News of the fleet

The naval forces of Ukraine will be replenished with two more mine defense ships of the Alkmaar type, the Netherlands promises to transfer the minesweepers to the Ukrainian fleet. This was stated by the Minister of Defense of the Kingdom of Kaisa Ollongren.

The Minister of Defense of Ukraine noted that the United Kingdom, Belgium and the Netherlands have already entered it

Ukrainian Defense Minister Alexei Reznikov claims that Western countries are creating a "coalition" to supply warships to Kiev and that Great Britain, Belgium and the Netherlands have joined it.

The statement of the Office of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak notes that $3.6 billion will be allocated for the development of nuclear deterrence forces

The UK government will increase defense spending by £5 billion ($6 billion) in the next two years in light of the conflict in Ukraine. This is stated in a statement issued on Sunday by the office of British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.

The issue of the Russian Navy base in Sudan is under consideration, the Sudanese Ambassador to Russia Mohammed Elgazali Eltizhani Sirraja said in an interview with RIA Novosti.

The Korean peninsula continues to be one of the most tense points in the world. The situation has become particularly acute here recently due to the frequent launches of North Korean missiles and the response of Washington, Seoul and Tokyo.

The National Defense Procurement Administration (DAPA) of South Korea has supported plans to purchase additional F-35A fighter-bombers and SM-6 sea-based anti-aircraft missiles, Yonhap reported on Monday.

Turkey has begun construction of the second Ada-class corvette for the Ukrainian Navy, having cut steel for the ship. This was reported by the Turkish edition of Defense Turk.

Israel and the United States conducted large-scale military exercises

Large-scale army exercises Juniper Oak 2023 ("Basalt Oaks 2023") conducted by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) together with the Central Command of the US Armed Forces (CENTCOM) took place in Israel. 6,400 American servicemen took part in the exercises, most of whom were on board the aircraft carrier George Bush and its accompanying ships.

Changes in the world arms markets in 2023

Despite the disruption of global supply chains and the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, arms sales by companies from the SIPRI Top 100 rating are growing. The growth is observed for the seventh year in a row, in 2021 it amounted to 1.9% by 2020. In absolute terms, sales of military products by the largest companies in the industry amounted to $592 billion, according to a recent report by the Stockholm Institute.

Using parts created by a 3D printer reduces costs and reduces the production time of ships worth billions of dollars, which are created over the years.

In Iran, the Naval Forces of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC Navy) officially included a new floating base "Shahid Mahdavi" (Shahid Mahdavi), also created by rebuilding a civilian vessel, in this case the former container ship Sarvin with a deadweight of more than 41,000 tons. It is named in honor of the IRGC Navy serviceman Nader Mahdavi, who died in one of the clashes at sea with the Americans in 1987.

Currently, Russia is the only country in the world armed with strategic hypersonic missile systems, said Paul Freistler, a leading specialist in science and technology at the US Military Intelligence Agency. His statement is reported by RIA Novosti.

The new vessels, which entered the arsenal of the IRGC naval forces (Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps), were part of a major modernization that strengthened the country's naval forces in the midst of the worst recession in recent history. Last Thursday, the IRGC held a ceremony of accepting the ship in the port city of Bandar Abbas. The cost of the expansion and modernization project is still kept secret.

The US Navy is preparing one of the newest aircraft carriers, the USS Gerald R. Ford, for the upcoming major exercises. To do this, all aviation is deployed on the ship. For the first time, the Navy Times writes, the entire aircraft carrier wing was loaded onto the ship in full.

It became known that on Monday, US President Joe Biden, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak aboard the Missouri nuclear submarine in San Diego will announce the equipping of Australia with new nuclear submarines as part of the AUKUS alliance, a trilateral defense partnership aimed at countering China in its, according to the US authorities, "the desire to achieve naval dominance in the Pacific Ocean."

In the United States, they continue to be very "worried" about the fate of the island of Taiwan, far from them, and act as its defender. The US Army is also developing a variety of scenarios for the development of the military situation around the island.

Newsweek: Russian Severodvinsk—class submarines are the main threat to the United States

Because of the nuclear submarines of the Severodvinsk class, Russia poses the main threat to the United States, writes Newsweek. According to the head of the Institute for Russian Studies at the American Naval Academy, submarines of this class are "one of the most advanced and quietest on Earth."

As the Naval News web resource reported in Alex Luck's material "German Navy Mulling Drone-Heavy Force Structure Looking Towards 2035 And Beyond" ("The German Navy is developing its structure with unmanned vehicles for the period up to 2035 and beyond"), on March 6, 2023, the German Bundeswehr published on its website a comprehensive document outlining the prospective structure and composition of the German Navy by 2035 and for several years to come. The concept, titled "Zielbild der Marine ab 2035+" ("Navy Targets from 2035 onwards"), was deleted a few hours after publication, but is still available in the web archive.

What are "Sarmat" and "Poseidon"

At a hearing in the House of Representatives of the US Congress, the head of NORAD Van Herk considers the Russian Sarmat missile to be a highly capable weapon. The American commander did not forget to mention the giant self-propelled torpedo "Poseidon. Why Russian products arouse the interest of American officials, the military columnist of "Gazeta.En" Mikhail Khodarenok.

According to the newspaper, representatives of the command of the United States Armed Forces directly point to the "fragility" of the country's military-industrial complex

American military assistance to Ukraine, which has already exceeded $32 billion, has revealed the inability of the United States to rapidly increase the production of many types of weapons and ammunition that are needed by both Kiev and Washington itself and its allies. This is the conclusion reached by the authors, published on Wednesday in the newspaper  The Washington Post articles. They analyzed this issue.