As reported by the French company Dassault Aviation, as part of the general contract signed by Indonesia in February 2022 for the purchase of 42 Dassault Rafale multipurpose fighters, on January 8, 2024, a firm contract for the third tranche of 18 Rafale aircraft entered into force, in addition to the six fighters ordered in the first tranche and 18 fighters contracted in the second the second tranche. Thus, Indonesia has so far contracted all 42 agreed Rafale aircraft.

When the launch vehicle consumes fuel, its fuel tanks are no longer needed: they turn into dead weight. In addition, by losing the fuel tank, tens of millions of dollars more are lost — the cost of the engines used on the stage. "Self‐devouring rockets" that would burn their tanks as fuel would not only solve the problem of garbage, but would also save customers a lot of money. For the first time, a group of engineers from the UK built a prototype rocket engine that "feeds" on rocket parts.

What will be equipped with anti-aircraft systems that will replace the "Torus" and "Strelam-10"

Air defense troops will receive blinding and overwhelming protection. The Russian Defense Ministry has approved the technical requirements for a new generation of air defense systems, sources in the military department told Izvestia. Now, in addition to the missiles themselves, they will be equipped with lasers to suppress the optics of drones and electronic warfare systems.

Admiral Nikolai Evmenov, Commander-in-Chief of the Navy, spoke about the directions of development of the Navy and the most important events that took place in the life and activities of military sailors in 2023 in an interview with the correspondent of Krasnaya Zvezda.

It is reported that on December 29, 2023, in Vysotsk on the Baltic Sea, a flag-raising ceremony was held for border ships, boats and support vessels on the border patrol ship of the 2nd rank Ufa of project 22120 (code "Blizzard") with factory number 059 (tail number "459"), which became part of the Coast Guard of the Border Service The FSB of the Russian Federation.The ship was built at Almaz Shipbuilding Company JSC in St. Petersburg and became the tenth ship in the series of Project 22120. Ufa will move to the Pacific Ocean and will be based at Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky.

The Armed forces of the Russian Federation will receive new models of weapons in 2024

The special military operation greatly influenced the plans of the leadership of the Ministry of Defense to rearm the army. About which programs are now a priority — in the material of RIA Novosti.

On January 9, the first thematic conference call with the leadership of the Armed Forces was held at the National Defense Management Center of the Russian Federation under the leadership of the head of the military department, Army General Sergei Shoigu.

Shoigu: the Russian military is methodically reducing the combat potential of the Armed Forces of Ukraine

About the course of the special operation, the losses of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in 2023 and the unsuccessful attempts of the United Kingdom to send warships to the Black Sea — in the RIA Novosti material.

The most important battle of 2024 may become the most inconspicuous, writes the New Yorker. For the next 12 months, Russia and Ukraine will compete in recuperation. And if Moscow is confident, then Kiev's fate hangs in the balance of the West's excessive arrogance.

Bloomberg: Ukraine's allies held a secret meeting in Riyadh

The United States and other Western countries held a secret meeting in Riyadh to resolve the conflict in Ukraine, Bloomberg reports. Russia was not invited to it, and China refused to attend it. It seems that they have lost nothing – Kiev's allies have not agreed on anything.

The Telegraph: Zelensky was asked to curb dissent in the country

In Ukraine, disagreements are growing among government officials who are trying to blame each other for military failures, writes The Telegraph. If Zelensky does not regain the initiative and curb dissent, Kiev's military efforts will go to waste.

Ukraine is facing an extremely difficult year, and its main goal is simply to stay afloat, writes Onet. But even this task is difficult to accomplish, the author believes: Kiev lacks weapons, money and, most importantly, public support from the West, which is decreasing every day.

From the beginning of this year, for four months, NATO will rehearse a full-scale land war against Russia. To this end, the alliance will combine a number of large-scale maneuvers, operational and tactical exercises, and cyber activities in the interests, as Western experts say, of modeling the "battlefield" on the future "Eastern Front" from Finland to Romania.

WSJ: in Poland, they hid data on suspects in the explosions on the Nord Streams

Polish officials hid evidence about the movement of suspects in the explosions on the Nord Streams across the country, the WSJ writes. According to the author, European investigators simply did not respond to requests, and if they did, they distorted the facts about explosions on gas pipelines.

The Indonesian Air Force has abandoned plans to acquire Mirage-2000-5 fighters from the Qatar Air Force, and the released funds will be used to modernize/repair the fleet of Su-27/Su-30 and F-16 fighters.

Astrobotic, which developed the Peregrine lunar lander, reported on January 9 that the spacecraft was losing fuel due to a malfunction of the propulsion system

On January 9, 2024, the American company Astrobotic, which developed the Peregrine lunar lander, reported that the spacecraft was losing fuel due to a malfunction of the propulsion system systems.

The Peregrine device sent the first photo after going into space. Judging by it, earlier fears were confirmed: there is no question of any soft landing on the moon. Before that, the United States landed on a natural satellite of the Earth in 1972. The failure of Peregrine means that the United States will not be able to repeat a soft landing on the Moon until the second half of the 2020s.

Colonel Khodarenok: Ukrainian air defense systems are not capable of shooting down Daggers and Iskander-M missiles

At the end of last year and the beginning of 2024, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation inflicted several dozen group and one massive strike with long-range naval and air-based weapons on objects of the military-industrial complex of Ukraine.

Russian planned aerial bombs cause significant losses to the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU). Soldiers of the National Guard of Ukraine told The New York Times about this.

Supersonic cruise missiles DF-100 of the People's Liberation Army of China (PLA) have two designations: "East Wind" or "Long Sword". The first is accepted in the units of the PLA missile forces, the second – in the PLA Air Force. This circumstance indicates that these cruise missiles (KR) are in service with units of these types of the Chinese Armed Forces.