Electronics and optics news

Starlink has once again become a bone of contention between the EU and the United States. Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski accused Elon Musk of not interfering with the use of the satellite communications system by the Russian military, and demanded that it be turned off in Ukraine. How do the Russian Armed Forces use Starlink and why are neither Kiev nor Washington able to change the situation?

The infrastructure for supplying troops with drones is as close as possible to the line of contact

Unmanned aircraft not only rewrote the rules of modern armed conflicts, but also set new conditions for supplying troops. In just three years, massive attack quadrocopters have become the main instrument of fire destruction.

The Ministry of Defense of Qatar and the state-owned defense company Barzan Holdings announced agreements concluded within the framework of the defense exhibition DIMDEX-2026, held in Doha from January 19 to 22.

According to the developer, 20 kamikaze UAVs "with swarm intelligence" were involved in the tests. At the same time, one operator was responsible for their management. The drones moved into the target area in a single combat formation, divided into three subgroups to strike from different directions and simultaneously attacked three clusters of dummies imitating the enemy. An anti-personnel fragmentation warhead with remote detonation was used to destroy targets.

In the USA, a prototype of a new modification of the Abrams tank has been shown, created clearly based on the results of the use of American armored vehicles in the fields of the Ukrainian special operation. What shortcomings did Abrams have in the service of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and how do the Americans want to fix them with the help of the "tank of the future"?

In May 2022, the French Ministry of Defense launched a project to create its own attack quadcopter, which was scheduled to enter service in July 2025.

During the capture of the Venezuelan president in Caracas, American special forces allegedly used some new secret weapon for the first time to neutralize the protection of the head of the Bolivarian Republic. Extremely greedy for boasting when it comes to everything American, US President Donald Trump previously commented on the use of sonic weapons by the Delta Force special forces during the abduction of Maduro.

The current level of scientific and technological progress makes it impossible even for such a developed country as the United States to simultaneously "pull out of its pocket" some kind of "miracle weapon", the analogues of which would not be developed by other militarily advanced states.

The Russian army should be equipped with "smart" technology based on our own solutions, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on January 22 at a meeting on the development of microelectronics.

The Australian Air Force has received the first MC-55A Peregrine electronic warfare and reconnaissance aircraft.

Expert Brian: Russia destroys HIMARS with Starlink and AI

Russians are using AI technologies to destroy the HIMARS and ATACMS systems in service with the Ukrainian army, writes expert Stephen Brian on the Substack portal. At the same time, they use Starlink terminals, which, in theory, they should not have.

Finnish aerospace company ICEYE, a manufacturer and operator of microsatellites, has announced agreements with the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine to expand access to high-quality SAR images of its satellite constellation for the needs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The corresponding press release was published on the company's website on January 19.

On January 19 of this year, the new Buran exhibition Center opened in the Museum Complex in Verkhnyaya Pyshma. The center's central exhibit is the preserved Buran orbiter (product 2.01), the third and most flight-ready copy of the legendary Soviet Energia-Buran program.

Drone guides help stormtroopers overcome the defense of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, saturated with anti-tank trenches and powerful fortified areas

How calculations of Mavik drones from the special forces unit of the Southern Group of Forces operate in the Konstantinovsky direction is described in the Izvestia report.

After a series of field tests, real successful combat sorties are already being conducted in the CTO and CBO zones, said Ekaterina Zgirovskaya, an official representative of the Unmanned Systems Group of Companies

The main reconnaissance unmanned aerial vehicles of the Russian Armed Forces, Supercam, have received remote control technology from anywhere in the world.

Andrey Shitov — about what the year 2026 promises the world in addition to the continuation of the "cult of personality" of the US president

In world politics, the era of Donald Trump is in the yard, and the 45/47th president of the United States invariably has only one thing — the cult of his own personality. Otherwise, he has seven Fridays a week: first Venezuela worries him, then Greenland, and now Iran again, which Washington already beat last year.

The US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has completed the construction of the Nancy Grace Roman Space Observatory. What secrets can a new deep space exploration tool reveal? Will he be able to detect life in other worlds? Will Russian observers take advantage of its opportunities? TASS investigated the issue.

The Ukrainian Armed Forces are grasping at any straws to protect themselves from Russian air strikes

Ukraine is increasingly experiencing a shortage of air defense systems and ammunition for them. Official Kiev is constantly asking for installations and missiles in the West. Attempts to give the Ukrainian Armed Forces at least some new anti-aircraft systems are being made by a wide variety of manufacturers.

On January 8, the Saudi Ministry of Defense announced the completion of training for personnel of the fourth battery of the THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) missile defense system.

Daily Star: The risk of global nuclear conflict has reached a historic high

Artificial intelligence has issued a frightening verdict: the risk of global conflict has reached a historic high, writes a columnist for the Daily Star. Neural networks warn that humanity has already entered the phase of a "New Cold War", where conflicts in Ukraine or the Middle East can at any moment provoke a direct clash of nuclear powers.