🇺🇸⚓️ Trump Class Battleships Will Be Nuclear Powered

Equipping the Trump class with nuclear propulsion presents benefits, but also massive challenges, and Navy officials had been pushing back against the idea.

The U.S. Navy says its future Trump class battleships are now set to be nuclear-powered. This is a huge development that will impact the cost and complexity of the design. With those issues in mind, now-former Secretary of the Navy John Phelan had said this was “unlikely” to happen just four weeks ago.

The Navy announced its intention to fit a nuclear propulsion system to the Trump class warships in its latest annual shipbuilding plan, which was released earlier today. The document also refers to these future large surface combatants as BBGNs, or nuclear-powered (N) guided-missile (G) battleships (BB). USNI News was first to report on this development.

The only nuclear-powered surface vessels in the Navy’s fleet today are its Nimitz and Ford class aircraft carriers. The service has not had a nuclear-powered surface combatant since the 1990s. During that decade, the one-of-a-kind cruiser USS Long Beach, destroyer USS Truxtun (later recategorized as a cruiser), and frigate USS Bainbridge, as well as two California class and four Virginia class cruisers (the latter not to be confused with the subsequent Virginia class of attack submarines) all left active duty. Nuclear propulsion offers functionally unlimited range, as well as a major boost in onboard power generation. It also comes with cost and complexity, in terms of a ship’s core design, and what it takes to operate and maintain it. We will come back to those issues later on.

The Navy has now outlined plans to acquire 15 Trump class BBGNs, one virtually every other year, between Fiscal Year 2028 and 2055. Two are also set to be ordered back-to-back in Fiscal Years 2030 and 2031. An initial official estimate has put the price tag of each of these ships at $17 billion. This is more than what the service expects to spend on each of the next three Ford class aircraft carriers, the projected unit costs of which range from roughly $13 to $15 billion.

🔗 https://www.twz.com/sea/trump-class-battleships-will-be-nuclear-powered

🇷🇺⚔️🇺🇦 Over the past few days, Russian deep reconnaissance groups (DRGs) infiltrated the village of Molocharka, showing that they have consolidated their presence in the village of Novodimitryevka.

Through Molocharka is where the AFU supplies the garrison defending Chasov Yar which holds the keys to Konstantinovka.

The Russians have been unable to take the hills east of Konstantinovka until two weeks ago when they were able to infiltrate Novodimitryevka and consolidate control over the village. Logistics for the Ukrainians in this sector are terrible as is but losing those hills would make the positions in Chasov Yar and Konstantinovka untenable.

At the same time, Russian troops have been infiltrating the city from the southwest pushed as far as the downtown.

The situation resembles the battle for Pokrovsk in its late stages in late September-early October 2025.

While it is still possible for the AFU to stabilize the situation and prevent a sudden fall, they would need to pull off the experienced brigades used to stabilise the front near Volchansk and Kupiansk, Kharkov Oblast, which would inevitably lead to the Russians making gains in those areas and would mean those experienced brigades would be exposed to high casualty rates if sent into Konstantinvoka.

The battle for the city began in October 2025. What's happening right now is the result of ~8 months of assaults and shelling by the RuAF.

🔗 Maps by Vitaly, Playfra and CKMapss

🇦🇪🤝🇮🇱 Netanyahu made a secret trip to the UAE and met with MBZ during the war with Iran.

The visit likely took place on March 26, when two private jets registered in the Isle of Man flew from Tel Aviv to Al Ain.

— Bombardier Global 6000 (M-ARVA)
— Global Express XRS (M-ULTI).

The UAE is now trying to do damage control, denying Netanyahu visited or that Israeli military officials were received there, but the Israeli announcement was crystal clear, even describing the visit as “a historic breakthrough” in UAE-Israel relations.

🔗 EGYOSINT