The Army spent almost half-a-billion dollars on a Texas ammunition factory to restock the military’s supply of 155 mm artillery shells, but the facility has yet to produce a single round in two years, a Pentagon watchdog found. The facility, in Mesquite, Texas, was brought online in 2024 after rounds of rapid-fire contracting to speed up the Army’s efforts to replenish artillery shells sent to Ukraine and cover increased training needs for U.S. forces.
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has claimed that China privately intervened in the Russia-Ukraine conflict and warned Moscow not to even consider using nuclear weapons.
The shock revelation would be the clearest reported intervention by the Chinese into the Ukraine invasion yet and reveals a significant rift between the two allies.
Ukraine Cruise Missile 2026. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
As the current war in the Middle East continues to heat up, other parties are starting to get involved.
In a somewhat unusual episode, Saudi Arabia has exchanged fire with the Houthi rebels in Yemen, rekindling old fires that have been calm for several years now.
(August 1, 2025) The Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Wayne E. Meyer (DDG 108) approaches the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Nimitz (CVN 68) for a replenishment-at-sea in the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility. (Official U.S.
Foreign Policy reports that Ukraine’s long-range drone campaign has reached Russia’s largest refinery at Omsk, highlighting a broader strategy of attacking the country’s energy infrastructure.
Shifting Strategy
Ukraine DART Weapon Image Credit Ukraine Military
Ukraine Artillery Strike. Ukrainian Armed Forces Photo.
Early in the war, Ukrainian strikes focused largely on ammunition depots, headquarters, logistics hubs, and occupied territory. Today, increasingly capable long-range drones are reaching hundreds of kilometers, or even thousands, into Russia.
U.S. Africa Command plans to set up a new training and technology testing center in Morocco over the next few years that officials said will help African military partners combat terrorism, including through the use of drones and emerging systems.
The Africa Multidomain Training and Experimentation Center, or AMTEC, will open in Tan-Tan on the southwestern coast of Morocco by 2030, according to an Africom press release, which announced that Morocco and the command had signed a memorandum of understanding to establish the new facility.
A long essay today from the publication War on the Rocks posits that Russia will now expand the size of its force to gain back the initiative in its thus-far failed war in Ukraine.
The authors point out that Moscow’s military expanded severalfold after the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, leading the reader to believe that this model of force expansion can be repeated.
T-14 Armata. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
Main battle tank T-14 object 148 on heavy unified tracked platform Armata. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
Russian forces, taking advantage of a dearth of Ukrainian air defense missiles, unleashed a large drone and missile attack on the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv early Tuesday morning. The attack set large fires in two of Kyiv’s districts.
The city’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said early on Tuesday that air defense units were attempting to shoot down the attacks. He added that fires had broken out in the Holosiivskyi district of the city after the strikes.
Putin Warns Of Massive Escalation – But What Will It Be? Russian President Vladimir Putin has responded to Ukraine’s intensifying long-range strike campaign by warning that his military will respond in a way that is several times more powerful than Kyiv’s most recent strikes.
Per the TASS news agency, President Putin made the remarks during a speech after attending a military exhibition in Moscow on July 13. During the visit, the Russian leader promised that Ukraine will “feel increasingly greater blows in the future.”
Putin June 2026 Kremlin Photo Handout.
Few technology developments have turned the military’s acquisition and deployment requirements upside down more than the advent of cheap drones.
Defense officials have made major strides in deploying unmanned air and sea craft over the past decade. The rescue of downed helicopter pilots in the Strait of Hormuz by an autonomous Corsair maritime vessel earlier this month illustrated how years of investment appear to be paying off.
The latest round of awards for the U.S. military’s Accelerate the Procurement and Fielding of Innovative Technologies program has a total value exceeding half a billion dollars, including more than $70 million for software capabilities, according to a list of deals announced Tuesday.
Those totals do not include classified procurements, a Defense Department press release noted.