🇺🇸
Trump imposed 10-100% tariffs on drones and components from all countries including allies.

🇩🇪
Germany needs more bases as its military expands.

Former bases being prepared for Bundeswehr return:

▪️ Graf-Stauffenberg-Kaserne — Sigmaringen
▪️ Unteroffizier-Krüger-Kaserne — Kusel
▪️ Kurpfalz-Kaserne — Speyer
▪️Kanaal-van-Wessem-Kaserne — Soest
▪️ Ray Barracks — Friedberg

Additional sites under consideration:

▪️ Rantzau-Kaserne — Boostedt
▪️ Hinrich-Wilhelm-Kopf-Kaserne — Cuxhaven
▪️ Former NATO JHQ complex — Mönchengladbach

🇩🇪 Fürstenfeldbruck is also being retained as a major Luftwaffe training site.

🇱🇹 Lithuania:

▪️ Rūdninkai — being built for 5000 personel of Germany’s permanently stationed 45th Armoured Brigade.
▪️ Rukla — new €300m complex sized for around 3,000 NATO/Lithuanian troops.

⚓ The Navy is also examining a second North Sea naval base, with Emden and Bremerhaven among the candidates.

🇨🇾🇮🇱
Cyprus is pushing Israel for Merkava Mk3/Mk4 tanks to replace its 82 Russian-built T-80U/UKs.

Earlier talks reportedly centred on roughly 50 Merkavas, while Greece subsequently offered 75–90 Leopard 1A5s. Cyprus rejected the Leopards after inspections found them unsuitable even as an interim solution.

Israel remains hesitant to release tanks potentially needed by the IDF.

🇹🇷
Turkey has occupied more than 36% of Cyprus for over half a century, while continuing its military occupation of parts of northern Syria.

🇺🇦
On 31 July 2026, a Ukrainian Army Mi-8 crashed in Kirovohrad Oblast during mission to disperse due to a Russian attack.

None of the 3 crew survived.

🇷🇺🛡️
Russia’s Arena-M APS appears to work against FPV drones but it can be depleted.

During the fighting near Maiak, Ukrainian drone specialist Dmytro Putiata, after speaking with the unit involved together with Rob Lee, said one Arena-equipped T-72B3A intercepted 7 FPVs before exhausting its countermeasures. Across 7 tanks, Ukrainians reportedly needed around 15–20 FPVs per tank to destroy them.

For comparison, published estimates for a normal tank/armoured vehicle are roughly 3–6 FPVs, with a Swedish study putting the average around 4–5.

Heavily protected “turtle tanks” can require 20–30+ FPVs, while exceptional “porcupine” vehicles have absorbed nearly 60 before being stopped.

🇺🇦
As of 11/08/2026, Ukrainian units have claimed to have intercepted a total of 113.788 Russian unmanned aerial vehicles of all types in the month of July 2026.

SBU's Alpha Center destroyed nearly 2,400 Russian vehicles, command vehicles and special equipment in the past month, cutting logistics on and well behind the front line.

🇺🇦
According to the Ukrainian General Staff, Unmanned Systems Units are currently launching an average of 250 mid-range (80-300km) drones per day.

🇷🇺 Ukraine’s Deputy Intelligence Chief Maj. Gen. Vadym Skibitskyi on Russia’s rapidly expanding long-range strike production.

🚀 July launches:
▪️ Kh-101/Kalibr/Kh-32 - 153
▪️ Iskander-M/RM-48U/Zircon - 198, highest this year
▪️ February remains the cruise-missile peak - 157

🏭 July production:
▪️ Kh-101 - 87 vs 72 planned
▪️ Kalibr - 29 vs 26 planned
▪️ Iskander 9M723 - 65 vs 60 planned
▪️ Kh-35 - 200% of target
▪️ Overall missile production - 110–120% of plan

Russia has suspended Kinzhal and Kh-32 production since April, redirecting components, fuel and money toward more effective ballistic missiles. Kinzhal/Kh-32 reportedly suffer accuracy problems of 30m+.

📦 Current/2026 figures:
▪️ Iskander stockpile - ~130, production target 60/month
▪️ RM-48U stockpile - ~400, August production ~40
▪️ Zircon - 33 produced Jan–Jul
▪️ Onyx - 60 produced Jan–Jul
▪️ August Kh-101 target - 72
▪️ August Kalibr target - 26

Russia is essentially firing missiles straight from the production line rather than significantly drawing down stocks.

🛩 August drone production target: 11,000 Geran/Garpiya/Gerbera-family strike UAVs. Production is shifting toward the turbojet Geran-4/5, which already made up 50% of one recent attack, forcing Ukraine to seek faster interceptors and SHORAD.

🛰 Russia’s Rassvet Starlink-style network already has 16 satellites, with at least 2 already failing, with plans for 292 by 2027 and 924 by 2035.

Meanwhile, Ukraine has stopped publishing exact Russian missile-launch and ballistic-interception figures, officially for OPSEC, as the shortage of Patriot interceptors becomes increasingly acute.

🇷🇺Dugin is a genius