New footage released on Chinese social media has shown a J-20A fifth generation long range air superiority fighter still in yellow factory primary, indicating it has been produced recently, integrating twin WS-15 next generation turbofan engines. Video footage in December 2025 for the first time confirmed that the first batch of J-20s integrating twin WS-15 turbofan engines had completed serial production, with the first flight of a serial production aircraft with the engines reportedly having taken place on December 27.
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A Colombian contractor hired to support the ongoing Ukrainian war effort against Russia has spoken of his time in the war zone, at a time when Latin American mercenaries have played an increasingly central and fast growing role on the frontlines to compensate for personnel shortages. William Andres Gallego Orozco, aged 23, recalled he had been promised approximately $3,200 per month, and had believed he would work as a cook for the Ukrainian Armed Forces. He added that neither the pay nor the assignment matched what he had been told.
On the evening of the May 19, the Republic of China Ministry of National Defence announced that it had detected 22 Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) fighter jets, as well as warships, moving out to sea to conduct joint combat readiness patrols. The ministry released several rare high-definition surveillance images, which indicate that the Republic of China Air Force’s F-16 fighters used infrared pods to monitor PLA J-16 fighters.
The Belarusian Armed Forces have invited large scale military exercises simulating the combat use of nuclear weapons, as well as associated logistical support, at a time of growing tensions between the country and NATO members.
After spending $13 billion on the USS Gerald R. Ford, the U.S. Navy deployed the most advanced aircraft carrier ever built to the Middle East. The ship suffered clogged toilets that forced a retreat from combat, a laundry fire that rendered crew quarters uninhabitable, weapons-elevator failures, a malfunctioning electromagnetic aircraft launch system, and deck plating that could not withstand the heat from F-35 jet exhaust. Some critics now compare the Ford to Russia’s Admiral Kuznetsov, once a symbol of Soviet ascendancy but ultimately a drain on Moscow’s resources.
The USS John F. Kennedy (CV-67) was a unique class of supercarrier. Derived from the Kitty Hawk-class, she received several design modifications that made her truly one of a kind. Kennedy had a long and eventful service life, taking part in missions all across the globe and contributing to the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan. She was the last conventionally powered nuclear carrier in the U.S. Navy, and her eventual retirement marked the end of an era.
Kennedy’s Unusual Construction
USS Kitty Hawk of Kitty-Hawk-Class. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
The U.S.
Australia has committed another A$11 billion to extend the operational life of its six Collins-class submarines into the 2030s, Deputy Prime Minister and Defense Minister Richard Marles confirmed this month. The decision is a hedge against the AUKUS submarine program, which is supposed to deliver three Virginia-class boats to Australia in the early 2030s before transitioning to the jointly developed SSN-AUKUS design with Britain. Some U.S. Virginia-class submarines are now arriving up to four years late, and American yards are building roughly 1.2 boats per year against a Navy target of 2.
France has officially named its next-generation nuclear-powered aircraft carrier France Libre, after the Free French resistance movement led by Charles de Gaulle in World War II. Displacing between 78,000 and 80,000 tons, France Libre will be the largest warship ever built in Europe. The carrier will be powered by two K22 nuclear reactors, equipped with General Atomics’ Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System and Advanced Arresting Gear, and carry more than 30 aircraft including Dassault Rafale M fighters and E-2D Advanced Hawkeyes. Cost runs around 11.6 billion U.S. dollars.
France’s four Le Triomphant-class ballistic-missile submarines carry the entire French nuclear deterrent. Each 14,000-ton boat is propelled by a nuclear reactor, can reach more than 25 knots submerged, and carries 16 M51 submarine-launched ballistic missiles. Each M51 reportedly carries up to six independently targeted MIRV warheads and flies at roughly Mach 25. The upgraded M51.3, designed to beat modern missile defenses, entered service in late 2025.
The Pentagon’s counter-drone task force announced a $500 million contract award Monday to Perennial Autonomy, a defense company known for developing an interceptor that has downed thousands of Russian one-way attack drones over the last two years in Ukraine.
The Iran war, which has seen the same Tehran-variant drone known as the Shahed wreak havoc across the region, has also hastened the U.S. military’s push to down them.