Russia has deployed at least 60 tanks, supported by infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs), and self-propelled howitzers (SPHs) from the Moscow area to Maslovka railway station south of the city of Voronezh and less than 250 km from the Ukrainian border...

The US State Department has urged the Chinese government to join a dialogue on nuclear arms control following the publication of a Pentagon report stating that China is rapidly expanding its nuclear weapon capabilities and intends to have “at least...

Employees of US federal government contractors, including defence companies, will receive almost an additional month to comply with a mandate that they be fully vaccinated against Covid-19, the Biden administration announced on 4 November.  Instead...

US President Joe Biden addresses the COP26 climate change conference on 2 November 2021 in Glasgow, Scotland. In addition to appointing a dedicated climate change adviser, Biden has called on the intelligence community to work on the issue. (Jeff J Mitchell/Pool/Getty Images)  Tricia Geddes, Deputy Director for Policy at the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), told the Canadian Association for Security and Intelligence Studies symposium on 3 November that the agency foresaw a role for itself in tackling the impacts of climate chang...

The collective presence of NATO naval forces deployed across the Euro-Atlantic theatre is currently giving the alliance a ‘two-to-one' numerical advantage at sea over its competitors, according to the head of Allied Maritime Command (MARCOM).  “Tod...

Several road-mobile DF-41 ICBM systems on display during a military parade held at Tiananmen Square in Beijing on 1 October 2019. According to the Pentagon's ‘2021 China Military Report', Beijing is rapidly increasing its nuclear arsenal and also considering additional launch options for the DF-41, including silos. (Zoya Rusinova/TASS via Getty Images)  China is expanding its nuclear weapon capabilities much faster than US officials had predicted a year ago, the US Department of Defense (DoD) said in its 2021 report on military and security d...

Spain's state holding company Sociedad Estatal de Participaciones Industriales (SEPI) has approved EUR34 million (USD39.4 million) in loans to help troubled aerospace and defence parts supplier Airtificial.  The money is due to come from a support...

The intersection between National and Climate Security is getting closer than ever before. As the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference, also known as COP26, opens in Glasgow, Janes has pulled together the latest open-source intelligence on the ongoing threats to national security that climate issues pose...Tracking climate change through open-source data  Large wildfires have spread throughout the world in mid-2021, in part attributed to climate change and the direct and long-term risk that it poses to lives, livelihoods, and ecosystem...

The Russian Central Military District's (CMD's) 41st Combined Arms Army has begun withdrawing equipment from the Pogonovo training ground south of Voronezh city and loading it on to trains at Maslovka railway station.  Video and imagery sourced fro...

US President Joe Biden said on 21 October that the United States is committed to defending Taiwan if the island were to be attacked by China.  However, the remarks, which seemed to mark a departure from Washington's long-held policy of ‘strategic a...

A woman consults the website of the Israeli NSO Group, makers of Pegasus spyware, in Nicosia, Cyprus, on 21 July 2021. NSO Group has denied media reports that its Pegasus software is linked to the mass surveillance of journalists and human rights defenders, and insisted that all sales of its technology are approved by Israel's Ministry of Defence. (Mario Goldman/AFP via Getty Images)  A high-profile case in a UK court has drawn attention to the role of private companies in providing offensive cyber capabilities to foreign governments. A UK Hi...

Russian Airborne Forces (VDV) order of battle, 2025 (Janes/Mark Galeotti)    The ‘winged infantry' of Russia's Air Assault Troops (Vozdushno Desantniye Voyska: VDV) is an arm of service in its own right, with a strength of 45,000 paratroopers and rising, as well as a distinctive culture and  esprit de corps  . With its blue berets and blue striped telnyashka vests, the VDV is a fixture of parades and military open days, but it has long suffered from a tension in its roles.   Historically, parachute divisions were envisaged...

NATO's newly approved Concept for Deterrence and Defence of the Euro-Atlantic Area calls for “the right forces at the right place at the right time”, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters on 21 October. (NATO)  NATO defence ministers agreed on the first day of their 21–22 October meeting in Brussels to fundamentally change how they protect their collective territory against attacks, especially from Russia and terrorist groups. Their newly approved Concept for Deterrence and Defence of the Euro-Atlantic Area lays the groundwo...

Reports indicate 11 Russian-backed contractors have been killed in the Central African Republic (CAR) since August: the first consistent reports of Russian fatalities since their deployment in 2018.  Correlating reports from local news organizations, Janes has identified four instances that resulted in the deaths of Russian-backed contractors.  Most recently, on 12 October, five foreign contractors were killed in an ambush laid by rebels in the Bombo area in western CAR. Three contractors were reportedly killed in an ambush near Bombo on 2 Oc...

Vendors trade heroin and hashish at a drug market on the outskirts of Kandahar, Afghanistan, on 24 September 2021. Although the country's economy is close to collapse, opium traders claim that prices for their goods have skyrocketed since the Taliban takeover. (Bulent Kilic/AFP via Getty Images)  India's Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) on 21 September announced that nearly three tonnes of heroin had been seized at the port of Mundra in Gujarat state. According to the BBC, the consignment had originated from Afghanistan, was transshi...

US-based Rocket Lab has continued to expand beyond its core business of launch vehicles by acquiring Advanced Solutions Inc (ASI), which develops flight software for spacecraft, Rocket Lab announced on 12 October.  ASI will become part of Rocket La...

French Minister for the Armed Forces Florence Parly addresses the International Cybersecurity Forum (FIC) on 22 January 2019 in Lille, France. At the 2021 iteration of the FIC, Parly announced an increase in the country's recruitment of ‘cyber-combatants'. (Sylvain Lefevre/Getty Images)  At the International Cybersecurity Forum (Forum International de Cybersécurité: FIC) in Lille on 7 July 2021, French Minister for the Armed Forces Florence Parly announced an additional recruitment effort by the Ministry. In addition to 1,100 new job openings...

Jonathan Toebbe, an engineer for the US Navy (USN) Naval Reactors, and his wife Diana, both of Annapolis, Maryland, were arrested on 9 October in Jefferson County, West Virginia, by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the US Naval Crimina...

A report on the Western Sahara released by the UN Secretary General on 8 October confirmed that Western Saharan rebels have been carrying out attacks against Moroccan forces since they renounced the 30-year ceasefire in November 2020.  Since then,...

North Korea's Academy of Defence Science (ADS) has test-launched what it claims to be a newly developed surface-to-air missile.  The test-launch was conducted on 30 September to confirm the “general combat functions” of the missile and its accompan...