Free Republic

U.S. forces shot down an Iranian drone that flew towards a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier in the Arabian Sea on Tuesday, U.S. Central Command confirmed. The military said the drone "aggressively" approached the USS Abraham Lincoln as it was crossing through the Arabian Sea roughly 500 miles from the southern coast of Iran and "unnecessarily maneuvered" toward the ship. U.S. Central Command spokesman Capt. Tim Hawkins said the drone continued to flew toward the carrier "despite de-escalatory measures taken by U.S. forces operating in international waters." The drone was shot down by a F-35 fighter jet, and no American service...

Russia has rolled back on comments suggesting that a major agreement with Iran had been suspended due to problems it faced with Tehran. Since the start of the war in Ukraine in February 2022, Tehran has supplied Moscow's war machine with equipment such as the Shahed drone, which has been used to attack Ukrainian civilian infrastructure. In September of that year, work on a new treaty between Moscow and Tehran was announced during a meeting between Putin and the late President of the Islamic Republic, Ebrahim Raisi. Russia's Foreign Ministry had said in January that the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Treaty...

Russia has launched its biggest drone attack on Kyiv since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine began last year, the city's mayor has said. Residents were woken by explosions before dawn on Saturday, and for more than six hours, the booms of Kyiv's air defences echoed through the city. There was wave after wave of attacks from the north and east. Officials said that more than 75 Iranian-made Shahed drones were fired at the capital, and 74 were shot down. With Russia's dwindling missile stocks, Shahed drones are seen as a cheap alternative. They are slower than ballistic missiles and have...