Defense

MILAN — NATO officials have been tracking a decrease in Russia’s naval presence in the Mediterranean, which officials have attributed to readiness problems and the Baltic Sea and High North regions demanding greater attention in Moscow’s eyes. Gone are the days when Russia positioned one of its largest naval task forces in the Mediterranean, following escalating tensions in 2018 in Syria…

PARIS — India agreed to buy multi-role missiles manufactured by Thales in the United Kingdom in a deal worth £350 million ($468 million), the U.K. government said on Thursday. The deal to deliver the Lightweight Multirole Missile to the Indian Army was signed during U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s two-day visit to Mumbai, paving the way for a broader partnership in complex weapons that the…

The U.S. Navy is scavenging for spare parts from grounded materiel in order to address maintenance needs, a new government watchdog report found. The problem arises from gaps in the Defense Department’s data rights for weapon systems that force Navy maintainers to rely on vendors for parts, which in turn can balloon maintenance timelines. In the event of these repair delays, the service…

CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand — Two air forces fly the Chinese-manufactured J-10 fighter – China and Pakistan – but a third nation could soon become an operator of this 4.5-generation jet. Air Chief Marshal Hasan Mahmood Khan, Bangladesh’s top air force officer, announced last month that his country’s interim government had given an in-principle approval for the purchase of “multirole…