Final details for restructuring the battalions came after years of merging job specialties in signal fields.

Army Lt. Gen. John Morrison, deputy chief of staff for Army G6, which implements command, control, communications and cyber for the force, shared this update Tuesday at the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association TechNet event in Augusta, Georgia.

While details of the restructuring are still being reviewed prior to approval, Morrison said the changes will pull resources to the division level to handle network-centered problems. The move is expected to free up signal soldiers for more unit-level work within the brigades.

As the Army focused its deployments on brigades over the past few decades, the headquarters and supporting units for those brigades ballooned. That meant brigades were both running the fight and trying to analyze what would come next in the battle plan.

But senior leaders, Morrison said, expect a large-scale combat operation to move faster than a brigade can analyze.

“We want brigades moving and fighting,” Morrison said.

The Army announced its big-picture force structure transformation in a February white paper, Army Times previously reported. That outline shows reducing authorized troop levels down to 470,000 within the next five years.

The Army is expected to cut positions to reach that lower number; the service previously sought to fill out a 500,000-soldier Army through a challenging recruiting climate.

Coinciding with the Army’s plans to make those cuts, the service also expects to add up to 7,500 new positions — mostly in air defense jobs and other high priority formations.

As far back as 2019, new tools began reshaping the look and feel of signal battalions. The Army used the 35th Theater Tactical Signal Brigade’s 50th Expeditionary Signal Battalion-Enhanced as a prototype unit when it added what was then the new enroute mission command network.

Three years ago, the Army announced its “unified network plan,” which allows users to use either a personal or issued device, such as a smartphone, tablet or laptop, to log into the network anywhere in the world.

Incorporating these developments, Morrison told the audience to envision an entire brigade conducting an air assault to an objective, rolling out a four-vehicle brigade command post, displacing and then reestablishing its communication with a distant headquarters and its local tactical network and then making a call for fire request — all within three minutes.

“That was Saturday at (the Joint Readiness Training Center),” Morrison said.

Under the current signal branch job specialty restructuring, individual core functions — network communications, signal operations support, information technology and satellite communications — will merge into a single job held by a master sergeant by October 2025, the Army said.

In May, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George announced an initiative to lighten and improve the speed of battlefield communications.

Much of those changes would come from what the signal experts in their unit find as they experiment, George said.

“These brigade commanders, battalion commanders, sergeants major, warrant officers that are in the formations, that are technical experts — they are going to have the leeway to decide how we are best organized for the modern battlefield,” George said.

Morrison said that the signal battalions restructuring update will be in the working stage with senior leaders for the next two to three months. He expects an official decision before the end of the calendar year.

The program, dubbed Next-Generation Microelectronics Manufacturing, will fund the research and equipment to create a domestic center for prototyping cutting-edge fabrication techniques, which DARPA hopes will give the U.S. semiconductor industrial base a leading edge. The goal is to stand up the capability by 2029.

The center will focus on 3D heterogeneously integrated microsystems, or 3DHI – an advanced approach to microelectronics fabrication. The premise of 3DHI research is that by integrating and packaging chip components differently, manufacturers could disaggregate functions like memory and processing to significantly improve performance.

It’s a technology area that could not only transform the U.S. industrial base, but that other nations, including Taiwan — the global leader in microelectronics production — have a strong interest in.

“Presently, the U.S. has no open-access manufacturing center with comprehensive capacity for 3DHI research and development,” DARPA said in a Nov. 20 program announcement. “Anticipating that the next major wave of microelectronics innovation will come from the ability to integrate heterogeneous materials, devices, and circuits through advanced packaging, DARPA proposes to stand up a national accelerator specifically for next-generation 3DHI.”

In July, the agency chose 11 teams to begin the foundational work for the center. DARPA said this week it plans to select a single team for the next two phases of the program, with awards for each phase worth up to $420 million.

Under the partnership, known as an other transaction agreement, the selected team would also fund a portion of the work. DARPA plans to brief industry on the effort Nov. 28.

The U.S. imports a large portion of its advanced semiconductors from Taiwan and China, who dominate the global market. Concern has grown in recent years about an over reliance on foreign supply chains for these critical microsystems, which power cars, cellphones and major Defense Department weapons.

DARPA’s focus on forward-looking technologies through efforts like NGMM and is distinct from a broader U.S. government effort to boost today’s domestic semiconductor industrial base through the Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors, or CHIPS Act. The measure, which Congress passed in 2022, runs through 2026 and funds semiconductor workforce improvement efforts, research and development and manufacturing. It also provides a 25% tax credit for investments in domestic manufacturing facilities and equipment.

While the CHIPS Act is focused on shoring up the U.S. supply base in the near-term, DARPA’s efforts in this area are geared toward “the next wave of innovation.”

NGMM, the centerpiece of those efforts, falls under the umbrella of the agency’s Electronics Resurgence Initiative 2.0, which aims to address technological challenges that affect U.S. national security and commercial industry.

Phase 1 of NGMM will focus on buying equipment, creating foundational fabrication processes and establishing automation and simulation software that’s tailored to 3DHI systems. Phase 2 is centered on creating hardware prototypes, automating processes, and developing emulation capabilities.

“The end goal of the program is to establish a self-sustaining 3DHI manufacturing center at an existing facility that is owned and operated by a non-federal entity, and accessible to users in academia, government, and industry,” DARPA said. “Success will be measured by the ability to support the design, fabrication, assembly, and test of a wide range of high-performance 3DHI microsystems at reasonable cost with cycle times supporting fast-paced innovative research.”

Within hours of the horrific attack by Hamas, the U.S. began moving warships and aircraft to the region to be ready to provide Israel with whatever it needs to respond.

A second U.S. carrier strike group departs from Norfolk, Virginia, on Friday. Scores of aircraft are heading to U.S. military bases around the Middle East. Special operations forces are now assisting Israel’s military in planning and intelligence. The first shipment of additional munitions has already arrived.

[Israel-Hamas war misinformation flourishes on X as platform struggles]

More is expected, soon. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin will arrive in Israel Friday to meet with Israeli leaders to discuss what else the U.S. can provide.

For now, the buildup reflects U.S. concern that the deadly fighting between Hamas and Israel could escalate into a more dangerous regional conflict. So the primary mission for those ships and warplanes is to establish a force presence that deters Hezbollah, Iran or others from taking advantage of the situation. But the forces the U.S. sends are capable of more than that.

A look at what weapons and options the U.S. military could provide:

Missiles for Iron Dome

The U.S. is providing some personnel and much-needed munitions to Israel. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced that a small special operations cell was now assisting Israel with intelligence and planning, and providing advice and consultations to the Israeli Defense Forces on hostage recovery efforts. However those forces have not been tasked with hostage rescue, which would put them on the ground fighting in the conflict. That’s something the Biden administration has not approved and White House spokesman John Kirby has said the Israelis do not want.

The U.S. is also getting U.S. defense companies to expedite weapons orders by Israel that were already on the books. Chief among those are munitions for Israel’s Iron Dome air defense system.

“We’re surging additional military assistance, including ammunition and interceptors to replenish Iron Dome,” President Joe Biden said Tuesday. “We’re going to make sure that Israel does not run out of these critical assets to defend its cities and its citizens.”

Iron Dome’s missiles target rockets that approach its cities. According to Raytheon, Israel has 10 such systems in place. Beginning with Saturday’s attack, Hamas has fired more than 5,000 rockets at Israel, most of which the system has been able to intercept, according to the Israel Defense Forces.

Raytheon produces most of the missile components for Iron Dome in the U.S., and the Army has two systems in its stockpile.

The Iron Dome munitions the U.S. provides to Israel will likely be above and beyond what Israel has ordered and will be part of ongoing military assistance packages. Those packages will also include small diameter bombs and JDAM kits — essentially a tail fin and navigation kit that turns a “dumb” bomb into a “smart” bomb and enables troops to guide the munition to a target, rather than simply dropping it.

Ships and aircraft

One of the most visible examples of the U.S. response was the announcement Sunday by the Pentagon to redirect the Gerald R. Ford carrier strike group to sail toward Israel. The carrier had just completed an exercise with the Italian Navy when the ship and its crew of about 5,000 were ordered to quickly sail to the Eastern Mediterranean.

One week after the attacks, as Israel positioned for a major ground offensive into Gaza City, Austin announced a second carrier group would be sailing toward Israel, as he ordered the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower carrier strike group to join the Ford in the Eastern Mediterranean. In a statement announcing the move, Austin said he was sending the Eisenhower too “as part of our effort to deter hostile actions against Israel or any efforts toward widening this war following Hamas’s attack on Israel.”

The carriers provide a host of options. They serve as primary command and control operations centers and can conduct information warfare. They can launch and recover E2-Hawkeye surveillance planes, recognizable by their 24-foot (7-meter) diameter disc-shaped radars. The planes provide early warnings on missile launches, conduct surveillance and manage the airspace, not only detecting enemy aircraft but also directing U.S. movements.

They also serve as a floating airbase for F-18 fighter jets that can fly intercepts or strike targets. And the carriers can flex to provide significant capabilities for humanitarian work, including onboard hospitals with ICUs, emergency rooms, medics, surgeons and doctors. They also sail with helicopters that can be used to airlift critical supplies in or victims out.

The Eisenhower had already been scheduled to deploy to the Mediterranean on a regular rotation, and the Ford is near the end of its scheduled deployment. But the Biden administration for now has decided to have both carriers there.

Air Force action

The Pentagon has also ordered additional warplanes to bolster existing squadrons of A-10, F-15 and F-16 squadrons at bases throughout the Middle East and is ready to add more if needed.

Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said Tuesday at an Atlantic Council event that the service was doubling up by directing units that were about to come home to remain in place and stay there along with their replacements.

The U.S. Air Force already has significant airpower in the region to conduct manned and unmanned operations, most notably in Syria where an Air Force F-16 last week was ordered to shoot down a Turkish drone that was posing a threat to U.S. ground forces operating there.

Kendall also said U.S. Air Force C-17s have landed in and departed from Israel since the attacks. The transport planes were picking up U.S. military personnel who were there for a military exercise that hadn’t started yet when the attacks began, the Air Force said in a statement.

Neither the Air Force nor Central Command would comment on what additional missions U.S. airpower might take on in response to the conflict.

Associated Press writer Colleen Long contributed to this report.

In an unprecedented escalation, armed Hamas fighters blew up parts of Israel’s highly fortified separation fence and strode into Israeli communities along the Gaza frontier, terrorizing residents and trading fire with Israeli soldiers.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his far-right allies were scrambling to respond to the rapidly changing events. As the day wore on, the casualties quickly mounted.

Rescue Service Zaka, an Israeli group, said at least 200 people died in southern Israel and an additional 1,100 people were wounded.

At least 198 people in the Gaza Strip were killed and at least 1,610 wounded amid Israel’s retaliation.

Here are some key takeaways from the multi-pronged attack that has suddenly plunged Israel into war.

Israel caught by surprise

The shock that Israelis felt on Saturday morning — on Simchat Torah, one of the most joyous days of the Jewish calendar — recalled the surprise of the the 1973 Mideast war. Practically 50 years earlier to the day, a full-scale Egyptian-Syrian attack on a Jewish holiday quickly turned into a disaster for an unprepared Israeli military.

Then, as now, Israelis had assumed that their intelligence services would be able to alert the army to any major attack or invasion well in advance. That colossal failure still haunts the legacy of then-Prime Minister Golda Meir and helped bring down the lengthy rule of the once-dominant Labor Party.

Now, the question of how the militants were able to stage such a huge and coordinated attack — which has already killed more Israelis than any single assault since the second Palestinian uprising two decades ago — without triggering Israeli intelligence concerns has already presented a major challenge to Netanyahu’s ultranationalist government.

The government’s supporters had expected Netanyahu and hard-line ministers with a history of anti-Arab rhetoric like National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir to take a particularly belligerent stance against the Palestinians and respond more forcefully to threats from militants in Gaza.

As political analysts lambast Netanyahu over the failure, and the casualty count climbs, Netanyahu risks losing control of both his government and the country.

Paragliders aid unprecedented infiltration

Hamas claimed its fighters took several Israelis captive in the enclave, releasing gruesome videos of militants dragging bloodied soldiers across the ground and standing over dead bodies, some of them stripped to their underwear. It said senior Israeli military officers were among the captives.

The videos could not immediately be verified but matched geographic features of the area. Fears that Israelis had been kidnapped evoked the 2006 capture of soldier Gilad Shalit, whom Hamas-linked militants seized in a cross-border raid. Hamas held Shalit for five years until he was exchanged for over 1,000 Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.

In a dramatic escalation unseen in decades, Hamas also sent paragliders flying into Israel, the Israeli military said. The brazen attack recalled a famous assault in the late 1980s when Palestinian militants crossed from Lebanon into northern Israel on hang-gliders and killed six Israeli soldiers.

The Israeli army belatedly confirmed that soldiers and civilians were taken hostage in Gaza, but refused to provide further details.

Dangerous gamble by Hamas

Hamas officials cited long-simmering sources of tension between Israel and the Palestinians, including the dispute around the sensitive Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, which is is sacred to both Muslims and Jews and remains at the emotional heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Competing claims over the site, known to Jews as the Temple Mount, have spilled into violence before, including a bloody 11-day warbetween Israel and Hamas in 2021.

In recent years, Israeli religious nationalists — such as Ben-Gvir, the national security minister — have increased their visits to the compound. Last week, during the Jewish harvest festival of Sukkot, hundreds of ultra-Orthodox Jews and Israeli activists visited the site, prompting condemnation from Hamas and accusations that Jews were praying there in violation of the status quo agreement.

Hamas statements have also cited the expansion of Jewish settlements on lands that the Palestinians claim for a future state and Ben-Gvir’s efforts to toughen restrictions on Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.

More recently, tensions have escalated with violent Palestinian protests along the Gaza frontier. In negotiations with Qatar, Egypt and the United Nations, Hamas has pushed for Israeli concessions that could loosen the 17-year blockade on the enclave and help halt a worsening financial crisis that has sharpened public criticism of its rule.

Some political analysts have linked Hamas’ attack to current U.S.-brokered talks on normalization of ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia. So far, reports of possible concessions to Palestinians in the negotiations have involved Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, not Gaza.

“We have always said that normalization will not achieve security, stability, or calm,” Bassem Naim, a senior Hamas official, told the AP.

Israel in crisis

The eruption of violence comes at a difficult time for Israel, which is facing the biggest protests in its history over Netanyahu’s proposal to weaken the Supreme Court while he is on trial for corruption.

The protest movement, which accuses Netanyahu of making a power grab, has bitterly divided Israeli society and unleashed turmoil within the Israeli military. Hundreds of reservists have threatened to stop volunteering to report for duty in protest at the judicial overhaul.

Reservists are the backbone of the country’s army, and protests within the army ranks have raised concerns about the military’s cohesion, operational readiness and power of deterrence as it confronts threats on multiple fronts. Netanyahu on Saturday called up “an extensive mobilization of reserve forces.”

Israel and Hamas have fought four wars and exchanged fire numerous times since the Islamic militant group seized control of Gaza from forces loyal to the Palestinian Authority in 2007. Cease-fires have stopped major fighting in past rounds of conflict but have always proven shaky.

Each agreement in the past has offered a period of calm, but the deeper, underlying issues of the conflict are rarely addressed and set the stage for the next round of airstrikes and rockets.

With its increased leverage in this round, Hamas is likely to push harder for concessions on key issues, such as easing the blockade and winning the release of prisoners held by Israel.

ST. LOUIS —The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency will demonstrate the ability to process and disseminate data in hard-to-reach locations at several military exercises this summer.

The agency, the intelligence community’s lead organization for analyzing satellite imagery and turning it into usable data, is developing four Joint Regional Edge Nodes, or JRENs, that will be based in various locations around the world. The idea is to stage the processors closer to users, allowing them to receive and distribute large swaths of data on faster timelines.

The first node, which NGA expects to deliver in fiscal 2024, will be located in U.S. Indo-Pacific Command.

Mark Chatelain, the agency’s chief information officer, said NGA will showcase JREN as part of multiple military exercises in July, though he didn’t specify which ones.

“Getting this capability out forward supports our analysts that are out in the field,” Chatelain said May 24 at the GEOINT Symposium in St. Louis, Missouri. “It will also support applications so that when they are disconnected, they still have all the applications they need on this Joint Regional Edge Node and be able to operate as if they were connected back to our data centers.”

Last December, NGA Director Vice Admiral Frank Whitworth described JREN as a way to handle what he described as a “deluge” of data and to address the challenge of sharing that information in remote locations.

The agency relies on what’s called the National System for Geospatial Intelligence, or NSG, to distribute nearly a petabyte of data around the globe each day. Since 2018, it has relied on the Odyssey GEOINT Edge Node to process sensor data and help operators on the ground use that data to make real-time decisions.

Odyssey has been in high demand from various combatant command, and JREN provides a chance to increase that capacity while also providing a more resilient capability.

According to E.P. Mathew, deputy chief information officer at the Defense Intelligence Agency, placing more processing nodes across the globe supports the National Defense Strategy, which calls for decentralizing systems and approaches. Systems like JREN, designed for degraded locations where access to the cloud may not be available, help the intelligence community support international partners, combatant commands and defense attaches, he said during the same May 23 panel.

“How do I provide information to them in either a cloud disconnected or degraded environment? In that scenario, cloud computing does not work or is not ideal,” Mathew said. “I have to think in terms of resiliency, redundancy, with the intent of passing information to the warfighter or the policymaker in the short time that is available.”

The Program Executive Office for Intelligence, Electronic Warfare and Sensors, or PEO IEW&S, headed by Mark Kitz, will by Oct. 1 absorb defensive cyber operations, cyber analytics and detection, cyber platforms and systems, and the technology applications office. Those efforts are now associated with the Program Executive Office for Enterprise Information Systems, or PEO EIS, run by Ross Guckert.

The move coincides with the start of the government’s fiscal 2024, as well as a separate consolidation of network portfolios involving the Program Executive Office for Command, Control and Communications-Tactical, or PEO C3T, overseen by Maj. Gen. Anthony Potts.

The portfolio changes across all three PEOs were discussed May 24 at a conference with industry known as Technical Exchange Meeting X, in Philadelphia. No jobs are expected to be cut, and contracts should flow as normal.

“Synergy, our optimization of the organization here, is really important for us as a cyber enterprise,” Kitz said.

Using the Pentagon’s acquisition budget management tool, PEOs engage with external stakeholders to track the full lifecycle of budget data for procurement. Offices were established by the Defense Department in the 1980s as a means to control costs and improve delivery performance, and oversight of specific initiatives are reassigned from time to time as missions and priorities change.

PEO IEW&S is already home to several Army cyber efforts. In August, the office unveiled a cell dedicated to offensive cyber and space capabilities called Program Manager Cyber and Space.

The Army is always looking at how it can get upgraded hardware and software into soldier hands. That, among other factors, is motivating the office reorganization, or optimization, according to Young Bang, the principal deputy assistant secretary of the Army, or ASA, for acquisition, logistics and technology, or ALT.

“As the Army is modernizing, and we’re transforming, we looked at the structure and said, ‘Hey, are things really linked together to be more efficient, to support things like the unified network?’” Bang said at the conference. “We had a lot of discussions across the ASA(ALT) community and the PEOs. We talked about those types of things.”

Additional shuffles may be on the horizon, he said.

The testing during Northern Edge, a biennial experiment put on by U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, marked the first time “true” synchronization was demonstrated at such scale, the company said, hinting at its implications for the Defense Department’s connect-everything-everywhere campaign known as Joint All-Domain Command and Control.

The department is pursuing JADC2 — to the tune of billions of dollars — to maintain an edge on China and Russia, seen as the most significant national security threats. Among Lockheed’s offerings is the Diamondshield battle management software, which incorporates automation for planning, battlefield assessment and tasking at a far quicker clip.

Defense officials say the ability to share timely and accurate information, regardless of source, location or file size, is critical to besting tech-savvy forces. Right now, data and databases are walled off, with communication between camps at risk of mistranslation or fumbled delivery.

Lockheed products are folded into a preliminary version of what’s known as a joint fires network, an INDOPACOM initiative designed to improve coordination between commanders. Navy Adm. John Aquilino, the INDOPACOM boss, in March 2022 described the network as enabling “any sensor from any platform,” including cyber, to feed targeting guidance to “any weapon.”

Amr Hussein, a C4ISR vice president at Lockheed, in a statement May 23 said his company is “responding to priority national defense demands for integrating JADC2 infrastructure with” already-proven tech. Doing so, he added, means the military could secure “JADC2 capability years sooner than” otherwise expected.

Northern Edge this year involved thousands of U.S. troops, at least five ships and more than 150 aircraft. The U.K. and Australia also participated.

Lockheed next plans to participate in the Talisman Sabre exercise, which also involves Australia. The country is thought indispensable in the vast Indo-Pacific region, where China is increasingly exerting influence.

Among the moves unveiled by the administration was a tweak to the United States’ strategic plan on artificial intelligence research, which was last updated in 2019, to add greater emphasis on international collaboration with allies.

White House officials on Tuesday were also hosting a listening session with workers on their firsthand experiences with employers’ use of automated technologies for surveillance, monitoring, evaluation, and management. And the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Educational Technology issued a report focused on the risks and opportunities related to AI in education.

“The report recognizes that AI can enable new forms of interaction between educators and students, help educators address variability in learning, increase feedback loops, and support educators,” the White House said in a statement. “It also underscores the risks associated with AI — including algorithmic bias — and the importance of trust, safety, and appropriate guardrails.”

The U.S. government and private sector in recent months have begun more publicly weighing the possibilities and perils of artificial intelligence.

Tools like the popular AI chatbot ChatGPT have sparked a surge of commercial investment in other AI tools that can write convincingly human-like text and churn out new images, music and computer code. The ease with which AI technology can be used to mimic humans has also propelled governments around the world to consider how it could take away jobs, trick people and spread disinformation.

Last week, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said Congress “must move quickly” to regulate artificial intelligence. He has also convened a bipartisan group of senators to work on legislation.

The latest efforts by the administration come after Vice President Kamala Harris met earlier this month with the heads of Google, Microsoft, ChatGPT-creator OpenAI and Anthropic. The administration also previously announced an investment of $140 million to establish seven new AI research institutes.

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy on Tuesday also issued a new request for public input on national priorities “for mitigating AI risks, protecting individuals’ rights and safety, and harnessing AI to improve lives.”

The company is under contract to build two Next-Generation Overhead Persistent Infrared Polar satellites that will provide coverage of the northern hemisphere, the most difficult area to observe from space. The Space Force plans to launch the first satellite in 2028.

“Northrop Grumman is on an accelerated path to delivering an early-warning missile system capable of surviving attacks from space, ground or cyber elements,” Alex Fax, Northrop’s vice president for the polar program, said in a May 24 statement. “NGP satellites will maintain a direct line of communication back to the continental United States, limiting dependency on overseas ground station sites.”

The milestone, called a preliminary design review, keeps the company on track for a possible production contract next spring or summer, according to a company spokesperson. The Space Force awarded the company $2.37 billion development contract in 2020.

Northrop’s sensor payload for the polar satellites is designed to detect infrared heat signatures from incoming missiles. They will also carry a communications payload that allows them to send tracking data to operators on the ground.

The payloads will fly on the company’s Eagle-3 spacecraft, which is designed for complex, strategic payloads like missile warning sensors.

The NGP effort is part of the Space Force’s broader Next-Gen Overhead Infrared program, which includes two Lockheed Martin-built satellites destined for geosynchronous orbit, about 22,000 miles above Earth’s surface. The service had planned to build and launch three GEO spacecraft, but it cut one satellite from the mix in its fiscal 2024 budget.

The service is seeking $1 billion for the polar segment of the program in fiscal 2024 and expects to need another $2.2 billion between FY25 and FY28, which the first satellite launches. That funding would support the program’s critical design review and early preparation for production, assembly and test.

“I wanted to say, for the first time in public, that we are very advanced in what concerns acquiring early warning aircraft from Sweden,” he was quoted as saying in a statement released by his ministry. “We are carrying out detailed negotiations, and I hope that, in the short term, they will be successfully concluded.”

Błaszczak did not disclose the make of the aircraft that are to be purchased, though local industry observers say the Polish government wants Saab’s GlobalEye aircraft which were also ordered by the Swedish Defence Materiel Administration (FMV) last year.

Stockholm has ordered two aircraft for some 7.3 billion krona ($689 million), with an option to acquire another two. The deal covers the years 2022 to 2027, Saab said in a statement.

The aircraft will be fitted with the Erieye Extended Range radar which has a range of more than 550 km (342 miles), according to data from the manufacturer.

Błaszczak’s declaration came on the occasion of the May 22 meeting of the Northern Group, a security-focused body established by 12 European countries that includes Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Sweden and the UK. Warsaw currently holds the group’s chairmanship.

At the latest meeting in Legionowo, Poland, participants agreed “that Moscow’s war of aggression against Ukraine has seriously transformed [the] security environment,” the Polish ministry said in a statement.

The Northern Group’s “members share a common view that providing further military assistance to Ukraine in its struggle against Russia’s illegal and brutal aggression is crucial,” the statement said.