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Yemen. The jet also received significant praise after Israel used it to carry out widespread airstrikes in Iran last fall.

• Business Insider recently sat down with a test pilot for the F-35 stealth fighter jet.
• She explained what it was like to jump from flying the older F-16 to the fifth-generation aircraft.
• The biggest transition in the F-35 was the amount of information presented to the pilot.

A test pilot who made the jump from the now fifty-year-old F-16 to the new F-35 stealth fighter told Business Insider that it is a wildly different experience.

Think about the informational overload you would get from swapping out a decades-old pickup truck for a modern Tesla. There's a lot of extra information pilots get from the F-35, which is equipped with a suite of new technologies compared to legacy aircraft.

Monessa Balzhiser, call sign "Siren," is a pilot who has had the opportunity to move over to the new jet, working as an F-35 test pilot at Lockheed Martin's production facility in Forth Worth, Texas, following years flying the F-16 for the US Air Force.

The F-16 Fighting Falcon, a Lockheed Martin airframe originally manufactured by General Dynamics, is a single-engine, multi-role aircraft that took its first flight over 50 years ago. The fourth-generation fighter jet was developed for the US Air Force but is now in service with more than two dozen militaries around the world, including — as of last year — the Ukrainian armed forces.

The F-16 was revolutionary from an aircraft design philosophy perspective, with fly-by-wire controls for improved air-to-air combat capabilities. But in the age of stealth aircraft and higher-end surface-to-air threats, the F-16, even with the upgrades the fighter has gotten over the years to ensure it still packs a punch, is losing its once formidable edge.

The much-newer F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter is a supersonic stealth aircraft that took its first flight nearly 20 years ago. The platform has evolved tremendously over the years.

The aircraft has faced criticism amid developmental setbacks, sustainability challenges, and rising costs (the expected lifetime cost of the program is now over $2 trillion), but the jet is constantly being upgraded and reworked for improved capability. Right now, no adversary capability compares, but new jets are coming out in rival nations. China, for instance, unveiled a number of new aircraft designs late last year, including what some suspect was a sixth-gen fighter prototype.

"The F-35 — we're continuing to develop it," Siren said.

"You're going to see threats — adversaries — evolving," so the priority is maintaining the advantage "to ensure we can come home safe," she added.

The F-35 is the second fifth-generation fighter jet operated by the US after the F-22 Raptor and comes in three variants flown by the Air Force, Marines, and Navy. Developed and produced as part of a multinational partnership, the jet is operated by many American allies, with more looking to do so in the future.

Siren flew the F-16 in the Air Force for 13 years, a tenure that included several combat tours. At Lockheed Martin, she works as the chief production pilot for the F-35.

Test pilots are the first people to actually fly the F-35 off the factory floor. The fighter will get airborne several times — the first two or three flights are with the company — before the US government goes through all its checks to make sure the jet is all good and ready to be sold.

For Siren, the biggest difference when she made the transition from the F-16 to the new F-35 was the sheer amount of information being presented to the pilot.

Siren said that in the F-16, "we had some of that information, but it was all shown on multiple different displays or formats."

In the past, the pilot had to calculate how to use certain tactics or interpret the presented battlespace in their heads, but the F-35 does all of that for the pilot, allowing them to focus their efforts more on the bigger mission picture. Another F-35 test pilot previously told BI that it can be difficult to get good at managing all the information, comparing the jet to a sophisticated video game.

Siren said the biggest surprise of the F-35 was its flight controls in low-speed scenarios. The fifth-generation fighter jet is equipped with a better sensor suite, situational awareness, and data fusion capabilities than the F-16. Those advanced capabilities allow it to perform as more than a fighter jet.

The advantage of the F-16 has always been in its speed and turn rate, she told BI. "However, all the flight controls and the computer that runs the flight controls on the F-35 allows me to intercept — on the same mission — a slow, low Cessna going 80 knots to a high, fast flyer going Mach 1.2," which is over 900 mph.

That helpful ability and "the high angle of attack that the F-35 can perform was what caught me off guard coming from the F-16," she said.

• Ukraine's defense industry is boosting the production of fiber-optic drones.
• These drones are a major threat in combat because they're immune to electronic warfare defenses.
• Ukrainian drone makers say there was initial skepticism of this tech, but now it's in high demand.

Ukraine's expanding defense industry is now ramping up production of new fiber-optic drones that can be converted into unjammable flying bombs. They can evade electronic shields and deliver precision strikes.

These drones have emerged as a solution to electronic warfare, which Ukraine and Russia use to render enemy weapons ineffective. Electronic systems interference is a major element of the high-stakes technology race driving combat innovation.

Business Insider spoke with several people directly involved in Ukrainian efforts to scale up the fiber-optic drone production. Some said there was skepticism at first about how the tech would perform in practice, but these weapons are now in high demand. They're seen as an essential part of a rapidly evolving battlefield.

Fiber-optic drones are first-person-view drones that can carry a small explosive payload, but instead of relying on a radio frequency connection that's vulnerable to electronic signal jamming, these drones are equipped with spools of long, thin cables that offer them a stable connection over a range of several miles.

The fiber-optic cables maintain a reliable link between the drone and the operator, making them quite dangerous because they're resistant to traditional electronic warfare practices. They're difficult to defend against and provide high-quality video transmissions.

Russia introduced fiber-optic drones on the battlefield last year, and the technology became more prominent by the fall. The possibilities were clear, and it wasn't long before the Ukrainians started operating the drones in combat.

Ukrainian developers first started working on fiber-optic drone tech in 2023, Nataliia Kushnerska, a senior executive in Ukraine's defense industry, told BI.

"That year saw the creation of the first prototypes and initial testing conducted by the manufacturers themselves," said Kushnerska, the chief operating officer of Brave1, a Ukrainian government operation that facilitates innovation within the defense industry.

"Today, Ukrainian producers have already transitioned to serial production of these systems," she said.

Brave1 works with fiber-optic drone manufacturers, giving them support such as providing testing sites and organizing demonstrations. It also connects Ukrainian security and military forces with companies so they can place orders.

Kushnerska said dozens of teams across the country were working on fiber-optic drones now, and the number was only growing. She said some of the companies could produce thousands of these drones each month.

An essential part of a changing battlefield

Max, the CEO of the Kyiv-based company BattleBorn, which develops and makes fiber-optic drones, told BI he first heard about these drones this past spring but was skeptical about the tech because he didn't think it would be practical in combat.

Many of the Ukrainian industry figures BI spoke with requested anonymity because of the security situation in their country. BI verified their roles in the industry.

Volodymyr, cofounder of a Ukrainian drone-making company called Fold, said the military and the industry were suspicious of the fiber-optic drone technology. "At first, no one believed in this idea," he said in translated remarks shared with BI.

The big concerns were that environmental obstacles such as trees or buildings would cut the fiber-optic cables and that drones would be able to operate only along straight roads.

But as time went on, drone manufacturers began to realize the addition of fiber-optic cables would be a suitable modification to their drones, Volodymyr said. By mid-2024, it was clear they were a necessary addition to the modern battlefield.

"As it turned out, they were much more practical than expected," Max shared. Companies such as BattleBorn and Fold are turning up production and trying to improve their operations — and they aren't alone.

Oleksii, a representative of Warbirds of Ukraine, a Kyiv-based company, told BI it took a while for fiber-optic drones to become popular because there wasn't enough demand. Manufacturing and scaling up production also presented technical challenges.

But as electronic warfare tactics increasingly interfered with typical communication channels, a need for some sort of solution became apparent. Warbirds of Ukraine started developing fiber-optic drones in the fall, and now it can produce 700 systems a month.

Fiber-optic drones aren't without their hassles, though. Producing the thin cables is a complicated and technical process, and they're fragile, making them physically vulnerable to damage in a warfighting environment.

Manufacturers also have to leave room on their drones for the spools that carry the fiber-optic cables, reducing their explosive payload. Additionally, the drones are slower and less maneuverable than those that use radio communication.

But these weapons have the potential to be game changers.

Oleksii said that the fiber-optic drones "are essential because they remain operational in electronic warfare environments" and that "when used with the right technology, they can significantly improve the accuracy of strikes."

"This is one of the evolutionary steps in developing new approaches to counter electronic warfare systems," he added.

Fiber-optic drones are just one new area of focus for Ukraine's booming defense industry. The country is also producing homemade artillery, missiles, and other weapons to meet front-line demands.

• A US Navy aircraft carrier collided with a merchant vessel Wednesday off the coast of Egypt.
• The impact did not endanger the USS Harry S. Truman, a Navy official said Thursday.
• The Truman was fresh off several weeks of combat operations against the Houthis in the Red Sea.

A US Navy aircraft carrier collided with a large merchant vessel Wednesday night in the Mediterranean Sea.

The Nimitz-class carrier USS Harry S. Truman was "involved in a collision" with the merchant vessel Besiktas-M at about 11:46 p.m. local time while operating near Egypt's Port Said, a Navy spokesperson said Thursday.

Cmdr. Timothy Gorman, a spokesperson for the US 6th Fleet, which oversees Navy operations in the Mediterranean, said the impact did not endanger the Truman.

"There are no reports of flooding or injuries," Gorman said in a statement. "The propulsion plants are unaffected and in a safe and stable condition. The incident is under investigation. More information will be released as it becomes available."

The Truman was until recently operating in the Red Sea, where it was deployed as part of the US Navy's efforts to defend key shipping lanes from attacks by Yemeni Houthi rebels.

The Truman strike group, which consists of the aircraft carrier and several other warships, sailed into the Middle East region in December. After several weeks of combat operations, the carrier and its escorts departed the Red Sea and made a port call in the Mediterranean earlier this month.

Port Said, where Wednesday's collision occurred, is at the mouth of the Suez Canal, which leads to the Red Sea. It's unclear whether the Truman was heading back to the Middle East when the incident took place.

According to publicly available shipping data, Besiktas-M is a nearly 200-meter-long Panama-flagged bulk carrier. On Thursday evening local time, the vessel was spotted in the vicinity of Port Said.

Collisions involving Navy vessels are rare, especially for aircraft carriers, but they do happen. There have been several crashes in recent years, including two involving destroyers and merchant ships in 2017 that killed members of the warship crews.

The last notable collision involving a US aircraft carrier was in 2004, when the then-USS John F. Kennedy collided with and sunk a fishing boat. The incident led to the Kennedy's skipper being relieved of command.

• North Korean soldiers are back on the front lines in Russia, Ukraine said on Friday.
• The North Koreans had been missing from combat operations for several weeks.
• Western intelligence said they were pulled back after suffering heavy losses.

North Korean soldiers are back on the front lines in Russia after disappearing from battle for several weeks, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Friday.

"In the areas of the Kursk operation, new assaults have taken place — Russia has once again deployed North Korean soldiers alongside its troops," Zelenskyy revealed in an address to the nation.

"A significant number of occupiers have been destroyed — hundreds of Russian and North Korean soldiers. This is crucial because battles on Russian territory prevent further escalation against our cities and land," he added.

North Korean soldiers had been missing from combat operations in Russia's Kursk region for several weeks, fueling speculation that they were pulled back after taking heavy losses. Western intelligence has said thousands of Pyongyang's troops have been killed and wounded on the battlefield.

Ukraine's new assessment came just hours after Britain's defense ministry said North Korean units deployed to combat operations in Kursk had temporarily withdrawn from front-line positions, "likely to rest and refit before redeploying."

"This is almost certainly primarily due to heavy losses sustained during attacks against Ukrainian-held positions," the defense ministry wrote in an intelligence update earlier on Friday.

Business Insider contacted the Russian Embassy in Washington, DC, and the Ministry of Defense for comment on Kyiv's assessment that the North Koreans are fighting again but did not immediately receive a response.

Ukrainian forces launched a surprise invasion into Kursk in August. Later in the fall, about 11,000 North Korean soldiers deployed to the region to help Russia recapture the hundreds of square miles of land that it had lost to Kyiv.

The Pentagon has described the North Koreans as well-disciplined, competent, and capable soldiers, although they are still new to the challenges of modern warfare, having not experienced major combat in decades.

However, their fighting style appears to be quite brutal in nature. The Biden administration said the North Koreans were using ineffective human wave tactics and sent on "hopeless assaults" against Ukraine's defenses.

One Ukrainian commander who fought against the North Koreans told BI they were basically being used as "cannon fodder." He said in combat, the soldiers would just charge forward from tree lines like they were "in a World War II movie."

The UK said last month that around 4,000 North Korean troops were estimated to have been killed or wounded fighting for Russia, adding that the high rate of losses in such a short period of time negatively impacted combat operations in Kursk. Conflict analysts warned that this trend was unsustainable for Pyongyang.

Russia and North Korea have strengthened their defense ties during the Ukraine war. Pyongyang has provided Moscow with missiles and artillery, in addition to soldiers.

• Ukrainian companies are increasing the production of fiber-optic drones.
• The drones can't be jammed with traditional electronic warfare, making them a huge threat in combat.
• BI spoke with several people involved in the effort to scale up production to keep pace with Russia.

Drones radically changed the Ukraine war. Soldiers then learned to fight back with electronic warfare. It's been a cat-and-mouse game since, and now, the fight is evolving once again.

This time, a new breed of drones is the catalyst.

George, an Eastern European drone pilot with Ukraine's International Legion, vividly recalls the first time he deployed one of these drones.

It was last fall, and he had just received intelligence that five Russians were positioned in a cellar in the village of Hlyboke, an area where intense Russian jamming had made it almost impossible for Ukrainian forces to fly their drones.

He flew his drone and its three-and-a-half-pound explosive payload through Russia's electronic shield. It slipped past the frequency jammers and into a hole in the target structure. Smoke engulfed the enemy position as a recon drone watched the scene from above.

His team cheered as they observed the strike on a screen from miles away. George had just live-tested a fiber-optic drone that could bypass electronic warfare, and the implications were huge.

"That first time I used the fiber optic, I never wanted to go back to the regular. It just cannot compare," George, an Eastern European drone pilot with the International Legion, told Business Insider. For security reasons, he and several other sources asked to be identified only by their first names. BI verified their identities.

Russians first brought fiber-optic drones to the war this past spring, and since then, Ukraine has been racing to develop and produce them at scale. The weapons became more prominent in the fall, especially in Russia's Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces launched a shock invasion in early August.

BI spoke to executives at several Ukrainian companies producing fiber-optic drone supplies. Some said they're starting to close the gap with Russia, which had a head start.

"Whichever side adapts quicker and learns and transforms its capabilities, that side becomes dominant," George said. "Well, the Russians have been dominant. It's clear. No one can say otherwise."

Ukraine's booming drone market

Troy Smothers, a US Marine veteran who runs the firm Drone Reaper, said his phone immediately lit up with calls from Ukrainian units after the footage of the strike in Hlyboke was posted online (there was some delay between the strike and the video post). Pilots who saw the demo wanted in on the tech, a simple fiber-optic kit. In Ukraine, many individual combat units procure their own parts for drone projects.

"Ukrainian developers are actively ramping up the production of fiber-optic drones," Nataliia Kushnerska, a senior executive in Ukraine's defense industry, told BI. "There is a strong demand for this from the Ukrainian military, addressing a real need on the front lines where electronic warfare tools are increasingly disrupting drone operators' activities."

Fiber-optic drones are regular first-person-view drones that can carry a small explosive payload. Instead of relying on a radio frequency signal connection, which can be jammed, they're equipped with spools of long, thin cables to ensure a stable link between the drone and its operator.

Because of the fiber-optic cables, these drones are highly resistant to traditional electronic warfare systems like frequency jammers, making them dangerous and difficult to defend against. They produce high-quality video transmissions without bandwidth issues, allowing the operator to guide them for pinpoint strikes on enemy troops or vehicles.

"There is almost no defense against these drones," Max, the CEO of the Kyiv-based company BattleBorn, which develops and makes a range of drones, told BI. "They hit expensive equipment very often and efficiently."

BattleBorn is one of many Ukrainian companies producing fiber-optic drones. Alex, the COO, told BI that his drones have a range of up to 6.2 miles — he expects this will soon increase to 9.3 miles — and can carry anywhere from 3 to 17.6 pounds of explosives, depending on the size of the drone.

There is a trade-off to relying on fiber-optic cable connections, though. Manufacturers have to make space on the drones for their spools, thus reducing the payload these platforms can carry. Alex said producing the coil — which is quite fragile and can be vulnerable to damage — is also a complicated technical process.

Kushnerska, the chief operating officer of Brave1, a Ukrainian government platform that facilitates innovation within the country's defense industry, said dozens of teams across the country are working on fiber-optic drones.

Some teams make their own spools domestically, while others source their hardware from overseas, mainly China. Kushnerska said that Ukrainian companies can produce thousands of fiber-optic drones a month, and the number of participating firms is only growing.

Krab Technologies, a company based in Kharkiv, custom-designed a spool kit that crams roughly 10 kilometers of fiber-optic cable onto a drone while only increasing its weight by less than 2.2 pounds. The company's owner, Vlad, said his firm uses a Chinese-produced 0.25mm fiber-optic cable — about as thick as a coarse strand of human hair. That's about half as thin as the fiber optics that he said Russia's forces use.

"We're getting a big quantity of orders from military units," Vlad said. "We have more than 15,000 spools ordered."

Vlad's fiber-optic drones cost about $350 at their cheapest. His most expensive offering is a 13-inch drone that can carry a seven-pound explosive payload and has a range of roughly 12.5 miles. That one costs $900. Regular hobby-style first-person view drones, which rely on signal connections, cost just a fraction of that price. But Ukraine will likely have little to no alternative as radio frequency jammers become more prolific on the battlefield.

"The moment you reach the zero line, you're jammed," said George, referring to the moment one crosses out of Ukrainian-held territory.

By his estimates, a typical day of fighting would see 70% of the regular first-person view drones fail to reach their targets. For pilots like him, operating on the field has become a slog of sending drone after drone at his target, hoping one will get through.

"It's not just about the video signal," he said. "It's incredibly hard to get through the signal disruptions because you can't control your drone anymore. You feel like it's being controlled by someone else."

Vlad of Krab Technologies said that a common strategy in Ukraine is to use the more expensive fiber-optic drones to target the jammers first, then send in the regular loitering munitions to do the rest of the work.

'This must be the priority'

Fiber-optic drones aren't perfect — the cable can snap or get hung up on obstacles — but they offer options to punch holes in the formidable electronic warfare shields hindering front-line drone operations, especially as AI-driven autonomous systems still haven't come online.

They can target advancing forces shielded by mobile electronic warfare, increasing the already high costs of enemy advances, as well as protected fixed positions.

After observing Moscow's forces using fiber-optic drones this past Spring, Smothers, the US Marine veteran, and several friends reverse-engineered their own spool from photos of a downed Russian model discovered by Ukrainians in March 2024. Once they had a design, Smothers said, he then toured Ukraine with about 50 fiber-optic kits for four-and-a-half months, pitching the tech to drone units.

A big part of wartime innovation, he said, is demonstrating that the tech works in battle.

"You take a guy like myself who doesn't have a drone background or even an electronic background, if I can deploy it, that means the average military member can use that design and be effective with it," he said. Smothers worked in the real-estate industry back home and was an infantry sergeant in the Marines.

He returned to the US in the winter to procure 30- and 50-kilometer fiber-optic spools from an American defense firm. Since early January, he's been offering them to Ukrainian units.

Ukrainian officials are pushing the defense industry to make more drones. In mid-January, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that 2025 "must be a record-breaking year" for drone production output. Kyiv has raised its annual manufacturing capacity to 4 million units, a significant increase from previous years.

Meanwhile, the Ukrainian defense ministry recently announced that it will provide combat units with $60 million monthly to procure drones to quickly meet front-line needs. This initiative allows soldiers to sidestep slower, centralized purchasing.

Since his fiber-optic strike in Hlyboke this past fall, George said he'd flown a few more wired drones in combat over Kharkiv. But he stressed that his unit still has too few of these platforms. Russian troops, on the other hand, have been hunting his comrades with fiber-optic drones for over a year.

"In probably a year or two, there will be something else coming up, something new," George said, "but right now, this must be the priority because this can actually do the work."

• US destroyers operating in the Red Sea last year defeated Houthi drones without firing a shot.
• The warships used "non-kinetic" capabilities to defeat the threat, per documents reviewed by BI.
• The Navy said the incidents demonstrated a new way for its warships to battle enemy threats.

US Navy destroyers fended off Houthi drones in the Red Sea last year without firing a shot, demonstrating alternative ways for warships to battle these threats.

Documents obtained by Business Insider detail multiple incidents throughout the Navy's counter-Houthi mission in which US destroyers used "non-kinetic" capabilities, engagement methods not dependent on munitions and physical destruction, to defeat the hostile drones launched by the Iran-backed Yemeni rebels.

Between November 27, 2023, and March 9, 2024, sailors aboard the USS Mason "successfully executed the engagements" of a drone using undefined "non-kinetic effects" to intercept the uncrewed system. These actions prevented damage to Navy and coalition warships and commercial vessels, one of the documents said.

And on February 19, 2024, sailors aboard USS Gravely used an unspecified "Non-Kinetic Weapon system" in multiple successful non-kinetic engagements against drones in combat, according to another document.

It said that these non-kinetic engagements are "not only proving non-kinetic weapon systems work underway, but changing the way the Surface Navy fights wars at sea."

The document said that these engagements trained the rest of the Navy on how to use non-kinetic weapon systems successfully — which other US warships went on to do. The Mason and Gravely spent months deployed to the Middle East last year as part of the US military's counter-Houthi mission.

Navy officials declined to comment on the non-kinetic capabilities of US warships, but destroyers have several ways to defeat enemy drones without firing a shot. A kinetic means of interception would be something like launching a surface-to-air missile at the drone, hitting it with the ship's close-in weapons system, or blasting it out of the sky with rounds from a five-inch deck gun.

Bryan Clark, a former Navy officer and defense analyst at the Hudson Institute, explained to BI that US destroyers are equipped with the AN/SLQ-32 electronic warfare suite, commonly referred to as Slick-32.

The SLQ-32 is a destroyer's electronic ears, capable of detecting the transmissions of a foreign jet or identifying the seeker on an incoming missile. Through its electronic attack systems, the SLQ-32 can also blast electronic noise at frequencies used by a missile guidance system to confuse it.

A warship's electronic warfare systems also include the Ship's Signal Exploitation Equipment (SSEE) system, an information warfare/electronic warfare and tactical cryptologic signals intelligence system. This system has documented electronic warfare non-kinetic capabilities.

The documents BI obtained showed that the sailors from the Mason and Gravely who received combat awards for their roles in defeating the Houthi drones during the non-kinetic engagements worked with the SSEE.

Electronic detection and jamming have long been part of the Navy's doctrine, but US warships had never faced as intense a drone threat as the one brought on by the Houthis. American forces have eliminated nearly 500 drones launched by the rebels since they first started their attacks against ships in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden in October 2023.

"This is really the first time we've seen airborne drones used in anti-ship attacks against US and allied navies," Clark said.

Proving the effectiveness of non-kinetic capabilities is significant for the Navy. Not only are these solutions much cheaper than taking out drones with surface-to-air missiles, but they also spare a ship from depleting its magazine, requiring it to leave the battlespace to rearm. This is critical to sustaining warships during a high-tempo operating environment like the Houthi conflict.

Clark said that these non-kinetic engagements underscore how the Navy has developed a better sense of how to match a warship's defensive systems with threats that it's facing — one of many lessons the sea service is taking away from the Houthi conflict.

• US Navy fighter jets have fought Houthi drones in a high-tempo operating environment over the Red Sea.
• A first-of-its-kind battle in early 2024 highlighted another air-defense option for the Navy.
• The Navy eventually added more air-to-air missiles to its F/A-18 fighter jets.

US Navy fighter jets fought a first-of-its-kind air battle against enemy drones over the Red Sea early last year, Business Insider has learned. Then, months later, American jets were seen flying with a new missile loadout.

The fight was the first successful naval engagement of an enemy drone with an air-to-air missile. It showed what was possible, setting the stage for the Navy to give its F/A-18s a greater air-defense role with a new heavy air-to-air "Murder Hornet" configuration.

Unit award documents obtained by BI show that on January 9, 2024, units from the Dwight D. Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group were patrolling Red Sea shipping lanes when Houthi rebels launched a large-scale attack with drones and anti-ship cruise and ballistic missiles.

Two Navy destroyers — USS Gravely and USS Mason — engaged five of the drones, while a third destroyer, USS Laboon, engaged two anti-ship cruise missiles and an anti-ship ballistic missile.

Meanwhile, aircraft launched from the aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower — the lead ship in the strike group — to help confront the threat. The aircraft from Carrier Air Wing- 3 engaged five drones, marking the first successful naval engagement of a hostile drone with an air-to-air missile, one of the documents said.

The document said that "following the successful engagement" of the drone, the conventional loadout on the F/A-18 fighter jet was changed to support drone defense with more cost-effective weapons "while saving higher-end ordnance for more significant threats."

"Higher-end ordnance" appears to reference surface-to-air missiles launched from American warships.

These weapons can intercept drones, but they are significantly more expensive than missiles launched from a fighter jet. Ship-based interceptors such as the Standard Missile-series interceptors are better suited, from a cost perspective, to taking down enemy ballistic and cruise missiles rather than cheaper drones.

A Navy official told BI that the F/A-18 loadout was changed because of a range of lessons the sea service learned during the Houthi conflict. They said the fighter jets were eventually given more air-to-air munitions. Specifically, they were armed with a new configuration of four AIM-9X and five AIM-120 missiles.

Senior Navy officials have previously said that the new munitions configuration offered greater, much-needed firepower for the counter-drone fight in the Red Sea.

The AIM-9X is the newest model in the Sidewinder family of short-range missiles. The AIM-120 AMRAAM (Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile) is a beyond-visual-range weapon. Both munitions are made by American defense contractor RTX Corporation.

The office of the Chief of Naval Operations later identified a Boeing-made F/A-18 with a nine-missile configuration as a "Murder Hornet," a play on the fighter jet's actual name, the Super Hornet.

The CNO's office confirmed the new loadout was used in combat last year. It was first spotted on an F/A-18 during flight operations on the Eisenhower in the Red Sea in April 2024, as the Ike and the other ships in its strike group were deployed to the Middle East to confront the Houthis and their attacks on shipping lanes.

The conflict with the Houthis has been described as a complex, high-tempo operating environment, especially during Eisenhower's deployment. The January 2024 incident demonstrated what the F/A-18 could do against enemy drones, as these aircraft went on to destroy more during the deployment.

US forces have intercepted nearly 500 Houthi drones since the conflict began in October 2023. In March 2024, F/A-18 Super Hornets were spotted sporting drone and missile kill markings.

The Eisenhower carrier strike group fired nearly 800 munitions, including almost 60 air-to-air missiles, during its monthslong Middle East deployment, which ended last summer. Documents reviewed by BI showed that the strike group as a whole was recommended for a Combat Action Ribbon for its actions between October 2023 and May 2024.

• A US Navy pilot skirted disaster, saving himself and his fighter jet from crashing into the sea.
• Documents obtained by BI reveal his quick reaction to a "catastrophic" failure on his carrier.
• The F/A-18 Super Hornet pilot narrowly avoided hitting the water by just 16 feet.

A US Navy pilot's quick reaction saved himself and his aircraft from a crash in the Indian Ocean after a "catastrophic failure" occurred aboard his aircraft carrier during landing, documents show.

The Super Hornet pilot was barreling back onto the deck when he sensed something was drastically wrong. A wire had snapped, and his plane was rolling off the deck. His jet fell to as low as 16 feet above the water before he pulled up on maximum afterburner.

Documents obtained by Business Insider on the previously unreported November 2023 incident said that the pilot, a lieutenant whose name was redacted, showed tremendous skill that not only saved his own life but also his $60 million aircraft. The entire incident played out in just under 20 seconds, demanding quick thinking.

At the time of that near-miss, the naval aviator was flying a Boeing-made F/A-18E Super Hornet carrier-based fighter with Strike Fighter Squadron 83 and was embarked aboard the aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower on a Middle East combat deployment.

On November 27, the pilot was coming in for a routine landing when one of the arresting wires used to rapidly slow the planes down on the flight deck "suffered a catastrophic failure" that caused it to snap after the fighter jet hooked onto it.

The flight decks of Nimitz-class carriers are equipped with four arresting wires — flexible, steel cables tensioned by an engine — that stretch across the flight deck for the tail hook of an aircraft to catch upon landing. The wires are designed to bring aircraft to a stop in just a few seconds, given the limited runway space. They're absolutely essential to keeping jets out of the ocean.

Before the wire failure, the arresting gear slowed the pilot's plane down from a landing speed of 136 knots to 80 knots, according to one of the documents. It said that the pilot "executed procedures consistent with carrier landings by advancing his throttles to military power upon touchdown."

The pilot immediately sensed something was wrong. After the aircraft reached its minimum speed, he immediately pushed the throttles to maximum afterburner to gain as much thrust as possible. The jet rolled off the end of the carrier's angle deck at a dangerously low speed of 88 knots. A fighter jet normally clears the deck at around 150 knots.

The pilot's Super Hornet dropped off the end, hitting a maximum sink rate of 738 feet per minute even while the afterburners were engaged. He reported seeing the altimeter, which measures altitude, at just 20 feet above the water, although maintenance data reveals its lowest altitude was between 16 and 32 feet above the surface.

The pilot adjusted his aircraft into an optimum flyaway position before pulling out and establishing a positive climb rate. He had just narrowly avoided crashing into the Indian Ocean.

An award recommendation from his squadron commander obtained by BI said the aviator's "sound execution of procedures, unwavering nerve, and superb airmanship undoubtedly saved his life and the aircraft," adding that "his actions directly enabled the recovery of the aircraft the following day and its subsequent launch in support of Operation Inherent Resolve," referring to the US military's mission against ISIS.

The naval aviator was recommended for Air Medal (Single Mission) by his superiors for his actions, and the recommendation was approved.

Close calls like the one in November 2023 are not uncommon, and US naval aviators have unexpectedly found themselves close to the water in past incidents. Sixteen feet is particularly close, though.

The November 2023 incident occurred during the Eisenhower carrier strike group's monthslong deployment to the Middle East, where it led the military's response to the Iran-backed Houthi rebel attacks on shipping lanes in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.

The Yemeni rebels had just started their campaign at the time. They have since launched over 140 missile and drone attacks on merchant vessels and targeted Navy warships more than 170 times.

The Ike is one of multiple US aircraft carriers that deployed to confront the Houthis over the past 15 months. During its time in the Middle East, the Ike strike group fired hundreds of munitions to intercept hostile missiles and drones and bomb the rebels in Yemen.

• Ukrainian forces have fought against North Korean troops in Russia's Kursk region.
• A Ukrainian commander described to Business Insider what it was like to face them in combat.
• He said the North Koreans charged forward like something out of a movie and were "cannon fodder."

North Korean soldiers who fought in Russia were treated as "cannon fodder," a Ukrainian commander who went into battle against them told Business Insider.

Konoval Ihor Ihorovych, the commander of the reserve group of the 4th Company of the 33rd Assault Regiment, said North Korean behavior in battle was at times confusing and reminiscent of past wars. He said they appeared insufficiently trained for this war.

About 11,000 North Korean troops were deployed to Russia's western Kursk region in the fall to help Moscow repel enemy forces and recapture territory that Ukraine had seized after it launched a stunning invasion there in August.

Ihorovych, call sign Sahara, joined an operation in early January to take Makhnovka, a settlement in Kursk. The goal was to secure key positions and wait for reinforcements to arrive.

He recalled how, at one point, his soldiers came across North Korean troops who were inexplicably running back and forth between buildings while getting pounded by artillery fire about 500 meters away from the Ukrainians.

Ihorovych said he wasn't sure why the North Koreans were running. He speculated that they either didn't know what to do or that there was no commander on the ground with them. Even Ukrainian soldiers in an adjacent unit were surprised by their strange behavior.

The war in Ukraine is a very different kind of conflict compared with what North Korean forces have trained for, and they're suspected to have received only limited training from the Russians.

"In combat, they would just charge forward from the tree line, like in a World War II movie," Ihorovych recalled. Assaults during World War II often had high casualty rates. He said his troops killed several North Korean soldiers they saw running from their positions.

Ihorovych said his unit completed their operation without taking any losses, adding that the North Koreans were basically being used as "cannon fodder."

BI contacted the Russian Embassy in Washington, DC, and the Ministry of Defense for comment on the observations of North Koreans in combat but didn't immediately receive a response. Ihorovych's description of their battle style, however, falls in line with an assessment from the Biden administration, which said at the end of December that the North Koreans were employing human wave tactics that weren't very effective.

A White House spokesperson said at the time that Russian and North Korean military leaders saw the troops as "expendable" and were sending them on "hopeless assaults" against Ukrainian defenses. Prior to their deployment to Russia, Pyongyang's military hadn't experienced major combat operations in decades.

The Pentagon and Ukraine's military leadership have described the North Koreans as well-disciplined, competent, and capable soldiers skilled in combat but new to modern warfare and unprepared for its challenges.

New Western intelligence assessments say Pyongyang is taking heavy losses — about 4,000 troops are estimated to have been killed or wounded fighting in Russia. Britain's defense ministry said last month that the high rate of North Korean losses in such a short period of time was negatively affecting the forces' ability to conduct combat operations in Kursk.

Conflict analysts at the Institute for the Study of War think tank warned in mid-January that if this trend continued, Pyongyang could lose all the troops it deployed in just a matter of weeks. North Korean forces, notably, haven't been seen on the front lines in weeks, fueling speculation they were pulled back amid the heavy losses.

Russia and North Korea have strengthened their defense ties during the Ukraine war and signed a pact over the summer that pledged military assistance if one country is attacked. In addition to soldiers, Pyongyang has also sent Moscow artillery shells and missiles.

• Ukrainian forces launched a stunning invasion into Russia's Kursk region last August.
• A Ukrainian commander revealed new details of the operation in an interview with BI.
• He said his forces didn't know they were going to cross into Russia until the day before.

Ukrainian forces who took part in last year's shock invasion of Russia had no idea they were about to launch a cross-border assault until the day before the mission, a commander told Business Insider.

Oleksii Vovkotrub was the commander of the 1st Platoon, part of the 1st Assault Company of the 33rd Separate Assault Regiment, when his unit entered Russia's Kursk region on August 6. He revealed new details of the operation in a recent interview with BI.

The daring invasion, which came as a surprise to Ukraine's partners and caught Moscow completely off guard, marked the biggest attack on Russian soil by a foreign enemy since World War II.

Vovkotrub, whose call sign is Wolf, said that the operation was classified. Ukraine's forces had been gathering in the northeastern Sumy region, which borders Russia, but they didn't know the final objective of their build-up at the time. Up to that point, the war had been fought almost entirely in Ukraine, a few cross-border raids aside.

"The details of the mission were only revealed to us the day before deployment," Vovkotrub, now the acting commander of the 1st Assault Company of the 33rd Separate Assault Regiment, recalled. "Of course, the guys were a bit nervous, but overall, the mood was high," he said. "We were eager to strike the enemy on their own territory."

Vovkotrub said that his mission in Kursk was to seize and hold a platoon strongpoint until infantry soldiers arrived to secure the position. His unit advanced into Russia as part of an armored formation supported by German-made Marder infantry fighting vehicles and Soviet-era T-72 tanks.

"Riding in on armor felt good," Vovkotrub said. "I won't hide that, especially after everything they did on our land." By this stage of the war, the Ukrainians had been fighting Russia's invasion of their country for about two and a half years.

Ukrainian soldiers have said that they were able to easily breach Russia's borders, meeting little to no resistance until they reached the outskirts of Sudzha.

It wasn't until the second morning of the invasion into Kursk that the platoon first engaged in combat, trying to capture the objective strongpoint. The Ukrainians clashed with Russian soldiers while clearing two villages in the Sudzha district, just a few miles across the border, and fighting to secure enemy positions in the tree lines.

"In the end, the mission was successfully completed without any losses on our side," Vovkotrub said. His unit stayed in Kursk until late August, though they would deploy again later.

Ukrainian forces quickly seized some 500 square miles of territory in Kursk and captured dozens of villages during the early weeks of the invasion, which was intended to ease some pressure off other areas of the front lines and provide Kyiv with more leverage at potential peace talks.

Russian counteroffensives in the months since have seen the country regain roughly half of the land that it initially lost in Kursk, but Ukraine still has a foothold in the region. It is proving difficult for the Russians to dislodge them completely.

Moscow has relied on the deployment of thousands of North Korean forces to help with these efforts, but they have been taking heavy losses in combat. Ukraine's military revealed recently that the North Koreans hadn't been seen in weeks, suggesting they may have withdrawn.

Hard fighting continues in this sector. Oleksandr Syrskyi, Ukraine's commander-in-chief, said Monday that the Kursk operation remains a key priority for Kyiv.

• A US Navy destroyer used its deck gun to shoot down a Houthi drone in the Red Sea last year.
• A top commander revealed details of the battle for the first time this week.
• USS Stockdale and other American forces thwarted the massive Houthi missile and drone attack.

A US Navy destroyer operating in the Red Sea last year used its five-inch deck gun to shoot a Houthi drone out of the sky, a top commander revealed this week.

The American destroyer, USS Stockdale, was sailing from the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden in November when the attack unfolded, said Vice Adm. Brad Cooper, deputy commander of US Central Command, which oversees military operations in the Middle East.

"As we were heading south, I would say that we were in for a fight, and everybody in the crew knew it," Cooper, who was aboard the Stockdale at the time, told the WEST 2025 conference on Thursday.

After a few quiet hours, the Houthis suddenly launched a ballistic missile from Yemen in the direction of the Stockdale. They launched a second, and a third, and then a fourth missile.

"It was a complex, sophisticated, coordinated attack," Cooper recalled.

The sailors aboard the ship thwarted the initial attack around midnight, but it wasn't over. A few minutes later, the Houthis fired an anti-ship cruise missile, but it was shot down by fighter jets from the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln.

The battle continued into the night. The rebels fired more missiles and drones, which were destroyed by US fighter jets and warships. The Navy responded by launching strikes into Yemen.

At nearly 2 a.m. local time, a low-flying Houthi drone crossed in front of the Stockdale, but it was detected late. A kill order was given.

"To be frank, I thought there was no way they were going to hit it. A couple of seconds later, the five-inch gun is blasting away, and sure enough, they downed that thing," Cooper said. "It just doesn't happen." He said that people erupted in cheers for a solid 15 seconds after the intercept.

"It's a big high-five when you shoot something down with a missile," he said. "But there's a lot of high-fives when you shoot something down with a gun, kind of World War II-style."

The MK-45 is a five-inch artillery gun mounted to the deck of a warship. It is one of many ways a vessel can protect itself, along with surface-to-air missiles, which have been the tool of choice for the US during the Houthi conflict. The Stockdale fended off multiple attacks in the fall while it was deployed to the Middle East.

Over the past 15 months, the rebels have launched over 140 attacks on commercial vessels and targeted US Navy warships more than 170 times with anti-ship ballistic and cruise missiles and drones, Cooper said. US forces have shot down around 480 Houthi drones.

The Houthis have claimed that their attacks on civilian and merchant ships are in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza. After Israel and Hamas signed cease-fire deal earlier this month, the rebels said they would limit their Red Sea operations.

Beyond their attacks on shipping lanes, the Houthis have also fired 40 medium-range ballistic missiles and around 300 long-range drones at Israel, Cooper said. Most of the projectiles have been shot down by American and Israeli forces.

The new Trump administration could dramatically affect the US military's approach to the Houthis. Shortly after the inauguration, the White House announced that it was re-designating the Houthis a foreign terrorist organization, reversing a decision by former President Joe Biden to remove the rebels from that list.

• New satellite images show Russian cargo ships docked at Tartus to haul away military equipment.
• Russia's presence at the key naval base in Syria fell into uncertainty after the Assad regime ended.
• The images are the latest indication that Moscow is scaling down its footprint in the country.

Newly captured satellite imagery shows Russia appearing to evacuate military equipment from a key naval base in Syria. The images are the latest sign that Moscow is scaling down its footprint in the country.

Imagery captured by Maxar Technologies and obtained by Business Insider shows two Russian-flagged cargo ships, Sparta and Sparta II, docked at the port of Tartus on Saturday after spending weeks idling in the Mediterranean Sea before they were allowed to enter.

Russia's long-held military presence at Tartus and nearby Hmeimim airbase fell into uncertainty after the sudden collapse of the Assad regime in early December. It was unclear at the time whether the new Syrian government would allow Moscow to keep the two facilities.

The satellite images also show trans-loading operations underway to remove equipment and cargo that Russia had staged at the base. A large number of vehicles could be seen at the base in mid-December and earlier this month. The latest images show a notable decrease in these assets.

Sparta and Sparta II are roll-on/roll-off vessels that can carry wheeled cargo such as vehicles. Both of these ships are sanctioned by the US over their involvement in Russia's war against Ukraine. Marine tracking data shows they arrived at Tartus last week and that Sparta II has already left the port.

The images are the latest indication that Russia is continuing to scale down its military footprint in Syria after rebel forces ousted Bashar Assad, the country's longtime dictator, in a stunning offensive during the fall.

Russia long supported Assad in his civil war, but the rebels now control the province where Tartus and Hmeimim are located. The Kremlin had been engaged in efforts to secure the security of the two bases, but the new government reportedly just canceled Moscow's lease on the port.

Over the past few weeks, satellite imagery has detected signs consistent with a partial or full military withdrawal. At Tartus, Russia emptied out its warships from the port, with some vessels spotted lingering off Syria's coast. And transport aircraft were seen at Hmeimim packing up critical equipment.

The Pentagon said last month that it had observed Russia consolidating assets in Syria, with some forces leaving the country. Ukraine's military intelligence agency has said that Moscow is withdrawing from the country.

Tartus and Hmeimim are both strategically valuable to Russia. The naval facility provides crucial access to a warm-water port, and the airbase allows Moscow to shuttle forces in and out of Africa. Losing both sites would be a major setback for Moscow, which allows it to project power across the Middle East and beyond.

• European forces destroyed nearly two dozen Houthi missiles and drones over the past year.
• The Houthis spent more than a year attacking shipping lanes in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.
• American and European forces have deployed to the region to defend against the attacks.

European naval forces destroyed nearly two dozen missiles and drones launched by the Houthis in almost a year of combat operations in the Red Sea.

The European Union launched Operation Aspides in mid-February of last year in response to Houthi attacks on commercial vessels, joining American and British forces in their efforts to protect shipping lanes in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden from the Yemeni rebels.

So far, the European forces deployed to the mission have intercepted four missiles, shot down 17 aerial drones, and destroyed two naval drones on the surface of the water, a spokesperson for Operation Aspides told Business Insider on Friday.

Their mission is set to expire in a month as the Houthis signal that they will reduce their attacks, which succeeded in driving up the cost of shipping and compelled some carriers to avoid the Suez Canal and the Red Sea entirely.

European forces — including Germany, France, Italy, and Greece — have taken down the Houthi weapons by opening fire from warships and their embarked helicopters. The surface combatants have used surface-to-air missiles and 3-inch deck-mounted guns to intercept the threats.

The Operation Aspides spokesperson said European forces have also supported nearly 600 vessels, including providing close protection for more than 350 of them, and carried out three Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) operations to save the lives of nearly 50 sailors.

It's unclear whether the operation's one-year mandate, which began on February 19, 2024, and is set to expire in just a few weeks, will be extended. The mission's budget is 8 million Euros ($8.3 million USD).

The tempo of operations under Aspides is a stark difference from the US Navy's counter-Houthi mission, which has engaged hundreds of Houthi missiles and drones since the fall of 2023. Officers and experts have described the conflict as the most intense combat that American naval forces have faced since World War II.

US warships have also shot down Houthi anti-ship ballistic missiles. The rebels became the first force to ever fire this type of missile in combat, in late 2023, and have since fired dozens of them at military and civilian vessels.

Beyond intercepting Houthi missiles and drones, the US has carried out airstrikes against the rebels in Yemen, targeting their facilities and weapons. British and Israeli fighter jets have done the same.

The Houthis have said that their unrelenting attacks are in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza. Shortly after a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas was announced earlier this month, the rebels claimed they would limit their Red Sea attacks to Israeli-affiliated vessels.

The return of the Trump administration could dramatically shake-up the US military's approach to the ongoing Houthi conflict. The White House announced earlier this week that it was re-designating the rebels as a foreign terrorist organization, reversing former President Joe Biden's decision to remove them from that list in 2021.

The White House said that under Trump, "it is now the policy" of the US to cooperate with regional partners to end the Houthi attacks on American personnel and civilians, Washington's partners, and Red Sea shipping.

• North Korean forces are suffering very high losses fighting for Russia against Ukraine.
• About 4,000 soldiers have been killed or wounded, Western intelligence says.
• The high toll is hurting Pyongyang's combat operations.

North Korean forces fighting for Russia are suffering high losses, and it's hurting their combat operations, a new Western intelligence assessment says.

In the fall, about 11,000 North Korean troops deployed to Russia's Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces had launched a daring invasion several months earlier. Within weeks of their arrival, officials said Pyongyang's forces were already experiencing significant losses.

Britain's defense ministry said on Friday that as of mid-January, about 1,000 North Korean soldiers had been killed and about 3,000 more wounded in combat against Ukraine. That's more than a third of the number of troops deployed to Kursk.

The defense ministry said in a new intelligence update that the high rate of North Korean losses in a short period of time "has almost certainly significantly deteriorated DPRK forces' capacity to conduct offensive combat operations in support of Russia's attempts to push Ukrainian forces out of Kursk," referring to North Korea's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

A Pentagon spokesperson said earlier this month that North Korea's losses included a range of ranks, including some senior officers.

Conflict analysts at the Institute for the Study of War think tank, which has closely monitored the war, said last week that North Korea would lose all of the troops it sent to Kursk in a matter of months if the combat loss rate continued.

Despite the heavy losses fighting for Russia, North Korean troops "have only achieved tactical gains in Kursk," the UK said. "Russia and DPRK forces are almost certainly experiencing interoperability difficulties. The two forces do not share a common language and DPRK troops almost certainly have difficulties integrating into Russia's command-and-control structure."

North Korean forces hadn't experienced major combat operations before they deployed to Russia, which trained them in infantry tactics, flying drones, artillery, and trench-clearing operations. The White House said in December that Pyongyang's troops were being used in "human wave" assaults that were largely ineffective.

Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder, the former Pentagon spokesperson, said the US assessed the North Korean forces were well-disciplined, competent, and capable soldiers. Ukrainian soldiers have also described them as highly skilled in combat amid claims that they were treated as expendable.

Ryder told reporters last week that "what we're seeing on the battlefield is that they obviously do present a threat," He said the Ukrainians were doing a good job holding their defensive lines but called the fighting "very tough."

Ukraine said earlier this month that it had captured two wounded North Korean soldiers in Kursk. One of them thought he was being sent to Russia for training purposes, not to actually fight in a war, Kyiv said.

North Korea and Russia have significantly strengthened their defense ties during the Ukraine war. Over the summer, the two countries signed a pact pledging military assistance if one is attacked. Pyongyang has also provided Moscow with weapons such as missiles and artillery shells in addition to the soldiers.

• The UK is sending submarine-hunting aircraft to participate in a new NATO operation in the Baltic Sea.
• The operation is a response to recent incidents in which several undersea cables were damaged.
• The damage came amid an increase in threats to critical underwater infrastructure.

The UK will be deploying submarine-hunting aircraft in support of a new NATO operation. The aircraft will fly patrols above the Baltic Sea and monitor threats to underwater infrastructure.

Last week, NATO announced the start of a mission called Baltic Sentry to boost its military presence in the Baltic Sea. The operation came in response to a suspected hybrid attack in late December that ultimately damaged several underwater cables.

Britain's defense ministry said on Wednesday that the UK will provide P-8 Poseidon and RC-135 Rivet Joint maritime patrol and surveillance aircraft to the Baltic Sentry initiative.

The P-8 is a multi-mission patrol aircraft made by Boeing that can be equipped with torpedoes and anti-ship missiles and perform maritime reconnaissance and anti-submarine missions.

The highly capable sub-hunter, a derivative of the civilian 737, was developed for the US Navy but is also in service with NATO allies. The UK operates nine of these planes at Lossiemouth, a Royal Air Force base in Scotland.

The British aircraft will complement other maritime assets deployed in support of Baltic Sentry, such as frigates and a small fleet of naval drones, to protect critical undersea infrastructure, which NATO officials, military leaders, and expert observers say is very vulnerable to sabotage.

In late December, Finland accused a commercial vessel believed to be part of Russia's so-called "shadow fleet" of dragging its anchor for miles along the seabed, damaging a Finnish-Estonian power line and four telecom cables.

There have been other instances of suspected sabotage linked to Russia, which has been actively engaged in hybrid warfare attacks against NATO, especially since the start of the Ukraine war.

Earlier this month, the British government said that it deployed a UK-led reaction system to track potential threats to undersea infrastructure and monitor the shadow fleet. NATO followed up these efforts with the launch of Baltic Sentry.

US Army General Christopher Cavoli, the Supreme Allied Commander Europe, said last week that "Baltic Sentry will deliver focused deterrence throughout the Baltic Sea and counter destabilizing acts like those observed last month."

Critical underwater infrastructure can be easily damaged by crude and sophisticated means.

Russia has a fleet of spy ships, special-mission submarines, and naval drones capable of targeting underwater infrastructure, and NATO has expressed concern about their activities, particularly those tied to the General Staff Main Directorate for Deep Sea Research, or GUGI.

In recent years, NATO has detected an uptick in threats and warned that Moscow is developing capabilities for underwater combat. The range of threats demands NATO keep an eye on both surface vessels and undersea assets.

On Wednesday, UK Defense Secretary John Healey revealed that British forces had caught a Russian spy ship hanging around critical undersea infrastructure twice in recent months. It previously surfaced a sub next to it to send a message.

NATO allies have taken some steps to address the growing threat, such as testing new technologies, announcing increased patrols over the North Atlantic, and collaborating to protect critical undersea infrastructure like cables.

• The US Air Force just got its first F-15 fighter aircraft upgraded with new technology.
• The technology is designed to improve the electronic warfare capabilities of the decades-old jets.
• The Air Force hailed the development as a milestone as it looks to modernize its fourth-gen planes.

The US Air Force just received its first F-15 fighter jets upgraded with advanced electronic warfare capabilities, a significant milestone for the decades-old aircraft.

The Air Force's 48th Fighter Wing said on Tuesday that two F-15E Strike Eagle aircraft equipped with the new system arrived last week at RAF Lakenheath, a British base that hosts American forces, including newer F-35A fighters.

One of the upgraded jets was assigned to the 494th fighter squadron, while the other went to the 492nd.

The new upgrade, known as the Eagle Passive/Active Warning and Survivability System, or EPAWSS, is designed to autonomously detect and identify threats to the aircraft and then take measures to disrupt them in self-defense.

The technology is intended to improve the F-15's radar warning and geolocation, among other features, giving the pilot more situational awareness when flying in highly contested environments.

Lt. Col. Timothy Causey, the 494th commander, said that "having EPAWSS operational at RAF Lakenheath significantly enhances our ability to detect and counter threats, ensuring the safety and effectiveness of our crews."

He said that "this advanced electronic warfare system, when combined with the F-35s, acts as a powerful force multiplier, transforming our operations and amplifying the 48th Fighter Wing's impact in the battlespace."

The US Air Force had been looking at ways to improve the capabilities of its F-15s, a fourth-generation fighter first introduced in the late 1980s and made by US defense contractor McDonnell Douglas, now Boeing.

F-15E fighter-bombers play an important role in US air capabilities. Jets from RAF Lakenheath were deployed to the Middle East last year as part of efforts to boost the US military's presence in the region amid tensions between Israel and Iran.

British aerospace company BAE Systems, which makes the technology, said last year after it completed operational testing that EPAWSS would allow aircraft to penetrate deeper into areas that are protected by modern air defenses.

"We're using agile software development to provide iterative upgrades to fielded EW systems — allowing our customers to defeat future electromagnetic threats," Amy Nesbitt, the EPAWSS program manager at BAE, said in April.

EPAWSS is standard equipment on the new F-15EX Eagle II fighters, but not the older aircraft. Around 100 older F-15E variants will receive upgrades. The Air Force earlier this month cleared the system for full-rate production under a contract worth nearly $616 million.

In its Tuesday statement, the 48th Fighter Wing hailed the delivery of the two upgraded F-15s as "a major milestone in the Air Force's ongoing efforts to modernize its fourth-generation fleet."

"By equipping these aircraft with advanced electronic warfare capabilities, the 48th FW is ensuring their readiness for operations in austere environments and supporting NATO's missions across Europe and the Pacific," the fighter wing added.