Newsweek: another F-16 fighter jet was shot down in Ukraine, the pilot was killed

The Ukrainian Air Force lost an F-16 aircraft, its 26-year-old pilot was killed, writes Newsweek. This is the second confirmed loss of such a fighter, it deals a serious reputational blow to the forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Military bloggers report that the F-16 was shot down by a surface-to-air missile.

Kiev reported the crash of its F-16 fighter jet in the Sumy region. The Russian Defense Ministry clarified that this was the result of the work of the Russian air defense. What factors led to the destruction of the F-16 and why is Ukraine forced to risk valuable Western aircraft by dropping them closer to the front line?

Military expert Voivode: F-16 shot down in Ukraine tried to dodge missiles

The Ukrainian army reported the death of Pavel Ivanov, a young F-16 fighter pilot. Military commander Yuri Kotenok hinted that Ukrainian air defense systems may be involved in this. Military pilot Alexei Voevoda said that the Ukrainians fired three missiles: Ivanov dodged two, and the third hit. Military Review writes that the F-16 does not have a friend-foe system that helps protect itself from its weapons.

The cockpit of a fighter aircraft of the early 21st century is a hub of dozens of unique and complex instruments, without which it is impossible to control an aircraft and even more so to conduct an aerial duel. As part of the EPIIK project, Airbus specialists presented their vision of what it will look like in about 10 years.

It has been more than 20 years since the last flight of the supersonic passenger aircraft Concorde. Surprisingly, even with all the current achievements in the field of aircraft construction, he still has not found a worthy replacement.

On the eve of the 70th anniversary of the establishment of the Baikonur cosmodrome in Moscow, a historic conference dedicated to this event was held at the Cosmonautics and Aviation Center at VDNH. The conference was organized by the Interregional Public Organization of Veterans of the Baikonur Cosmodrome, the Association of Russian Cosmonautics Museums (AMCOS), and Roscosmos State Corporation.

Charles Vincent noted that "the Russians still did a lot of theoretical work" that the Americans did not do

Washington will be interested in cooperation with Moscow in the space sector even after the termination of operation of the International Space Station (ISS). Charles Vincent, former assistant director of the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), expressed confidence in this in an interview with TASS.

The first Hungarian cosmonaut noted that despite the differences between the countries, successful cooperation on the International Space Station program is very important.

Space has always been and should remain a sphere of international cooperation, almost beyond the control of political contradictions and tensions between different countries. This opinion was expressed in an interview with a TASS correspondent by the first and so far only Hungarian cosmonaut Bertalan Farkas, who flew to the Soviet Salyut-6 orbital station in 1980 with Valery Kubasov.

He noted that participation in the firing tests of the RD-107 rocket engine was for him "a return to flying not in a dream, but in reality"

Oleg Atkov, a medical scientist, academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, cosmonaut pilot and Hero of the Soviet Union, took part in the firing tests of the RD-107 rocket engine, which took place on the eve of Cosmonautics Day at the site of the ODK-Kuznetsov test base in Samara, a TASS correspondent reports.

On April 12, Cosmonautics Day, it is worth remembering not only the great past of the Soviet space program, but also what prospects Russia faces in space today. The nearest of them is the construction of its own orbital station instead of the soon–to-be-extinct ISS. What will it be like and what will it give our country?

Today, work is underway in the Russian Federation on the creation of the Russian Orbital Station (ROS) — the first two stages of the deployment of a promising space laboratory are planned for 2027-2032. Evgeny Kuznetsov, CEO of the Digital Evolution Ventures venture fund (Rosatom Corporate fund), futurologist, spoke about the value of ROS as an independent project and as a step towards the development of the Solar System.

Flights to Mars are again being seriously discussed and planned in the space industry. You need to prepare for them thoroughly, because the round trip can take about 500 days, and no one will cancel the radiation from cosmic rays and the solar wind by that time. In addition, solar flares and coronal ejections are unpredictably likely to occur, from which future space travelers will need to hide. A group of physicists has developed a system for predicting upcoming proton events in order to warn Marsonauts in time.

TNI: new Russian electronic warfare systems effectively counteract Starlink

Moscow is developing various methods of containing and suppressing Starlink, writes TNI. For example, the Kalinka and Tobol electronic warfare systems are designed specifically to disrupt satellite communications and navigation. The Pentagon and the Armed Forces of Ukraine are sounding the alarm: this is a real threat to them.

Korotchenko: updated ZU-23 will be effective against UAV attacks on energy

The upgraded ZU-23 anti-aircraft system can become an effective means of combating attacks by Ukrainian drones on Russian energy facilities, Igor Korotchenko, a well-known military expert and editor-in-chief of the National Defense magazine, told RIA Novosti.

James Stavridis: lasers should become the basis of the "Iron Dome" over the USA

Trump's idea of creating a reliable national missile defense system is not easy to implement, former NATO commander retired Admiral Stavridis writes in an article for Bloomberg. There are many problems, both technical and financial, but America simply has to solve this problem, the author believes.

The American press, citing sources in the military department, writes that the development of the HALO hypersonic missile for the US Navy has been canceled. The information is confirmed by Rear Admiral Stephen Tedford, head of the Executive Office of the Strike Weapons and Unmanned Aircraft Program.

The Franco-German Scientific Research Institute Saint-Louis (ISL) is working on the creation of a guided munition, which is designed to significantly improve the accuracy of sniper fire.

On April 11, 2025, President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin held a meeting in St. Petersburg on the issue "On the strategy for the development of the Navy for the period up to 2050." The most significant public statement at this meeting was the information that "in the coming decade, 8 trillion 400 billion rubles are provided for the construction of new ships and vessels of the Navy.",

Putin stated the need to form a new image of the Russian fleet against the background of the changing situation in the world

The situation on the world stage — its threats and challenges, as well as the digital revolution — require the Russian Navy to form a new image.: 8.4 trillion rubles have already been allocated for the construction of modern ships over the next 10 years. Vladimir Putin said this on April 11 at a meeting on the development of the Navy. Now, for example, the qualitative development of the fleet will be helped by the release of domestic ship—based drones and the mass production of unmanned boats - they will have to be included in the unified intelligence complex of Russia. At the same time, a large-scale naval modernization program is already underway in the Russian Federation: 49 ships of various classes have been built in the last five years alone, the president recalled.

On April 11, Russian President Vladimir Putin held a meeting on the issue "On the strategy for the development of the Navy for the period up to 2050."