DefenceTalkBerlin will provide Ukraine more armored vehicles and rocket launch systems but not the battle tanks sought by Kyiv for its counter-offensive against Russia, Germany’s defence minister said Thursday. Germany will supply two Mars II multiple-rocket launch systems, 200 missiles and 50 armored “Dingo” troop carriers, Christine Lambrecht said. Soviet-made BMP-1 infantry fighting vehicles will […]https://www.defencetalk.com/germany-to-send-more-weapons-to-ukraine-but-not-tanks-79415/

DefenceTalkLife may seem tranquil on Japan’s remote Yonaguni island, where wild horses graze and tourists dive to spot hammerhead sharks, but China’s recent huge military exercises have rattled residents. The western island is just 110 kilometres (70 miles) from Taiwan, and a Chinese missile fired during the drills last month landed not far from Yonaguni’s […]https://www.defencetalk.com/chinese-moves-on-taiwan-rattle-remote-japanese-island-79409/

DefenceTalkEthiopia’s northern region of Tigray was hit by an air strike on Tuesday, local officials said, two days after rebel authorities there said they were ready for a ceasefire. The reported drone strike on the regional capital Mekele left at least one person injured, said Kibrom Gebreselassie, a senior official at Ayder Referral Hospital, the […]https://www.defencetalk.com/air-strike-on-ethiopias-tigray-rebels-hospital-79397/

DefenceTalkThe Russian military said Tuesday it had launched “massive strikes” on all front lines in Ukraine, after Kyiv’s forces made dramatic advances in a counter-offensive. “Air, rocket and artillery forces are carrying out massive strikes on units of the Ukrainian armed forces in all operational directions,” the Russian defence ministry said in its daily briefing […]https://www.defencetalk.com/russia-says-delivering-massive-strikes-on-ukraine-front-lines-79394/

DefenceTalkWestern governments are mobilizing their arms manufacturers to ramp up production and replenish stockpiles heavily diminished by supplying Ukraine’s six-month-old battle against Russia’s invasion. US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced this week a meeting of senior national armaments directors from allied countries to make long-term plans for supplying Ukraine and rebuilding their own arms reserves. […]https://www.defencetalk.com/western-arms-production-to-ramp-up-as-ukraine-burns-through-stockpiles-79388/

DefenceTalkWith Ukraine dependent on Western military aid following Russia’s invasion and Moscow burning through stocks and under sanctions, both sides fear exhausting their shells, bombs and missiles, experts say. Moscow’s economic exclusion means it is “having to buy artillery rounds from North Korea”, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told reporters recently, pointing to deals for “millions […]https://www.defencetalk.com/both-sides-in-ukraine-war-face-ammunition-squeeze-79369/

DefenceTalkThe United States on Thursday approved another $2 billion in loans and grants for Ukraine and its neighbors to buy US military equipment, the State Department said. The new aid from the Foreign Military Financing program is in addition to $675 million in fresh direct aid to Ukraine announced earlier Thursday by Defense Secretary Lloyd […]https://www.defencetalk.com/us-approves-2-bn-military-loans-and-grants-to-ukraine-neighbors-79349/

DefenceTalkTaiwan said a Chinese military reconnaissance drone entered its air defence zone on Monday, the latest incursion as relations between the two neighbours remain tense. The drone, identified by Taipei’s defence ministry as a BZK-007 vehicle, crossed into the southwest corner of the island’s air defence identification zone (ADIZ) along with eight Chinese warplanes. Taiwan’s […]https://www.defencetalk.com/taiwan-says-chinese-military-drone-entered-air-defence-zone-79333/

DefenceTalkAround a hundred German soldiers arrived in Lithuania on Sunday, after Germany pledged to bolster its presence on NATO’s eastern flank following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The troops drove off the ferry in the port city of Klaipeda. They were to make up the command unit of a new brigade, a group usually made up […]https://www.defencetalk.com/more-german-troops-begin-arriving-in-lithuania-79320/

DefenceTalkTaipei and Beijing have traded barbs over a recent string of drone sorties from the Chinese mainland to an outlying Taiwanese island, as Taiwan’s president Tuesday vowed “strong countermeasures” against such incursions. Photos and video taken by Chinese drones of the Kinmen islands have been circulating on both Taiwanese and Chinese social media, with one […]https://www.defencetalk.com/taiwan-china-trade-barbs-over-island-drone-incursions-79252/