The CIA has worked closely with Ukraine’s intelligence services since Russia’s 2014 invasion, growing a partnership built on assistance and training into a two-way exchange of intelligence, according to Forbes. However, the relationship nearly collapsed in February 2025, when a contentious Oval Office meeting between President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy ended with Washington temporarily cutting off the flow of intelligence and weapons to Kyiv.

But Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., the Senate Intelligence Committee’s ranking member, said this month that the two countries have moved past previous hurdles and returned to a strong intelligence partnership.

“I don’t want to get into any specifics, but it has improved,” Warner told Politico.

The CIA has spent more than a decade and millions of dollars training and equipping Ukrainian intelligence officers, building around a dozen secret forward-operating bases along the Russian border, ABC News reported in January 2025, citing former U.S. officials.

The senator said the current arrangement has helped Kyiv gain an edge, with long-range drones and missiles now hitting targets far inside Russia.

While American weapons deliveries have taken the spotlight in what Washington gives Ukraine, intelligence is the one U.S. asset Kyiv cannot replace, especially for the long-range strikes now making headlines.

That intelligence reaches directly into the strike campaign, including “the targeting packages for strikes on Russian-troop positions in Ukraine and on energy infrastructure inside Russia,” The Atlantic reported, citing American and Ukrainian sources.

Those sources called intelligence “the one thing the United States still provides free of charge,” crediting CIA Director John Ratcliffe with keeping it that way.

Zelenskyy seems to have risen in Trump’s estimation as Ukraine increasingly fights on its own terms, redefining modern warfare by crafting new tech and strategies, clawing back territory and taking the war deep into Russia — leaving Kyiv looking less dependent and more like an ally with something to trade.

“Trump doesn’t like losers,” one Western intelligence official told the outlet.

Sens. John Cornyn, R-Texas, another intelligence committee member, and Roger Wicker, R-Miss., who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, told Politico they see a direct connection between the White House’s view of Ukraine’s battlefield successes and Kyiv’s access to intelligence.

“It sure seems like that,” Cornyn said. “Everybody loves a winner and looks like Ukraine has turned the tide.”

The strengthening relationship between Washington and Kyiv is apparent on multiple fronts.

Trump’s negotiators to end the war, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, plan to head to Ukraine for the first time later this month, a trip that coincides with the country’s independence celebrations, according to Radio Free Europe.

The intel trade is going both ways, with Zelenskyy stating publicly as early as March that Kyiv had proof of Moscow passing intelligence to Iran that he later promised to put in front of Trump.

“We have irrefutable evidence that the Russians continue to provide intelligence to the Iranian regime,” Zelenskyy wrote on X. “Russia is using its own signals intelligence and electronic intelligence capabilities, as well as part of the data obtained through cooperation with partners in the Middle East.”

Last October, CNN interviewed a former advisor to ousted Syrian president Bashar al-Assad who told the outlet that Tice, a veteran Marine Corps captain and freelance reporter, had died in 2013. Debra Tice describes the event as a “crash” that sent her health into a tailspin. She became unable to eat, losing weight and becoming so weak she couldn’t leave the house, she said. Gastroenterologists and other physicians, she said, ultimately concluded that her symptoms were based in trauma, not disease.

Beyond the reports that her son was dead, Tice said she was blindsided by a wave of condolence cards and messages, not only to her, but also to her other six children.

“It was the first time that they had all kind of been pinged, and a lot of it was kindness,” Tice told Military Times on Aug. 14, the day after the anniversary. “But, this mom was like, ‘Don’t touch my children.’”

Tice rejects the account of Assad’s advisor, Bassam Al-Hassan, noting that he failed an FBI polygraph. No physical proof exists that Austin Tice is no longer alive.

The Tice family has in recent months called for an investigation of the possibility that Austin was moved from Syria to Iran under the control of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, which has managed some secret detention facilities in Syria. They’ve emphasized that they want the U.S. to reach out to Iran amid negotiations over the ongoing conflict to ask for full information sharing on Austin’s case.

“Our government needs to be asking what they know about Austin every time they’re with them [at the negotiating table],” she said.

For Debra Tice, the next objective is clear: meet in person with Jay Clayton, the newly confirmed director of National Intelligence, who was sworn in earlier this month.

“I really don’t know anything about him, but I just wanted to share with him how important his role is in getting Austin out,” she said.

Recently departed DNI Tulsi Gabbard had taken the unprecedented step of allowing the Tice family to review all the information the government had collected on Austin – eight four-inch binders covering the period from his abduction to October 2024, she said. In addition to various documented medical issues and times Austin had been moved, Tice said, she saw what she believes is evidence that he could have been recovered by the State Department shortly after he was first abducted.

To date, Tice said, she has only ever met with one Secretary of State: Antony Blinken, who in 2024 offered a $10 million bounty for information about Austin’s whereabouts. Debra Tice maintains that decision was unhelpful because it tends to flood channels with bad info.

She’d like Clayton, the new DNI, to open the binders again and show the family anything learned since October 2024. She’s also hoping to make international trips: she’d like to connect with Israel’s office of the national coordinator for hostages and the missing, an office parallel to the State Department’s special presidential envoy for hostage affairs. She also hopes to make a second trip to Syria, she said, as well as a new journey to the Vatican to meet with Pope Leo XIV.

“I’m just getting everything warmed up again,” Tice said, “And reminding people that, you know, I’m still trying to find my son.”

The deals cover avionics and ejector assemblies Boeing supplies to prime contractor Raytheon, an RTX business, for both the SM-3 Block IB and the newer Block IIA. Both variants operate with the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System to destroy incoming missiles outside the atmosphere.

“These agreements ensure our Warfighters get the munitions they need to win,” Michael P. Duffey, under secretary of war for acquisition and sustainment, said in the Pentagon release. “We are stabilizing our supply chains, expanding munitions production and putting our entire defense industrial base on a wartime footing.”

The frameworks run for seven years and allow Boeing to start building components before a contract is in place, while the three sides negotiate a multiyear deal. The long-term commitment is intended to give suppliers enough certainty to invest in added capacity. Neither the Pentagon nor Boeing released dollar figures or quantities.

“This gives us a clear demand signal to build and deliver SM-3 interceptors at the levels needed to counter threats,” Bob Ciesla, vice president of Boeing Precision Engagement Systems, said in a company statement. “The SM-3 is an essential part of the layered air and missile defense architecture that protects the U.S. and its allies worldwide.”

The approach mirrors a seven-year deal Boeing struck in April to triple production of PAC-3 Missile Segment Enhancement seekers, part of a broader Pentagon effort to lock in supply from key subcontractors alongside the prime contractors.

Earlier this month, the Missile Defense Agency awarded Raytheon a $745 million contract to produce fully assembled SM-3 Block IIA interceptors for the United States and Japan.

Demand for the interceptor traces back to April 2024, when Navy destroyers first fired SM-3s in combat, helping to thwart an Iranian ballistic missile attack on Israel. Far more interceptors have been launched since, including those fired in Operation Epic Fury.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies estimated the SM-3 inventory at 414 as of December 2025. A May analysis from the center put wartime expenditures between 130 and 250 missiles and warned that replenishment will take years.

Congress has stepped in to keep the Block IB line open, the cheaper of the two variants covered by Friday’s agreements, after the Missile Defense Agency proposed ending new purchases in the fiscal 2025 budget request.

American officials are backpedaling too. Trump on July 20 told the Financial Times that the U.S. has to be “a little bit careful of who we license to.” Despite that, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Saturday posted on X that the two sides have “now reached an agreement.”

The glacial progress may reflect American defense giants’ fear that Kyiv could become a defense industry competitor — rather than posing risk to technology or intellectual property — a Republican official on Capitol Hill told The Atlantic.

“Their real worry is that the Ukrainians will find a way to improve the Patriot and then produce them at scale faster and for much less money than what the existing production lines in the U.S. could do,” the official said, adding that the companies will publicly frame their concerns around “IP theft and tech transfer” instead.

Ukraine’s weapons industry, honed by nearly five years of Russia’s full-scale invasion, has been booming since the U.S.-Israel war with Iran began in the spring. The conflict with Iran has drained an estimated two-thirds of America’s pre-war Patriot interceptor inventory, sparking discussion about inventory and strategy.

Some defense partners are eager to work with Ukraine, a country with rare recent experience fighting a large-scale land war, and have shown strong interest in collaborating with Kyiv to develop and field cheaper, faster-to-produce alternatives to million-dollar weapons.

The race toward competition is problematic for the defense giants, the official said — not because Ukraine might steal the Patriot — but because the country’s partners might outbuild it, cutting into the current monopoly on antiballistic capabilities and profits.

Trump first pledged the license at the July NATO summit in Ankara, promising Ukraine permission to produce Patriot missiles for the first time.

“We’re going to give a license to you to make Patriots. That’s pretty cool. This way, you can’t complain that we’re not giving ‘em enough,” Trump said, adding that the companies had not yet been consulted on the plan.

Zelenskyy said the next day that the question had been “resolved politically,” telling reporters that technical teams needed to start work “without delay, so that we can get licenses very quickly and start production in Ukraine as soon as possible.”

Five days after Trump’s pledge, Ukraine, nine European countries and defense heavyweights including Eurosam, Leonardo, Thales and Saab launched a coalition in Paris to field Freyja, an entirely new antiballistic system built around a Ukrainian interceptor priced at roughly one-fifth of a Patriot round.

A week after that, Lockheed unveiled its own cheaper, faster-to-produce Patriot missile at the Farnborough International Airshow, advertising the PAC-3 ACE at roughly $2 million a round – less than half the price of the round Ukraine fires at Russian ballistic missiles today.

The Patriot line rarely moves that fast. Its current top round, the PAC-3 MSE, was first accepted by the U.S. Army in 2015 and took until 2018 to reach full-rate production, per the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance.

On July 21, one day after the ACE debut, Tim Cahill, president of Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control, described production talks with Ukraine as simply “early,” telling reporters the company will “support the US Army and the [Trump] administration on what they want to go do,” according to Breaking Defense.

Raytheon’s process “has just started,” with the company working with the U.S. government “to determine what is feasible and what is best for Ukraine,” its president of land and air defense systems, Tom Laliberty, said at the same show.

Two days later, Zelenskyy wrote in a post on X that he was “grateful for the company’s readiness to take our partnership to an even higher level, where Ukraine would co-produce, together with Raytheon, some of the most vital air defense assets – Patriot interceptors,” after meeting representatives of the group.

But when Zelenskyy asked Trump for “several hundred” interceptors at a July 28 Oval Office meeting, the president refused, citing America’s shrunken stocks, The Atlantic reported.

Three days later, Trump reversed course on the license entirely.

“We have not agreed to that,” he said at a Camp David Cabinet meeting. “We’re talking about it, but it’s a hard thing to give away that kind of technology.”

Then, U.S. NATO Ambassador Matthew Whitaker dampened expectations further on Aug. 3, telling Fox News that “we do not allow anybody but US manufacturers to make those in the United States,” adding that a long-term production agreement “will not be concluded before this winter,” per Euronews.

The deal’s current status is unclear.

“The decision has been made,” Zelenskyy said during an interview on Ukrainian television over the weekend, according to United24. “It was made by the President of the United States and other important American government institutions.”

American officials have yet to respond to Zelenskyy’s latest comments.

National security officials in Washington widely view Baker, who also served as a national security adviser to Vice President JD Vance, as a low-key but influential figure inside the White House.

A former State Department official, academic and Vance adviser when the vice president was in the Senate, Baker had historically advocated for a more restrained American foreign policy that questioned the wisdom of long-term foreign conflicts.

He was also among the figures who helped craft Vance’s speech to the Munich Security Conference last year, during which the vice president warned European leaders that alleged censorship and democratic backsliding posed risks as severe to the continent as external threats, like those posed by China and Russia.

“I’m proud of everything we’ve achieved and, of course, am incredibly grateful to the President, Vice President and Secretary Rubio,” Baker wrote in a statement provided to Reuters. “I’ll never be far away.”

In separate statements, Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio praised the outgoing deputy national security adviser, whose departure was first reported by Axios.

Staff Changes

Baker, who has a young family, stayed on at the White House months longer than originally planned to help with some key staff transitions, according to a person close to him.

Mike Needham, a high-ranking State Department official close to Rubio, joined the White House in late May as another deputy national security adviser alongside Baker, the person noted. Cliff Sims, a White House and intelligence official during Trump’s first term, succeeded Baker as national security adviser to Vance at around the same time.

There have been additional staff departures at lower levels of the White House’s national security team in recent months. The top officials on the National Security Council overseeing Europe and Latin America both departed in June.

The broader significance of the turnover is unclear. While Baker was present at some high-level talks and was considered far more influential than some of his peers, the Trump administration has often dealt with its biggest foreign policy challenges at the principal level, delegating relatively little responsibility even to its highest-level staff.

Outside the national security space, the White House has in recent days announced the impending departure of White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt and White House counsel David Warrington.

Melissa Farris was charged with depredation against property of the United States and destruction of veterans’ memorials, Pirro said on social media, adding that the charges carry penalties of up to 10 years in prison.

The World War II Memorial on the National Mall was vandalized with bubbly soap and graffiti on Thursday, prompting vows from the U.S. government to find the perpetrator. The fountain bubbled over with suds and the words “Clean hands Dirty $” were painted on one surface, splattering the area with red and green paint.

Along with her statement on X, Pirro posted photos of a woman who appears to be holding a can close to the red paint on the memorial.

Pirro did not provide more details of the woman in custody or provide the source of the images, which Reuters was not immediately able to verify.

Pirro has recently drawn President Donald Trump’s anger for dropping charges against four people for allegedly vandalizing the Reflecting Pool after Trump oversaw renovations of the pool.

The pool’s condition soon deteriorated, with a peeling liner and algae blooms. Pirro blamed that deterioration on faulty installation in dropping the vandalism charges.

Trump said in response that Pirro had “folded like an umbrella.”

Trump appeared to link the Reflecting Pool damage to the World War Two memorial in a post on social media on Friday, calling it an insult to Americans who had died in the conflict.

“First the Reflecting Pool, now this,” he wrote. “We are on their trail! Where do these animals come from???”

Pirro’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Farris could not be immediately reached for comment.

Task Force Falcon Strike will utilize one-way attack drones composed of unmanned systems from above, on and below the sea, managed by U.S. military support staff and regional partners, according to a Thursday release.

The move to launch this unit follows CENTCOM’s establishment of Task Force Scorpion Strike in December 2025, a Middle East-based task force equipped with one-way attack drones as the military strived to integrate drone technology across the services.

“Task Force Falcon Strike will expand on Scorpion Strike’s success given the tremendous innovation happening among our regional allies and partners,” Adm. Brad Cooper, CENTCOM commander, said in the release. “Integrating and deploying our new capabilities together will help us rapidly realize the new possibilities that are on the horizon.”

Scorpion Strike was the first to launch an aerial attack drone from a U.S. Navy warship last December, the month of its announcement. The unit also deployed one-way unmanned aerial systems during Operation Epic Fury and during strikes on Iranian port facilities in July with unmanned attack vessels at sea, the statement highlights.

CENTCOM began consulting with and officially inviting regional partners to join Falcon Strike, aiming to expand attack-drone capabilities across the Middle East into a “unified multi-domain, multinational deterrent.”

“The United States military has a lot of strong partnerships and friends in the region,” Cooper said. “We are collectively stronger when we integrate and deploy new capabilities together.”

The release did not specify which regional partners CENTCOM is working with on the unit.

Personnel from the U.S. Special Operations Command Central, located at MacDill Air Force Base, Florida, will lead Falcon Strike’s staff of U.S. and regional representatives after it launched Scorpion Strike, the release states.

The announcement comes as the U.S. continues its war with Iran, which has depleted the U.S. munitions stockpile and caused military leaders to weigh the possibility of developing cheaper anti-drone technology at a faster pace.

Chief Warrant Officer 2 Deontre T. Huey and Warrant Officer Seth L. Olmstead were killed when their aircraft went down around 1:40 p.m. Central Standard Time on Wednesday near Salado, Texas, the Army said.

“Our hearts and deepest condolences are with the families of the Soldiers we lost Wednesday,” Lt. Gen. Kevin D. Admiral, III Armored Corps and Fort Hood commanding general, said in a release. “The Army is a family, and a tragedy like this is felt throughout our formations and our community.”

Huey, 34, joined the Army in February 2014 as a motor transport operator. The Army listed his home of record as Killeen, Texas. Olmstead, 25, joined the Army in January 2023 as a warrant officer candidate. The Army listed his home of record as Belton, Texas.

The Army said a team from the U.S. Army Combat Readiness Center in Fort Rucker, Alabama, is leading an investigation into the crash.

In an announcement, Sheehy said the Special Operations Forces Concealed Carry Act would align the status of special operators with active and retired law enforcement officers, who are permitted under federal law to carry concealed weapons across state lines.

“Our elite warfighters never stop serving, and this bill ensures the law reflects the trust they’ve earned through a lifetime of sacrifice,” Sheehy said, adding that “Special Operations Forces spend their careers protecting the American people with unmatched discipline, judgment, and professionalism.”

According to Sheehy’s office, when Congress passed the Law Enforcement Officers Safety Act, or LEOSA, in 2004, lawmakers recognized that active and retired officers may need to respond to violent crime or terrorists while off duty. They also recognized that officers face ongoing threats from individuals they previously encountered while on duty.

Sheehy’s office explained that his bill would build on the framework created by LEOSA because individuals in special operations “have completed rigorous selection and possess firearms training that meets or exceeds professional law enforcement standards.”

Congressman Pat Harrigan, a Republican from North Carolina, filed a companion bill in April. In a statement, he said that “it makes no sense that an active or retired SEAL or Green Beret, someone who spent a career mastering firearms under the most demanding conditions in the world, has no equivalent recognition under federal law.”

While the bill would extend concealed carry privileges, it would also require participants to complete annual active-duty-level firearms qualification tests, as well as a Justice Department concealed carry class.

During Sheehy’s bid for a Senate seat in 2024, The Washington Post published an article about an incident in which Sheehy was cited at Glacier National Park for illegally discharging a firearm. According to the report, the park ranger investigating the incident interviewed Sheehy at an emergency room in Kalispell shortly after the shooting in October 2015.

“(Sheehy) stated he was arranging gear in the back of his vehicle, and that the gun (Colt Revolver, .45 long) had slipped down the pile of gear, hit the ground and fired. The round hit him in the right forearm and did not pass through,” the ranger wrote in a narrative with the citation.

The ranger also told The Washington Post that the revolver that Sheehy said had accidentally discharged was loaded except for a single missing bullet.

When confronted with the details, Sheehy told reporters that he lied about accidentally discharging his firearm and that the shooting injury actually occurred during a deployment in Afghanistan. He said he didn’t report it because a teammate’s negligent discharge caused the injury, and he didn’t want to get his teammate in trouble.

“I guess the only thing I’m guilty of is admitting to doing something I never did,” Sheehy told the newspaper. He added: “It was a small price to pay to make sure that a whole team of really great Americans didn’t get dragged through the mud over this.”

“This is the first rotation in the 15-year history of the program to be certified as a MAGTF, and that’s a big deal,” Col. George Flynn, commanding officer of MRF-D 2026, explained to Defense News.

Flynn noted that being certified validates the MAGTF’s credibility and proficiency because, if called upon, a commander “knows the force is going to be able to accomplish all those tasks it’s assigned as part of its task order to facilitate operations in the theater.”

“What makes it special purpose is just the uniqueness of how it’s placed here in Darwin in support of the Pacific theater,” Flynn continued. “We’re responsible for being ready for the full spectrum of operations from full-scale combat to humanitarian assistance and disaster relief.”

This certification process was completed in early May during an exercise in the Philippines, making “an incredible statement” on its ability to respond to crises.

Flynn said MRF-D is authorized to have 2,500 personnel, but he typically has around 2,000 in his SPMAGTF. They arrived in Darwin in March, with his task force including, among others, the California-based 1/5 Marines and MV-22B Ospreys from the Hawaii-based VMM-268.

High tempo

Flynn pointed out that “the Marine Corps, we always seek to deploy”.

MRF-D has maintained a heavy operational tempo, with the commander saying personnel had traveled to six or seven different countries to date.

“We’re busy, but Marines are having a great time. For this deployment, we’ve had 13 planned operations, activities, investments or exercises,” Flynn said. “We’ve been in the Philippines, we have forces in Indonesia right now, and we have forces that are getting ready to go to Tahiti to do training with the French. And we’ve certainly been all over the Australian continent.”

The latter includes major exercises with the Australian Army’s Darwin-based 1st Brigade and Townsville-based 3rd Brigade. Operating with the 1st Brigade is particularly helpful to both parties, since that formation now specializes in littoral warfare.

“We get to share good practices,” Flynn noted. “We have a great relationship with 1st Brigade.”

Asked about difficulties operating in such far-flung locations, often simultaneously, Flynn acknowledged, “It’s a good challenge to have. It allows us to demonstrate our ability to be distributed, and how well we can achieve operational reach throughout the region.

“I think it goes to demonstrate that, where needed, Marines can show up and provide the support that Marines are capable of providing.”

He said the SPMAGTF’s expeditionary mindset, its ability to get to locations quickly and to sustain itself, has “really been eye-watering to watch.” Flynn noted formations typically “spend their workup getting to their max level of readiness and then, once that deployment starts, that readiness starts to degrade over time.”

However, this is not the case with MRF-D, as “we have the unique ability to gain and maintain readiness throughout the deployment,” he said. This is due in part to “the expansive training areas throughout the continent that give us some wonderful opportunities to be most ready when called upon.”

Capability growth

“We have a robust C2 [command-and-control] capability down to our supporting elements as well, and we’ve been able to work with those systems and demonstrate … the ability to go up and down on different communication systems using satellite capabilities down to high-frequency capabilities and the like,” Flynn told Defense News. “At no point have I ever felt challenged with being able to command and control the force based on the capabilities that we’re working with.”

The Marine Corps continues to evolve for modern combat, too.

“Our Sec War has been adamant about increasing capabilities of the force with regards to small UAS [unmanned aerial systems] and first-person-view, one-way attack drones. We’ve had the opportunity to experiment with those systems out here, and you saw some of that at the counter-landing live-fire in the Philippines,” Flynn said. “So, we’re definitely using those. We’ve also used others like logistics-based unmanned aerial systems to facilitate movement of logistical requirements throughout the training areas here in Australia.”

However, he noted the Marine Corps “is actively still working through to increase capabilities” in counter-drone systems.

Perhaps one of the biggest helps to the SPMAGTF would be more assets for “lift and the ability to move the force around the theater,” Flynn shared.

Nevertheless, he said, “I’m beyond happy with what we’ve been able to demonstrate with our operational reach, and I think it’s just the opportunities that exist to further achieve interoperability with our allies and partners with moving the force around the theater is something that we should continue to look at going forward”.

Positive vibes

Asked about what he has gained from leading the deployment, Flynn said, “Every day, I get a chance to lead all these Marines and sailors that are under my command, and how they generally seem to understand their purpose, and they operate with happy hearts out here.

“The relationships we’ve built with the Australians and with other nations, allies and partners we’ve got a chance to work with — and just a demonstration of what it means to be a MAGTF operating in the Pacific theater — has just been really powerful for me personally.”

Flynn said MRF-D has contributed to a free and open Indo-Pacific theater.

“I think our presence, our posture and our ability to demonstrate that we can get into locations and be responsive to countries in need facilitates that free and open Indo-Pacific. All countries in this area have their own sovereignty and we respect that, and we stand by to support and protect that sovereignty as required.”

Each MRF-D deployment lasts six months. The current one ends in October, just before the wet season arrives in northern Australia.