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Ukraine war briefing: Russian drone factory attacked, 1,000km away in Tatarstan

Ukraine war briefing: Russian drone factory attacked, 1,000km away in Tatarstan

Yahoo6 hours ago

Ukraine's military said on Sunday it had attacked a Russian drone factory in the city of Yelabuga in Russia's Tatarstan region. The target is around 1,000km from Ukraine. The Ukrainian military general staff said the factory produced, tested, and launched drones at Ukraine, in particular against energy and civil infrastructure. Videos on social media showed an explosion said to be at the factory in Yelabuga, also known as Alabuga, which builds Iranian-designed Shahed drones. The Russian local governor confirmed the attack.
Russian forces hit the Kremenchuk oil refinery in Ukraine's Poltava region with missiles and drones, Russia's defence ministry said on Sunday. Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, denounced the attack on the central Poltava region as a vile strike against Ukrainian energy infrastructure, which he said occurred 'after the Americans asked us not to strike at Russian energy facilities'. Ukrainian officials said the strikes mainly hit energy, agricultural and civilian installations.
Russian forces have advanced in northern Sumy Oblast and near Kupyansk, Siversk, Chasiv Yar, and Toretsk, . Russia's defence ministry claimed on Sunday that its forces had taken control of the village of Malynivka in the Donetsk region, known in Russia as Ulyanovka. Zelenskiy said on Saturday that Ukrainian forces had recaptured Andriivka village in north-eastern Sumy as part of a drive to expel Russian forces from the area. Neither side's claims were independently confirmed.
The Ukrainian office for the return of prisoners of war confirmed on Sunday that Russia had returned 1,200 bodies to Ukraine as part of continuing exchanges.
A building used by Boeing in Kyiv was badly damaged in a recent large-scale Russian air attack, the Financial Times reported on Sunday, citing two Boeing employees, three Ukrainian officials and the head of the American Chamber of Commerce in Ukraine. There had been 'no operational disruption', Andriy Koryagin, deputy general director of Boeing's operation in Ukraine, told the newspaper, and none of its employees were harmed.

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‘My duty is to call it out': Judge accuses Trump administration of discrimination against minorities
‘My duty is to call it out': Judge accuses Trump administration of discrimination against minorities

Politico

time6 minutes ago

  • Politico

‘My duty is to call it out': Judge accuses Trump administration of discrimination against minorities

A federal judge appointed by Ronald Reagan on Monday accused the Trump administration of 'appalling' and 'palpably clear' discrimination against racial minorities and LGBTQ+ Americans. 'I've never seen a record where racial discrimination was so palpable. I've sat on this bench now for 40 years. I've never seen government racial discrimination like this,' said U.S. District Judge William Young, a Massachusetts-based jurist who took the bench in 1985. Young's sweeping rebuke during a court hearing was a reference to two executive orders signed by President Donald Trump that led the National Institutes of Health to rescind funding for research related to racial minorities and LGBTQ+ people. Though Young said he was uncertain whether he had the power to block the executive orders themselves, he declared the NIH cuts Monday to be 'illegal' and 'void,' and he ordered the NIH to immediately restore the research funds. An appeal is likely. 'I am hesitant to draw this conclusion — but I have an unflinching obligation to draw it — that this represents racial discrimination and discrimination against America's LGBTQ community,' the judge said. 'That's what this is. I would be blind not to call it out. My duty is to call it out.' Young's commentary was an extraordinary departure for a federal judge of any era even at a moment when Trump's policies have been facing stiff resistance in the courts. Trump swept into office in part on his promise to withdraw government support for programs he deems supportive of 'diversity, equity and inclusion' initiatives as well as any he claims support 'gender ideology extremism.' The orders led to a governmentwide crackdown on funding for programs and research related to minority communities — and has spawned a long list of lawsuits calling the abrupt cuts illegal. Young isn't the first Reagan-appointed judge to take issue with the Trump administration. Judge Royce Lamberth in Washington has blocked the Trump administration's efforts to relocate transgender women to men's prisons, and he has used his perch to defend the courts against criticisms from Trump and his allies. In similarly memorable remarks from the bench, Judge John Coughenour, based in Seattle, accused Trump of viewing the rule of law as an 'impediment' to his priorities. Trump allies have brushed off the judges' critiques as relics of an earlier age of establishment-led government. The White House and Justice Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment, but Trump aide Stephen Miller posted on X in response to Young's commentary, calling DEI 'illegal racial discrimination.' 'The government cannot be forced to discriminate against Americans based on race,' Miller said. Judges have routinely and repeatedly found that the administration's race to terminate contracts, dismantle agencies and deport immigrants has been tainted by illegality and violations of due process, but few have mounted such a broad-based rejection of the administration's policies themselves. 'You are bearing down on people of color because of their color,' Young said. 'The Constitution will not permit that. … Have we fallen so low? Have we no shame?' The Justice Department has contended that its efforts to cut research grants — and many other programs and agencies — were simply a reflection of the new Trump administration's policy priorities, reflected in Trump's executive orders and unreviewable by the courts. They say the president should have broad latitude to set priorities and pause funding for programs that no longer align. But Young said the administration made virtually no effort to push back on claims that the cuts were discriminatory. 'We're talking about health here, the health of Americans, of our LGBTQ community,' he said. 'That's appalling.' Young's comments came after he ordered the Trump administration to restore hundreds of scientific grants the National Institutes of Health terminated earlier this year. His order came as part of a lawsuit from more than a dozen state attorneys general and advocacy groups for public health researchers that alleged the grant terminations were haphazard and discriminatory. The Department of Justice, which defended NIH, argued the terminations align with congressional mandates to 'improve research.' 'Research programs based on gender identity are often unscientific, have little identifiable return on investment and do nothing to enhance the health of many Americans. Many such studies ignore rather than seriously examine biological realities. … It is an improvement to eliminate these,' DOJ lawyer Thomas Ports Jr. said during the hearing. Young pressed the DOJ for an explanation: 'Where's the support for that? … I'm asking you [to] just explain to me 'often used to support unlawful discrimination.' I see no evidence of that.'

Iranian TV anchor forced to flee live broadcast after Israel strikes state-run network HQ: video
Iranian TV anchor forced to flee live broadcast after Israel strikes state-run network HQ: video

New York Post

time14 minutes ago

  • New York Post

Iranian TV anchor forced to flee live broadcast after Israel strikes state-run network HQ: video

Wild video footage shows the moment Israeli missiles struck the headquarters of Iran's state-run television network during a live broadcast — forcing the anchor to flee as she spouted propaganda. The viral clip came as Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz vowed that the 'Iranian propaganda and incitement mouthpiece is on its way to disappearing.' Israeli jets bombed The Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) building in Tehran, sending a female anchor running out of the studio as explosions can be heard on camera, footage from the network shows. Advertisement 5 Video footage captures the moment Israel struck the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting headquarters while an anchor was live on air. IRINN 5 The sound of the explosion sent the anchor running. IRINN 5 Debris from the strike seen falling into the view of the camera. IRINN Advertisement Smoke and debris fill the screen as a voice can be heard yelling 'Allahu Akbar' before the video cuts out. It's not clear if anyone was killed in the strike, according to the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA), the country's official news agency. The strike came after the Israeli Defense Forces urged residents living in the area around the IRIB headquarters to evacuate. 5 The Sharan Oil depot on fire following an Israeli strike in Tehran on June 15, 2025. via REUTERS Advertisement Another clip shows an IRIB broadcaster giving a live report as the studio building burns in the background. The reporters appears to have been injured in the attack, with bloodied wounds visible on his hands, the video shows. Israel renewed its bombing campaign in Iran on Monday after Iranian missiles killed at least eight people in the Israeli cities of Tel-Avid and Haifa overnight. 5 Iranian citizens on the side of a road amid the bombing in Tehran. via REUTERS Advertisement Israel's warning to civilians in Tehran sent thousands of Iranians fleeing from the capital with more strikes expected on the fourth day of the two countries' missile exchanges. The death toll in Iran had reached at least 224, with 90% of the casualties reported to be civilians, an Iranian health ministry spokesperson said.

How Drone Swarms Work—From Iran's Shahed Attack to Ukraine's Operation Spiderweb
How Drone Swarms Work—From Iran's Shahed Attack to Ukraine's Operation Spiderweb

Scientific American

time16 minutes ago

  • Scientific American

How Drone Swarms Work—From Iran's Shahed Attack to Ukraine's Operation Spiderweb

Six hours after Israel's air strikes in Iran last Friday, farmers in Iraq could have looked up and seen Iranian drones traveling west: more than 100 of them flew on a 1,700-kilometer journey to Israel, with their propellers buzzing like Weedwackers. Among them was the Shahed-136. Composed mostly of foam and plywood, each Shahed-136 drone is 3.5 meters long and has a 2.5-meter wingspan and a 40- to 50-kilogram warhead at its nose. The drone's 'brain,' a sensor the size of a cough drop, measures every movement while a credit-card-sized GPS onboard listens for microwave chirps from navigation satellites. The Shahed's route (its waypoints in latitude, longitude and altitude) is uploaded before a booster rocket fires it into the sky. And it is loud: its 50-horsepower motor is slightly more potent than that of a 1960s Volkswagen Beetle and would be as noisy as a lawn mower or a moped at full throttle—now multiplied by 100 in what military strategists sometimes refer to as a rudimentary swarm. Drone swarms can take different forms. In attacks such as Iran's recent launch of drones at Israel—or Russia's use of them against Ukraine, where Shahed drones are nicknamed 'flying mopeds'—the swarm's power is in its numbers. One missile with a similar range can cost upward of $1 million, but a Shahed can be knocked together for $20,000 to $50,000. Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) fires them from portable rails or from racks on trucks, and the small pulse rocket on the bottom of each drone slams it to cruise speed before falling off. The Center for Strategic and International Studies describes such drone salvos as tools 'used as much to saturate air defenses as they are to attack targets, cluttering radar screens and forcing command centers to make decisions about where to fire their more capable surface-to-air missiles,' exactly the situation Israel faced. Last Friday, as the more than 100 Iranian drones flocked toward Tel Aviv and were shot down by fighter jets, Israel's Iron Dome air defense system and a U.S. Navy destroyer in the Mediterranean, they couldn't adjust their course based on what was happening on the battlefield. The Shahed, which means 'Witness' in Persian, is generally a 'fire and forget' drone: it cannot transmit information back or receive updated trajectories (though it is often modeled in different ways, and some Shahed drones used by Russia have reportedly had communication equipment). Rather the swarmlike power of such attacks is based in their cost: in the one late last week, the IRGC could afford to fire drones in a wave so dense that fighter pilots, radar operators and Iron Dome crews had to sort through a moving cloud of identical radar blips. On supporting science journalism If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today. More Complex Swarms: Ukraine's Operation Spiderweb At the heart of most experimental swarms is the boids algorithm, a concept introduced by computer graphics researcher Craig Reynolds in a 1987 paper. A boid is a 'bird-oid object' or 'birdlike object.' In a boids model of a flock, 'each simulated bird is implemented as an independent actor that navigates according to its local perception of the dynamic environment, the laws of simulated physics that rule its motion, and a set of behaviors programmed into it,' Reynolds wrote in his paper. The boids concept follows three basic rules: each boid should stay close to the others (flock centering), shouldn't bump them (collision avoidance) and should fly at roughly the same speed (velocity matching). When 1,000 bird simulations run on a computer obey those three laws, the screen fills with what resembles a flock. This is the skeleton of swarm logic and the goal of using drones in war. Yet even if the drones can't communicate with one another, they can be made substantially more lethal just by giving each machine GPS, autonomy and a preprogrammed target, as was the case in the Ukraine's recent Operation Spiderweb drone attack. On June 1, less than two weeks before the exchanges between Israel and Iran, flatbed trucks carrying wooden sheds were driven thousands of kilometers by unsuspecting drivers that Ukrainian agents had hired. The trucks parked near Russian air bases; the shed roofs lifted, and out rose 117 quadcopters drones. Each was the size of a medium pizza box, had four rotors and a vision-based autonomy system and carried a payload weighing just more than 3.2 kg. Piloted remotely by Ukrainian operators, the drones rushed toward long-range bombers at the Russian airbases. If the signal to the drones lagged or was lost or jammed, their autonomous systems switched on. These systems had been trained on images of long-range bombers to recognize strategic points at which to strike them. When each drone's live camera feed matched its preprogrammed target, the machine throttled to full power and struck. An absence of continuous human steering and an ability to autonomously identify targets represent the threshold where drone swarms are more than just a mass launch. The Security Service of Ukraine claims 41 aircraft were hit; even conservative counts admit at least a dozen bombers were destroyed. The State of the Art of U.S. Swarms Though being able to identify and pursue targets can make even a rudimentary swarm more dangerous, the ability to soak up the defender's data, share that information with other drones and adjust based on what's happening on the battlefield is far more lethal. This is precisely the technology that has been tested at New Mexico's White Sands Missile Range. In 2021 the U.S. Air Force ran a series of trials in its Golden Horde Vanguard Program involving four Collaborative Small Diameter Bombs: when dropped together, they were able to communicate to decide which bomb would hit which target. The tactic was rehearsed inside a cloud simulator called Colosseum, where every weapon had a 'digital twin' to develop strategies for use in real time. The initiative continues to simulate battles using collaborative and autonomous weapons systems. But the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's OFFSET (OFFensive Swarm-Enabled Tactics) program pushes the idea further, running swarming-drone tactics inside a real-time, game-based virtual environment with the goal of eventually having a single pilot steer 250 drones—in an aircraft or ground system—through a mock city. The swarm would map alleys and ping back a three-dimensional model—a Google Street View with teeth. Whereas the recent attacks from Iran and Ukraine respectively bet on mass and audacity, OFFSET and Colosseum have sought to give swarms the advantage of adaptive autonomy. China is sprinting to close the gap by developing Jiutian, an 10-metric-ton 'mothership' drone meant to release 100 subdrones at high altitudes. All that leaves us humans under a sky that may soon host thousands of autonomous flying things, each no smarter than a sparrow yet smarter than us in one narrow way: an ability to immediately share everything they learn. Defenders may someday fire a 'spoofer'—an object that will send counterfeit satellite-navigation signals so convincingly that drones will lock on false positions or even bump into one another like confused bees. Israel is developing lasers to cut through the wings of Shahed drones, replacing the expensive rockets that shoot them down with a power surge as cheap as a subway ticket. But as the defense improves, so will the offense—and the iteration cycle will probably spin even faster.

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