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.”

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.

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.

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.”

Following a NATO summit in Ankara, Trump was transferred from Air Force One to a military plane via a catering truck in an extraordinary deception prompted by an Iranian assassination threat, U.S. media reported.

The White House did not disclose the change, and it remained a secret until The Washington Post first reported it on Monday. Some media commentators questioned whether the operation left Trump’s aides and journalists traveling with him at risk aboard the plane presumed to be carrying the president.

“I think actually the plane that I flew on was at greater risk,” Trump told reporters on Tuesday. “I think it was at greater risk because that would be the plane I think that they would be more likely to go for.”

Trump was accompanied by several close aides when he secretly transferred from Air Force One to a smaller military aircraft in Turkey last month, The Washington Post reported on Wednesday.

White House deputy chief of staff Dan Scavino, executive assistant Natalie Harp and Oval Office operations director Walt Nauta made the move in the catering truck with Trump, along with several lower-profile aides, the Post reported. No Cabinet officials joined Trump in the truck, according to the newspaper.

After a day of social media memes portraying Trump as hiding out in the catering truck, the image-conscious president, who often promotes memes of himself as a bold and courageous leader, said he was following the direction of the Secret Service, the agency that protects the president.

“Well, it’s only up to Secret Service. I just follow what they’d like to do, so I go by Secret Service and the military,” Trump said.

“I guess there was a threat out there. I didn’t really ask too much about it. I get a lot of threats,” Trump said.

The White House said at the time that the president was flying aboard Air Force One from Turkey to Britain. But moments after Trump boarded the plane, he left it in secret via the catering truck and boarded another aircraft for the flight to Britain, the Post said on Monday, quoting unnamed sources.

Trump had taken a newly renovated Qatari-donated jet to Ankara for the NATO summit but unexpectedly announced he would use an older Air Force One when departing the country, a move that prompted questions about the newer plane’s security.

The trip to NATO was the first international travel for the new plane, whose speedy upgrades triggered questions over its cost and security, and took place as hostilities escalated with Iran, which borders Turkey.

Department of War Undersecretary for Policy Elbridge Colby made the remarks in Manila on Monday amid growing concerns that China has been narrowing the gap — or eclipsing — U.S. military capabilities, as its demands in the Middle East have potentially drained stockpiles.

“There’s been a lot of news about the United States military being stretched. Please don’t be misinformed,” Colby told Manila’s defense and security elites at a closed-door event organized by the Stratbase Institute think tank.

“The United States military, and especially including those [maritime and aerospace] capabilities, are ready and capable of filling the priority missions that the president has given to them,” Colby said.

Colby, one of the Pentagon’s leading strategists, has pushed to prioritize the Indo-Pacific and East Asia over the Middle East and Europe. The Manila stop is the first in a week-long Southeast Asian tour that includes visits to Indonesia, Thailand and Cambodia.

His visit also comes amid an increasingly tense period between Manila and Beijing following a confrontation in Second Thomas Shoal on July 20, when Chinese personnel hit and wounded a Philippine Navy sailor in the head.

The incident triggered another tit-for-tat between Manila and Beijing over the contents of a highly classified “provisional agreement” reportedly signed in 2024 that allows Philippine vessels to safely deliver supplies to troops stationed aboard the BRP Sierra Madre floating outpost.

After last month’s incident, officials noted that China has appeared more assertive, indicating a shift in how China perceives the implications of the mutual defense treaty.

Tensions have also intensified as China has routinely deployed carrier strike groups in the West Philippine Sea, and last month, fired a submarine-launched ballistic missile toward the Pacific.

While military deterrence forms one component of the U.S. strategy in the Indo-Pacific, Washington is employing a “strategy of strong, clear, but quiet” action designed to address the challenge without altering the status quo, according to Colby.

“In terms of our relationship with China, I think we’ve been able to communicate…our approach directly to Chinese counterparts,” Colby said.

“We combine a clear diplomatic line, a policy of respect towards the People’s Republic [of China], clarity about…our being in favor of the status quo, along with…strength in terms of being willing to defend our interests and those of our allies like the Philippines,” he added.

Apart from strengthening the U.S.’ forward posture and fielding combat-credible forces, Colby noted that measures are being set up, albeit quietly, to allow for the U.S. to come to the Philippines’ aid.

Colby described the U.S. approach to the region as “defensive” and “aligns with the interests of regional states.”

“We’re not trying to dominate this whole region. It’s a strategy of denial, designed to deny any state the ability to become the regional hegemon,” Colby said.

The visit comes a week after the Pacific Command and the Philippine armed forces signed an eight-point partnership plan for 2027, which includes an undisclosed series of joint military exercises, and before President Xi Jinping’s state visit to the U.S. in September.

“If you are trying to project power, whoever you are, into the aerospace and maritime environment in the Indo-Pacific, you are going to come up against the very best military in the world at its apex predator status,” Colby concluded.

The incident raised serious questions about why the passenger airplane was allowed to depart while ​Marine One was nearby, a time when commercial traffic is typically halted.

Following a January 2025 crash between a ​military helicopter and a commercial jet that killed 67 people, the Federal Aviation Administration barred mixed helicopter ⁠and jet traffic around the airport.

“There have been some telecom issues,” Duffy told reporters at Newark Liberty International Airport.

“That’s been now elevated,” he said, adding that he is working with the FAA on a fix with the White House.

Duffy and FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford spoke to media at the New Jersey airport for an event marking the installation of a new surface movement radar used to improve runway safety.

The FAA is spending billions to replace outdated air traffic control telecom infrastructure and radar surveillance systems after a series of failures, including significant, serious outages covering Newark and Washington traffic and a 2023 failure of an FAA system that forced a brief nationwide ground stop.

Deputy Defense Secretary Steve Feinberg told defense-industry leaders in an Aug. 5 memo that they have 21 days to submit plans for “significantly faster, more aggressive delivery schedules and/or increased production for critical capabilities.”

“Years-long development cycles are not acceptable,” Feinberg wrote. “We must dramatically accelerate our program schedules and expand our production capacity now.”

The memo also asks companies to propose specific capital investments and facility expansions and to explain how they would work with the Pentagon to increase weapons production. Feinberg also called on industry to demonstrate its willingness to “put skin in the game.” Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said the responses will help inform the department’s fiscal 2028 budget request.

The increased demand comes as the U.S. has used large quantities of advanced munitions during the conflict with Iran, with recent estimates showing declines in stocks of key missile interceptors.

A Center for Strategic and International Studies analysis estimated that U.S. stocks of Patriot interceptors fell from 2,330 before the war with Iran, to between 759 and 827 after the latest round of operations. THAAD interceptor stocks fell from 452 to between 234 and 278.

The Pentagon’s challenge is not identifying how many interceptors have been used, but how quickly they can be replaced. CSIS estimates the delivery timeline for Patriot PAC-3 MSE interceptors at about 42 months and about 53 months for THAAD.

The urgent 21-day deadline was communicated to arms manufacturers like Boeing, Lockheed Martin and RTX.

RTX said in July that it had received its first U.S. domestic production order for GEM-T Patriot interceptors in more than 30 years, in a roughly $442 million Army contract. The order comes as the Pentagon not only seeks to increase production of newer Patriot and THAAD interceptors but also to expand its capacity for the components required to build them.

On July 27, the department announced seven-year framework agreements with industry to expand production of key propulsion components for PAC-3 MSE and THAAD interceptors. L3Harris said its PAC-3 agreement will nearly triple production of a range of propulsion products supporting the interceptor, while its THAAD agreement is intended to quadruple production of key propulsion components.

Feinberg’s memo asks companies to identify the areas where they can increase and accelerate production and delivery, and what would be required from the Pentagon in order to make that happen. The department will use the responses to determine what industry can deliver faster and what additional resources may be needed.

The memo’s scope extends beyond weapons used in the Iran conflict. Feinberg identified 16 critical programs under consideration for accelerated production or increased procurement in the fiscal 2028 review, including the Next Generation Interceptor, the National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System (NASAMS), a mobile air defense radar system and a space-based missile-tracking system.