kamikaze

The US says the war is over… while kamikaze missiles and drones fly

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During the so-called “Tanker War” between Iran and Iraq, several maritime companies arrived to paint flags of other countries on their ships and to change names and registrations almost overnight to try to cross the Persian Gulf without being attacked. Even so, many crews they kept sailing convinced that any mistake, radar or strange movement could turn a routine commercial trip into an improvised combat zone. The most uncertain war. The situation around Iran and the Strait of Hormuz has become a paradox that is difficult to sustain. A few hours ago, the White House insisted on stating that the war ended weeks ago. In fact, Marco Rubio assures that the “Epic Fury” operation has already concluded while Trump now speaks of the conflict as a luck of “miniwar” or a temporary episode where the small and last quarrels are ending… It happens that at the same time they continue flying drones and missilesUS ships continue to intercept Iranian attacks and forces from both countries they continue to cross fire throughout the Gulf. In other words, Washington is trying to sell the idea that the conflict is already in the diplomatic phase while almost daily military actions continue to occur on the ground, especially in the United Arab Emirates, where incidents of bombings They are almost daily. How to block Hormuz without closing it completely. Iran’s great trick has not been to destroy American fleets, but to turn the strait into a place too dangerous for normal trade. Although practically every day some ships They cross the area escorted In the US, traffic remains well below pre-war levels because shipping companies and insurers continue to see the move as a risky bet. Iran thus maintains enormous pressure on the global economy without the need to impose an absolute blockade, using limited attacks, constant threats and the permanent feeling that any transit can end in an incident military. The failure of the US plan. Trump presented “Project Freedom” as the operation that would demonstrate that Washington Hormuz could reopen by force and restore freedom of navigation. However, the plan barely managed to move a few ships before to be paused less than two days after starting. The president’s decision American reflects Washington’s big problem: protecting the strait requires taking constant military risks, but abandoning the operation leaves Iran with the capacity to continue conditioning global energy trade. USA has been trapped between avoiding another major war in the Middle East and not seeming incapable of imposing its own strategy. The truce works like a limited and controlled war. The truth is that on paper there is a ceasefire, but in practice both countries continue to act as if the conflict will remain open. The Pentagon describes the Iranian attacks as “harassment” below the threshold of a new all-out war, allowing Trump to avoid a major escalation. Meanwhile, Iran continues launching limited attacks and testing how far he can escalate the situation without provoking a massive American response. The result is a kind of hybrid war where officially there is no war… but neither is there peace. Arab allies begin to distrust the US. The Iranian attacks on the United Arab Emirates have caused a growing concern among the Gulf monarchies. Many governments in the region perceive that Trump is more focused on getting out of the conflict than on responding harshly to Tehran, even after of new releases of missiles and drones. The feeling is that hosting US bases can make those countries in priority objectivess without necessarily guaranteeing total protection. That doubt is also beginning to spread among European and Asian allies who observe how Washington continually redefines what it considers a real war. China has become the key diplomatic player. Amid the partial blockade of Hormuz, Beijing tries keep balance between its relationship with Iran and the need to stabilize energy markets. United States is putting pressure on China to convince Tehran to fully reopen the strait, especially before the next meeting between Trump and Xi Jinping. The problem is that China continues buying iranian oil and rejects part of the US sanctions, although at the same time the rise in energy prices is seriously damaging its economy. That makes Beijing an indispensable actor for any negotiated solution. Iran believes time is on its side. The Iranian leadership seems convinced that the United States wants to avoid another long war in the Middle East at all costs, and possibly that is why it is using that perception to increase little by little the pressure. Tehran keeps attacks limited, keeps Hormuz partially closed and continues to show it can still disrupt world markets without crossing a red line definitive. The result is a most unprecedented situation, one where Washington tries to declare victory and turn the page, while Iran continues using military threat as a daily trading tool. Image | USN, Mostafa Tehrani In Xataka | Neom has stopped being science fiction thanks to the war in Iran: from a futuristic city to the great logistical shortcut that bypasses Hormuz In Xataka | The strangest plan of the war is ready: guide the 1,000 ships trapped in Hormuz hoping that no one will shoot

a cardboard kamikaze drone for $2,000

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Since the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, drones have become a centerpiece of modern warfare, one marked by the massive use of cheap drones for saturate air defenses. However, even if they are much cheaper than other types of weapons, Its use as loitering ammunition makes the destruction rate very high. In this context of skyrocketing volume and costs, a Japanese startup has a radical solution: disposable drones literally made of cardboard. Disposable drones. The Japanese Minister of Defense, Shinjirō Koizumi, met with the heads of the AirKamuy company and posed with his star invention: a drone made of cardboard, designed for destruction on the battlefield. Its use is intended for countermeasures, launching swarms of drones to absorb attacks from other drones or anti-aircraft defenses. Its strong point is the cost: about $2,000 per unit. To put it in context, an Iranian Shahed drone (one of the most used by Russia) costs around $35,000, 50,000 if it is an improved model. Details. The AirKamuy 150 is made of cardboard with a finish that makes it resistant to rain. It has an electric motor and an autonomy that allows it to fly for 80 minutes. Regarding the weight it can carry, it can only carry 3 pounds (a little over one kg), so it can only move small loads of supplies or ammunition. It is not a heavy combat drone, but a saturation tool: its value is not in what one can do, but in what many can do at the same time. Why it is important. In a context where cost and scale are everything, AirKamuy’s bet has an overwhelming logic: if the enemy launches hundreds of cheap drones, then we launch even cheaper drones. Few materials are as cheap and easy to mass produce as cardboard, and in fact its creators claim that nothing special is needed to produce them, but that any cardboard production plant could do it. That a packaging company can become a military production line is a solution as ingenious as it is disturbing. IKEA-style logistics. Not only is it cheaper to produce but it can also be transported in large quantities and taking up very little space. The AirKamuy 150 comes in a completely flat package, allowing 500 units to fit into a standard cargo container. Once at the destination, assembly takes just ten minutes, without the need for special tools or qualified technical personnel. Image | Shinjiro Koizumi in X In Xataka | Ukraine has just reinvented aerial combat with a piece from the Soviet era: a plane that fires drones

The United Kingdom has opened the kamikaze drone that exploded at the European base. The surprise is capital: it is not from Iran, it is "made in Russia"

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In Ukraine, the drone remains knocked down have converted in one unexpected source of strategic information: Engineers and analysts often rebuild their interior piece by piece to trace their origin, their electronics, and the supply networks that make them. IF you want, a kind of “military archeology” or “war unboxing” that has become common practice in modern conflicts, where a single microchip or a navigation module can reveal geopolitical connections much broader than a simple attack appears. The same thing just happened, but in Iran. A drone and a new unknown. When a kamikaze drone hit against the British air base of RAF Akrotiri, in Cyprus, seemed like another episode within the increasing escalation of drone attacks in the Middle East. However, analysis of the remains of the device by British intelligence has revealed an unexpected detail: inside there was a Russian military navigation system Kometa-Ba sophisticated component designed to resist electronic interference and improve the precision of attacks. The discovery surprised British researchers because the device had been launched by a Iran-aligned group from Lebanon, making the incident the first tangible evidence of Russian military technology used in an attack within the regional conflict. In Xataka Satellite images have revealed that Iran knocked down four of the US’s eight unique defense systems. If they reach zero a new war begins The track that connects two wars. The Kometa-B system is not just any component. It is about of a module which had already been detected in drones intercepted on the Ukrainian front, where Russia uses it to improve the navigation of its weapons against Western electronic warfare systems. Finding it inside a drone that ended up exploding in a European military base suggests that some of that technology has come out from the Ukrainian theater of war and has reached the military ecosystem surrounding Iran. That technical detail has opened a new line of concern among Western intelligence services: the possibility that Moscow is providing equipment, electronics or technical knowledge that is increasing the effectiveness of Iranian attacks and those of its regional allies. An alliance that is becoming closer. The discovery fits within a strategic relationship which has been deepening since the start of the war in Ukraine. During the early years of the conflict, Iran provided Russia with technology to make drones of Iranian design (especially variants of the Shahed model) that Moscow has used massively against Ukrainian infrastructure. Over time, Russia began to produce their own versions already introduce improvements electronics and navigation. Now the indications are that some of that cooperation could have been invested: Components or systems developed in the Russian military industry would appear in weapons used by militias aligned with Tehran on other fronts. {“videoId”:”x89xg5y”,”autoplay”:false,”title”:”American aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford – CVN 78″, “tag”:”Ships”, “duration”:”145″} Russian intelligence in the shadows. He discovery of the drone It also coincides with information from Western officials who claim that Moscow has been providing Iran with intelligence information on US military positions in the Middle East, including the location of warships and aircraft. I counted the weekend in an exclusive the Washington Post that such support could explain the increasing precision of some recent attacks against Western military infrastructure and radar systems. Iran has limited space capabilities, with very few of its own satellites, so access to data from Russian observation systems would be a significant advantage for planning more selective attacks. In 3D Games Children under 5 years old in 2026 will never have to work, according to Vinod Khosla. This is what the great era of AI abundance has in store for us Regional conflict with echoes of global war. If you also want, the appearance Russian technology in an attack against a British base suggests that the war in the Middle East could be becoming increasingly intertwined with the strategic confrontation that already exists between Russia and the West since 2022. For Moscow, an escalation that keeps the United States and Europe focused on another front may have strategic advantagesfrom the distraction over Ukraine to the rise in oil prices. Although the Kremlin has avoided getting directly involved in the war, and even Trump maintained in the last hours a first conversation telephone with Putin, the presence of your technology on the battlefield and suspicions about intelligence sharing point to a familiar pattern of indirect conflict: a scenario in which great powers do not fight each other openly, but their weapons, their data and their influence begin to appear in increasingly unexpected places and uncomfortable. Image | National Police of UkraineRAF/MOD In Xataka | The US has begun to take on one last suicidal mission: enter Iran to remove a 441 kg buried “treasure” that gives meaning to the war In Xataka | The war in Iran has confirmed what was sensed in Ukraine: battles are won long before the first missile is launched (function() { window._JS_MODULES = window._JS_MODULES || {}; var headElement = document.getElementsByTagName(‘head’)(0); if (_JS_MODULES.instagram) { var instagramScript = document.createElement(‘script’); instagramScript.src=”https://platform.instagram.com/en_US/embeds.js”; instagramScript.async = true; instagramScript.defer = true; headElement.appendChild(instagramScript); – The news The United Kingdom has opened the kamikaze drone that exploded at the European base. The surprise is capital: it is not from Iran, it is “made in Russia” was originally published in Xataka by Miguel Jorge .

The war in Iran is going to repeat a suicidal scenario from 1980. But with drones and kamikaze boats in the most fearsome point on the planet

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At first glance it is just a strip of water between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula, but its importance it’s huge. The Strait of Hormuz is one of the few places on the planet where global trade it literally depends of a maritime corridor just a few kilometers wide. Every day dozens of supertankers and monster container ships pass through it, connecting the Middle East. with the rest of the planeta constant choreography that moves energy, raw materials and essential products on a global scale. Therefore, when something happens there, the effect is greatly felt. beyond the Gulf. The most dangerous bottleneck on the planet. As we said, the Strait of Hormuz is one of the most critical geographical points of the world economic system and also one of the most vulnerable. At its narrowest point it barely reaches 33 kilometers wide and thousands of ships pass through it every month connecting the Persian Gulf with the rest of the planet. Through this maritime strip it circulates around a fifth of oil that is traded in the world, large volumes of liquefied natural gas and an essential part of the industrial raw materials that sustain the global economy. But its importance goes beyond energy: it is also a key artery for trade in fertilizers and chemicals that end up directly influencing food production. When this route is interrupted, not only are the energy markets altered, the entire chain that connects agricultural fields, the chemical industry and supermarkets is shaken. War stops traffic. The military escalation between the United States, Israel and Iran has brought that critical point to the brink of a historic crisis. Attacks on oil tankers and commercial vessels, along with direct warnings from Tehran to shipping companies, have caused traffic through the strait to reduce. almost to zero in matter of days. Several vessels have been hit by projectiles or dronessome energy facilities in Gulf countries have been attacked and oil prices have reacted immediately with strong rises. Shipping companies and insurers have begun to cancel policies or dramatically raise war insurance costs, as some ships attempt to cross the zone with their location systems turned off to reduce the probability of being identified as a target. Washington’s response and the convoys. Faced with the risk that the global energy flow will be blocked, the United States has raised an extraordinary measure: escort oil tankers and commercial vessels with the US Navy and also offer financial guarantees and political insurance to reassure shipping companies. The idea seeks to avoid a global energy shock, but it implies send warships directly to the most dangerous area of ​​the Gulf. Organizing maritime convoys is a complex operation that requires destroyers, aircraft and military resources that could not be used in other missions. Furthermore, even with an escort, experts remember that ships would continue to navigate within an extremely hostile space, where reaction times to attacks can be reduced to minutes. The ghost of the eighties. I was counting this morning the financial times that the situation inevitably reminds one of the most tense episodes of the Cold War in the Middle East: the so-called “tanker war” which developed during the conflict between Iran and Iraq in the 1980s. So both countries They systematically attacked maritime traffic in the Gulf with missiles, naval mines and air strikes. A kamikaze battle involving more than four hundred commercial ships were damaged or sunk and the United States deployed dozens of ships to escort convoys and protect oil tankers. Still, the risk it was huge: American frigates were severely damaged by mines and missiles and dozens of sailors were killed. That crisis demonstrated the extent to which a regional conflict could put global trade in check. The difference: drones and kamikaze boats. The war in Iran is about to end repeat the scenario suicide bombing of 1980, but with a difference: now there are drones and kamikaze boats at the most fearsome point for the planet. From then until now the Iranian arsenal has evolved radically and today it combines long-range anti-ship missiles, thousands of cruise shellsarmed drones, diesel submarines, modern naval mines and fast vessels capable of swarming attacks. Added to this are unmanned surface vehicles, small ships loaded with explosives that hit the hulls of ships at the waterline, causing flooding in the engine room and rapid sinking. In a strait “so narrow” and close to the Iranian coast, these systems offer Tehran a obvious tactical advantage. An economic weapon to paralyze everything. Even without completely blocking the passage, the simple risk of attacks can paralyze maritime traffic. Recent history of the red seawhere attacks by militias allied with Iran diverted trade routes for months, shows that it only takes a few incidents to skyrocket shipping costs and force shipping companies to look for much longer alternative routes. In Hormuz the effect would be much greater because it is of the natural exit of the energy production of the entire Gulf. Tanker freight rates have already skyrocketed and any sign of mines or new attacks could double shipping prices again. A global pulse with unpredictable consequences. Close Hormuz also has a cost for Iranwhose economy depends largely on exporting its own oil, especially to China. However, the strategic logic of the conflict could push Tehran to use the strait as an economic lever to pressure Washington and its allies. In any case, the longer the war continues, the greater the temptation on both sides to use energy as a weapon. In that scenario, the world could face a perfect storm: skyrocketing oil, scarce fertilizers and more expensive food. All concentrated in a strait just a few kilometers wide that once again becomes the most fragile point in the global economic system. Image | eutrophication&hypoxiaNZ Defense Force, National Museum of the US Navy In Xataka | Shahed drones are spreading terror in the Gulf. Ukraine has offered the solution, and the price to pay has a name In Xataka | Spain has … Read more

Ukraine sensed that there was a superpower behind Russia’s kamikaze drones. The surprise is that there are actually two

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Many phases have passed since the Russian invasion in 2022 until today, but if one thing has become crystal clear, it is that the war in Ukraine has become a brutal laboratory where drones are the most decisive and fastest weapon to improve, to the point of concentrating a huge part of the recent losses and setting the pace of the war of attrition. In this scenario, Ukraine has been asking itself the same question for some time: how does Russia get so many drones? An industrial war. In the current scenario, the front is not only in Donetsk or Kharkiv, but also in industrial parks from Guangdong and Shenzhenwhere processors, cameras, motors, sensors and controllers are made that determine how much a drone flies, what it sees and how accurately it hits. The most disturbing thing here is not only the technological dependence, but the fact that this dependence is shared by both sideswhich turns the supply of parts into a kind of undercurrent that sustains the conflict even when sanctions seek to cut it off. The Geran-5. Now, Ukraine claims have identified a new Russian attack drone, the Geran-5which breaks with the classic “delta wing” type profile associated with the Iranian Shahed and adopts a shape more similar to a conventional aircraft, visually linking it Iranian Karrar and, by extension, to older designs inspired by American systems. The key is that it would be a more powerful and faster jet model, with an estimated speed up to 600 km/hand with tactical ambitions that go beyond the simple cheap “kamikaze drone”: it is attributed a range of about 900 km and an approximate war load of 90 kilos. Ukraine affirms that Russia is studying launching it from Su-25 aircraft to expand your radius of action, as well as explore configurations that include R-73 air-to-air missiles to complicate life for Ukrainian aviation. In other words, Russia is not only multiplying quantity, it is also testing a ladder of sophistication that mixes loitering munitions with concepts closer to a combat UAV. Geran-5 He Deja Vú. The central element, and the most politically controversial, is the list of foreign components that Ukraine claims to have found in the wreckage of the new Geran-5, including more than a dozen western and chinese electronic partswith at least nine attributed to American manufacturers and one identified like german. are mentioned critical components for navigation, communications and control, such as signal processors, clock generators and transceivers, that is, the type of electronics that does not “explode” by itself, but that turns a drone into a reliable, stable and reproducible system. For kyiv, this shows that Russia continues to avoid sanctions structurally, relying on gray markets and supply chains where real traceability is dissolved, and which has a huge machinery behind it headed by two superpowers (China and the US), along with the rest of Western “allies”. The underlying message is simple: modern war is not only won by manufacturing metal and explosives, also getting chipssensors and modules that are cheap, easy to transport and difficult to block without paralyzing global trade. Image provided by GUR showing the partial remains of a Geran-5 China as epicenter. The Financial Times said an almost absurd scene: Ukrainian businessmen visiting Chinese factories with schedules calculated to the second so as not to coincide with Russian buyers, entering through side doors and waiting in corridors, as if the conflict was managed with hotel logistics. The reason is that both armies they need the same parts and they go after the same suppliers because China dominates the material base of the commercial drone: not only does it produce a large part of the drones on the market, it also controls key elements such as cameras, sensors, controllers and propulsion, with costs much lower than Western equivalents. The result is that innovation leaks on both sides almost at the same time: if Ukraine sees a new transmitter on Russian drones, it locates the Chinese manufacturer and tries to buy it. If Ukraine asks for a specific upgrade, you may find that a week later that same supplier offers it to Russia as well. The war thus becomes a race of “components” more than doctrines, and China goes from being a “neutral” country to being the place where it is decided how quickly the conflict evolves. The supply chain. Beijing maintains the public line of neutrality and affirms that it does not supply lethal weapons, that it strictly controls dual-use goods and that its position is “objective and fair.” However, as we have said, the reality It’s different: Even if controls are in place, the system is filled with middlemen, shell companies, opaque routes and deliberate ambiguity about the end user. A market where some exhibitors show platforms with simulated weaponswhere military buyers mix with civilian fairs. In parallel, there is an imbalance of power: Russia, with more resources and priority state, can pay more, buy earlier and secure quotas, leaving Ukraine waiting or forcing it to improvise at the front due to lack of parts. Neutrality, in practice, is not just about prohibiting, but about who can best circumvent the restrictions. How to avoid restrictions. The real circumvention ecosystem works with shipments via indirect routestransportation through third countries, trucks crossing Central Asia with limited controls, and a logistics market specialized in “sensitive merchandise” that continues to operate because the economic incentive is enormous. Plus: the role of regional financial clearing platforms, which facilitate payments for sanctioned productsand the ability to create intermediate entities even in European countries to disguise operations. If you like, sanctions, as they work, introduce friction, but not rupture: they make it more expensive, slow down, force people to hide better, but they do not cut off the flow of chips, motors or cameras. And in a war where an FPV drone can be as decisive as an armoredthat logistical continuity is equivalent to operational continuity on the battlefield. Ukrainian dependency. Ukraine has made a lot of progress in … Read more

Ukraine is proving that kamikaze drones are the future of warfare. And that is why Spain is going to start manufacturing them

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Europe has been talking about defense as an abstract concept for years, but the war in Ukraine turned the threat into something physical and quantifiable: drones, missiles, loitering munitions and a logistics chain under constant fire, forcing NATO to assume that the modern battlefield is a “death zone” where those who do not mass produce are at a disadvantage. And in that equation an unexpected nation has emerged: Spain. The new shield of Europe. To that strategic pressure after the invasion of Russia and the appearance of his ghost fleet An even more uncomfortable factor has been added: the political tension with the United States and the growing sense that the Western security umbrella is no longer It is not an automationbut a negotiation. In this double impulse is born the rush for a European defensive shield (perhaps that repeated drone wall), and not only in radars or interceptors, but in industry, stocks and real response capacity, where manufacturing speed matters as much as quality and where technological sovereignty becomes a survival requirement. The unexpected actor: Spain. In this scenario of rapid rearmament and need for autonomy, Spain aims to go from being a country that buys to being one who producesand also do it with a weapon that defines contemporary war: the kamikaze droneor loitering munition, which watches, waits and strikes with precision at costs much lower than manned aviation or traditional missiles. The move is ambitious because Spain does not compete from the heavy industrial tradition of other European partners, there is no doubt, but from a commitment to the most demanded segmentscalable and urgent of the moment: cheap, numerous, quickly upgradeable platforms and capable of saturating defenses. The political and military thesis seems clear: if Europe’s immediate future is decided by who can produce and replenish drones the fastest, then a country that leads that manufacturing not only wins contracts, also influence. Comparison of UAVs in the international market The Indra-Edge alliance. The core of the movement was in the news yesterday with the agreement between Indra and Emirati giant Edge to create a joint venture focused on the development, production and full lifecycle support of loitering munitions and smart weapons, with an estimated order book of about 2 billion euros annually. There is talk of manufacturing drones and sustained capacity: design, assembly line, maintenance, replacement and scaling, something essential in a type of war where systems are consumed at an industrial rate. Indra relies on experience Edge on suicide drones to accelerate the technological leap, while underlining that the real value for Europe is in pproduce in European territoryfulfilling the logic of sovereignty and reducing dependencies and deadlines in a market that is moving due to urgency and not by comfortable calendars. Castilla y León as a military-industrial hub. The bet has taken concrete form with two plants in Castilla y León: in Villadangos del Páramo (León), a production facility dedicated to drones and loitering munitions will be built, with an investment of about 20 million euros and a forecast of up to 200 jobs at full capacity. Another plant focused on micromotors will be installed in Boecillo (Valladolid), a critical component that defines autonomy, reliability and production capacity. The combination is revealing: it is not only the “final product”, also, and very important, the control of key pieces, which allows manufacture without bottlenecks and sustain a high exit rate when the strategic environment demands constant replacement. The objective is for Spain to not only be an assembler, but also part of the industrial heart that makes war with drones possible. Defense turns it into a state program. The Ministry of Defense has presented the project as part of the Industrial and Technological Plan for Security and Defense approved in May 2025, and has stated that the León factory will produce “the most advanced drones that can operate today in Europe and NATO.” Beyond the owner, what is relevant is that the new company would already be born with valued contracts around 2 billion of euros, with a workload committed to covering the needs of the Spanish Armed Forces and also other European armies, and with a performance horizon in 2026 and 2027. The implicit message is that Spain wants to be in the industrial layer that supports the European defensive shield, not as a secondary actor, but as a real supplier of a capacity that decides tactical survival on the front. Politics gets on the drone. The announcement, furthermore, is made with a staging in the Senate and in a pre-electoral context in Castilla y León, where the local impact (those 00 jobs distributed between León and Valladolid) turns the defense industry into territorial policy tool. The narrative mixes national security and reindustrialization: Small areas such as Villadangos del Páramo appear as recipients of a project of high technological value, while it is presented as a historic turn for the Spanish industrial base. At the same time, it is linked to other military initiatives in the community, emphasizing that rearmament It is not only a strategic debate, but a map of investments, works, infrastructure and employment that reorders public priorities. The real game. Finally, the movement also gives clues about the future of Europe with Ukraine as a mirror: the defensive shield It is no longer measured only in troops and doctrine, but in the ability to produce cheap, intelligent and massive systems, with short innovation cycles and controlled supply chains. Somehow, Russia has imposed the pace of the threat, and Washington has added the political pressure of not depending eternally on an external guarantor. In this scenario, Spain tries to occupy an unexpected gap: become the protagonist of the European loitering ammunition, the tool kamikaze which not only serves to attack, but also to deny space, saturate defenses and impose costs on the adversary. In a Europe that has belatedly discovered that modern war is also won in factories, Spain wants are in their territory. Image | Khamenei.ir In Xataka | Europe faces … Read more

A Ukrainian system has accelerated the death of kamikaze drones. It’s called Delta, and it does in 120 seconds what took days

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The war in Ukraine has turned the drone into the central weapon of the battlefield, but it has also made evident an insurmountable limit: the kamikaze modelswhich dominated the early years of the conflict, are beginning to die due to sheer unsustainability. The almost thousand kilometer front requires a continuous supply of platforms capable of surveillance, harassment, destruction and survival. And Ukraine has realized this. The sunset of a drone. Russia can no longer guarantee that supply with the cheap, single-use drones it previously launched by the thousands. The western sanctions have strangled Moscow’s access to advanced sensors and critical processors. Furthermore, the Ukrainian attacks to assembly plants They have broken production chains, and the cost of losing increasingly sophisticated systems against denser Ukrainian defenses has made the model unviable. of “launch and forget”. For the first time, Moscow recognizes that it cannot replace what it destroys with the same speed. The Russian bet. Faced with this scenario, Russia is reconfiguring its fleet towards reusable drones that combine precision, electronic resistance and multiple attack capacity. Platforms like the Night Witch (capable of carrying twenty kilos, operating for forty minutes, launching up to four munitions and returning to base) mark the shift towards designs that survive the mission. The Bulldog-13 follows the same logic: modular, resistant to interference and with advanced sensors that would be too expensive for a disposable platform. This evolution not only affects offensive drones: russian interceptorspreviously designed to collide and destroy each other along with their objectives, begin to incorporate methods that allow recovery. From improvised loads like food cans thrown over FPV ukrainians up to electrified rods capable of incapacitating several drones in a single flight, the pattern is clear: if the platform is increasingly complex and more expensive, it cannot be lost on each mission. Russia is, out of obligation rather than choice, migrating toward a fleet that looks more like onepersistent unmanned flight than to an infinite store of cheap projectiles. The Russian limit. The operational advantage of these advanced systems it is evident: interference-immune navigation, thermal optics with digital zoom, long-range links and semi-autonomous capabilities allow for more precise and adaptable attacks. However, Russia pays an operational price: every drone that must return to its base sees its time available in the combat zone. reduced by half. The flight cycle shortens, the attack window narrows, and exposure to Ukrainian defenses widens. It’s the paradox of the reusable drone: more valuable, more capable and more vulnerable to logistical wear and tear. But Moscow has no alternative. Without mass replenishment, drone survival becomes a strategic resource. Ukraine breaks the cycle. And while Russia tries to extend the life of its drones to survive the technological blockade, Ukraine is blowing up the very logic of the war of attrition with a digital tool that turns every sensor on the front into a potential trigger. Previously, locating a Russian target, verifying it, transmitting it, and assigning it to a unit could take up to seventy-two hours, enough time for any vehicle, artillery piece, or tank to move or camouflage. Now, with Delta (the system battle management created and iterated over two years of real war) that cycle is reduced to two minutes under optimal conditions. Delta integrates satellite imagery, radar, reconnaissance drones, frontline observers and data from multiple branches into an interactive map that instantly shows where own and enemy forces are. Operating with NATO standardshosted in the cloud and already used by 90% of Ukrainian units, Delta turns warfare into a digitalized and almost automatic process: see, mark, assign and shoot. Drones that “live” too long. The consequence is devastating for Moscow. Their reusable dronesmore complex and expensive, survive by not wasting themselves on suicide attacks, but at the same time they face a battlefield where every exposure, every takeoff and every return can be detected, processed and attacked in a matter of seconds. The old Russian shelter (moving positions from one day to the next) ceases to exist when a Ukrainian FPV can take off, travel kilometers and hit in less than three minutesor a 155mm battery can open fire minutes after receiving verified coordinates. Even long-range systems, which require planning and preparation, now benefit from a flow of intelligence that never sleeps: latency is no longer strategic, only technical. The kamikaze in extinction. The joint result of both transformations (the Russian transition to drones that must survive and the Ukrainian transition to a system that kills in minutes) alters the nature of drone warfare. The russian kamikazes They do not disappear due to lack of usefulness, but because lack of replacement. And the drones that survive must now contend with an environment where survival depends less on their robustness and more on escaping a detection cycle operating at digital speed. What was once a war of saturation is now a war of instant precision. And in that equation, a new paradox arises: each Russian reusable drone is worth more… just when Ukraine can destroy everything it can see faster than ever. Image | Telegram, Dmytro Smolienko/Ukrinform, RawPixel In Xataka | The new peace plan in Ukraine has been reduced to 19 aspects. The problem is that the key point measures 900 km In Xataka | Ukraine’s latest tactic begins with a song. It is the prelude to an unknown trick: “sending” Russian missiles to Peru

His kamikaze plan has rewritten the war manual

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A year after the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a drone instructor had an idea that sounded to science fiction– Pilot cheap quadcopters in order to ram and destroy other drones in mid-flight. Thus, what began as a joke between soldiers, “too much Star Wars”, they saidbecame in less than a year the spine of the Ukrainian defense. The origin. Given the shortage of anti-aircraft missiles and the russian waves of Iranian Shahed who put out cities, Ukrainian engineers and pilots they started redesigning commercial quadcopters to convert them into hit-to-kill interceptors. They were born out of necessity: Winter, power outages, and the inability of conventional defenses to process hundreds of low-cost threats pushed improvisation to become in doctrine. Crowdfunding programs like Come Back Alive and the initiative Dronefall They articulated production, training and logistics, financing and coordinating local manufacturers. How they work and their effectiveness. These interceptors require three conditions: speed and maneuverability to reach targets at hundreds of km/h, vision and guidance systems (from night cameras to semi-automatic guidance) and an explosive charge or kinetic capacity sufficient to destroy the threat upon impact. Models like the sting or variants by Wild Hornets They combine powerful propellers, thermal chambers and light warheads; The tactic is simple in concept, but extremely demanding in execution: detect, locate, launch and maneuver in windows of minutes before the attacker leaves range. Production and economy. lor we have told before, the strategic attractiveness it’s economical: an interceptor can cost between 2,500 and 6,000 dollarsin front of the million per missile of advanced systems. Multiple manufacturers, from Ukrainian SMEs to supported startups by Brave1allow scalability. Ukraine aims to produce hundreds and eventually thousands per dayIn fact, they are already reported thousands of interceptions and programs that connect twenty producers to standardize parts, training and supply. Field operations. Furthermore, the deployment requires a short chain: detection by radar or surveillance, link to a pilot or semi-autonomous system and launch with a very short margin of time (teams report 10-minute windows to intercept). Not only that. The effectiveness depends on the skill of the pilot (specialized courses show low pass rates) and the quality of the data link. When interceptors are not fully autonomous, the human variable remains the bottleneck: well-trained pilots achieve success rates much older. The Sting is much smaller than a typical Shahed drone Diversity of designs. Here the family of interceptors is heterogeneous: there are models that directly impact (ramming), designs with warhead projected at high speed, and guided drones optical sensor similar to small missiles. Plus: some are detachable and transportable in backpacks, and others are mass launchable from containers. This diversity allows the response to be adapted to the profile of the attacker (versus the slowness of a Shahed vs the speed of a Geran-3) and the operational environment. Results and effectiveness. Ukrainian reports speak of massive interceptions: hundreds killed in major attacks and aggregate figures of thousands of kills attributed to programs like Dronefall. Success rates vary (from 30% to 90% depending on the system, the class of the target and the expertise of the crew), but the economic impact is clear: replacing a defense missile with dozens or hundreds of cheap interceptors preserves strategic resources and forces Russia to inflate its operating costs. An interceptor crew prepares a Sting drone from their civilian vehicle Implications. NATO considers interceptors as a valuable complement to traditional layers of defense. The UK has already committed to co-producing interceptors for Ukraine; tests in allied airspace (e.g. trials in Denmark) demonstrate interest in integrating these solutions in territorial defense and protection of critical infrastructure. The main lesson for Europe is the need for cheap and scalable solutions to mass threats, not just high-cost, high-precision systems. Technical limitations. Not everything is optimism: interceptors also face scope problemsresistance to electronic interference and the ability to reach drones at very high altitudes or extreme speeds. The advent of reactor versions of the Shahed (Geran-3) that far exceed the speed of current interceptors forces the improvement race: greater propulsion, better sensor and autonomy, or alternatives such as higher-cost kinetic defense. Furthermore, dependence on human pilots with limited training conditions the sustainability of the effort. The next phase. Given the Russian advance towards faster drones, Ukraine and its partners are already working on new generations: faster interceptors, more robust sensors, semi-autonomous solutions and integrated deployments with radars and missiles depending on the objective. In parallel, non-kinetic defenses are being explored: from lasers to microwaves and EW systems that can complement or replace physical interceptors when speed or altitude exceed their capabilities. Strategic balance. If you will, the most profound change that interceptors introduce It’s doctrinal.: modern air warfare can be won by mass affordable and distributed response, and not just by expensive and one-off systems. Ukraine has shown in this sense that the combination of local manufacturing, civil financing and tactical adaptation transforms a weakness (lack of missiles, especially external) in operational advantage. The final caveat, however, is that this advantage it’s temporary: The adversary adapts, the technology scales, and the survival of the approach requires continued investment in design, production, and training. Image | Wild Hornets In Xataka | The crazy number of drones has turned the Ukrainian sky into the M-30 at rush hour. Identifying the enemy is a danger In Xataka | While Europe builds its Russian anti-drone wall, each nation loads its artillery: some with lasers, others with shotguns

Ukraine has found the antidote to the Russian Kamikaze drones in World War

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During World War II a battalion became In “Immortal” For history books. They were not soldiers, but artists who dedicated themselves to create for the war campaign of the allies. From the creation of military sound recordings to the construction of tanks, airplanes and trucks. With a caveat: They were inflatable To confuse the Nazis. Now Ukraine recalled that story. THE WAR OF THE LOB. Yes, on the Ukrainian front, which seems like a battlefield loaded with artillery, drones and armored vehicles can hide an elaborate stage of deception. At least since 2023 They have multiplied Tests of how the two sides use wood tanks, plywood cannons, false soldiers and even inflatable drones to force the enemy to waste expensive ammunition. A Famous example It was that of a Russian drone that spread images of the destruction of an alleged Ukrainian tank, followed by a video of a soldier laughing next to the remains of his “wooden car.” This mixture of crafts and technology is part of a strategy that seeks to balance forces in a conflict in which each missile and each drone have enormous strategic value. In Xataka The hoteliers promised them happy with the huge business of the terraces. Until the new antitabaco law arrived Cardboard artillery. Among the most popular lures are replicas of the m777 obuse British manufacturing, fundamental in the Ukrainian artillery. Volunteer groups, such as Na chasi or reaktyvna posthta, manufacture wood folding models that cost Between 500 and 600 dollars and can be mounted in three minutes by two people without the need for tools. In front of them, Russia launches their Kamikaze Lancet drones valued at about $ 35,000 each, which makes the lures a minimum investment that achieves multiply wear enemy. Some of these false obuse, like one Nicknamed TolyaThey have been in the front for more than a year, resisting repeated attacks and being repaired again and again with adhesive tape and screws. M777 imitation obuses are especially popular among Ukrainian troops The art of deception. The effectiveness of a lure depends so much on its manufacture as its context. It is not enough to imitate the silhouette of a weapon: it is necessary Recreate the environment With wheel fingerprints, ammunition boxes and even latrines to give credibility. This attention to detail He has managed to confuse even to Ukrainian military controls. In addition, a tactic is used that consists of quickly withdrawing the real mortars after a shot and replacing them with copies, which forces Russia to waste resources in non -existent whites. Inflatable lures, such as this Ukrainian imitation of the acacia, are light, fast and simple to install, but they can be easily destroyed The Russian strategy. Russia, on the other hand, uses with the same intensity techniques of camouflage and deception. According to the Ukrainian Air Force, up to half of the drones in recent attacks They are cheap imitations that seek to saturate anti -aircraft defenses and force to shoot expensive missiles against whiteless whites. Companies Like Rusbal They manufacture 2D versions visible from satellite, lures that emit heat similar to that of an engine or simulate military radio traffic. They have even reached produce mannequins Dresses with uniform and internal heaters to deceive Ukrainian thermal cameras, demonstrating the amplitude of the resource. The historical precedent. Although today’s technological sophistication makes these lures look like innovative, they are actually part of a long tradition. In ancient times, armies like Aníbal’s created false camps to confuse the Romans. During the First World War, tanks and wooden planes were built to deceive aerial observation. In World War II, the famous ghost armyof the allies deployed inflatable tanks and fictitious airplanes in the south of England to hide the preparations of the Normandy landing. The goal was always himself: Make the enemy foured against shadows and spend their strength against anything. {“Videid”: “X8J6422”, “Autoplay”: False, “Title”: “Declagic video of the encounter between Russian fighters and the American drone”, “Tag”: “United States”, “Duration”: “42”} The War Economy. In the Ukraine War, where Western Arsenales of Anti -Jerio missiles are limited and each unit sent from the United States or Europe has a political and economic cost, the lures become efficiency multipliers. Make Russia waste a Lancet drone against a 500 model not only has a tactical value, but also economicalbecause each unfavorable exchange erodes the resources of the aggressor. Similarly, the cheap drones that Russia launches like false Shahed They force Ukraine to decide If you spend in expensive interceptors or risk the penetration of a real attack. The Lables War is, in essence, a budget fight: who makes the adversary consume more resources than he can replace. In Xataka Germany has had an idea to protect its population in case of war: buy huge amounts of Ravioli in can The future with lures. In summary, the conflict in Ukraine, even being technologically a Military Innovation Fieldhas turned something as “classic” as lures and optical illusions in A strategic tool first order. Not only allow resources to be saved in front of an enemy with great fire capacity, but also open a space where Civil innovation (Volunteer groups, improvised workshops) is integrated into national defense. Both on land and in the air, the imitation war demonstrates that, beyond the sophistication of modern weapons, the imagination remains a weapon as powerful as any missile. Image | Na chasi, Apate, Back and Alive In Xataka | What has not achieved the war in Ukraine has done 19 Russian drones: to test Europe and article 5 In Xataka | Russia has just launched the greatest order to Europe since the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine. And Europe has responded with fire  (Function () {Window._js_modules = Window._js_modules || {}; var headelement = document.getelegsbytagname (‘head’) (0); if (_js_modules.instagram) {var instagramscript = Document.Createlement (‘script’); }}) (); – The news Ukraine has found the antidote to the Russian Kamikaze drones in World War It was originally posted in Xataka by Miguel Jorge .

We believed that the most complicated summer of F-35 had ended. Until his software made him kamikaze on the Arctic

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In mid-August it seemed frankly difficult for something more to the brand new F-35 of Lockheed Martin. After the plane stranded for a month In India, the reverse from Spain to an order (to which they have added other countries), and A second breakdown Of a hunt, this time in Japan, the quota of fatalities seemed complete. Until a report has appeared that calls for the plane and its sophisticated software. An accident and its causes. Now we know that on January 28, 2025 an F-35a of the United States Air Force, assigned to the 354th combat wing at the base of Eielson (Alaska), He crashed After taking off in training mission as part of a group of four aircraft. He Official Report of the Pacific Air Forces revealed that the main cause was the fluid freezing Hydraulic contaminated with water in the shock absorbers of the landing train, which prevented the complete extension of the struts and caused that the weight sensors on wheels on wheels They will erroneously interpret That the plane was on the ground while still flewing. Kamikaze mode. This false signal automatically activated the “on-aund” control mode in full flight, the aircraft becoming uncontrollable. Luckily, the pilot managed to eject and survived with minor injuries, but the plane, valued in 196.5 million dollarsit was completely lost. Emergency in flight. The problem was immediately manifested: the front train was misaligned at 17 degrees and could not retract. After radio consultations with engineers from Lockheed Martin and a flight supervisor, the pilot tried for almost an hour Reactivate the wheel using two “touch-And-go” maneuvers. However, the ice also blocked the main trains, and at the second attempt the sensors indicated that the aircraft had landed. What happened then? That the system automatically changed to Operation mode on landdrastically reducing the control capacity. The pilot, nicknamed in The “MP” reportmanaged to eject just before the hunt went into loss and fell into chopped. The device came to rise more than 1,000 meters after the ejection, and then rush vertically, in the sequence recorded in a video that went viral. Technical and maintenance factors. The investigation He explained that the ice in the struts, added to the bad alignment of the front -train blocking hook, damaged metal components and prevented the correct system coupling. In addition, and very important, the Wow sensors (Critics in the F-35 Flight Control Logic, known as Claws) showed vulnerability in extreme cold conditions, something that Lockheed Martin already He had warned In previous maintenance bulletins. In other words, the ice “cheated” to the software. The report Underline that water pollution in hydraulic fluids derived from poor management of hazardous materials and breaches in service protocols. These negligence, together with decision -making during the emergency, were considered contributing factors to the accident. Implications and lessons. No doubt, the case has highlighted the complexity inherent in the high F-35 automationwhere a sensor failure can trigger waterfall reactions in the control software. Although nine days later another F-35A was able to land with a similar problem in the train without consequences, the Research Board stressed that, with the available information, the safest option would have been to order an immediate landing or a controlled ejection instead of risking a second attempt to maneuver. Although the report did not issue recommendations Formal policy changes, did highlight the need to reinforce compliance with maintenance protocols, supervision of fluid use and preparation for operations in Arctic environments. Strategic repercussions. In short, the accident, Without fatalitieshighlights the challenges of operating fifth generation fighters in extreme conditions such as Alaska, where temperatures close to –17 ºC can aggravate technical vulnerabilities. Not just that. It also offers a warning to future operators in cold climates, Like Canada and Finlandwhich must consider the reliability of the sensors and the resilience of the control systems in hostile environments. Beyond the technical, the event illustrates how the sophistication of the F-35, with its dependence on algorithms and automation, can become a risk factor in unforeseen emergenciesforcing to rethink the balance between human control and software in new generation military aircraft. Image | US AIR National Guard/Tech. Sgt. Adam Keele In Xataka | It is being a complicated summer for the US F-35: after the “no” of Spain Russia and China have appeared to do more damage In Xataka | A group of countries is being formed after the decision of Spain: those that are closing the door to the US F-35

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