️‍🔥 State Department warns of 'swift and severe' response if Iran sends ballistic missiles to Russia

Good Morning. 

The Pentagon has launched a new feedback system to help address longstanding problems with military housing.

The initiative is designed to boost transparency and accountability in privatized military housing. The system allows active-duty service members, and their authorized dependents, to submit feedback on their existing leased unit.

The system comes after a 2023 report from a Congressional watchdog that found poor conditions in some military housing, including barracks, was eroding U.S. military readiness.

— 🐈‍⬛ Acoustic Kitty

THE BOTTOM LINE UP FRONT

The State Department warned that there would be a “swift and severe” response if Iran were to send ballistic missiles to Russia, following reports that the country plans to send hundreds of the satellite-guided weapons to Moscow soon.

Reuters reported Friday that Iran is planning to ship ballistic missiles to Russia “soon,” citing multiple European intelligence sources, adding that Iran is already training Russian forces on how to use the Fath-360 close-range ballistic missile system.

Responding to that report, State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel said Monday that the U.S. would quickly respond to any such transfer. “We’ve been warning of the deepening security partnership between Russia and Iran since the onset of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, this partnership threatens European security and illustrates how Iran’s destabilizing influence reaches beyond the Middle East and around the world,” he said.

INTERNATIONAL SECURITY & DIPLOMACY

Counterterrorism

• Yemen’s Houthi rebels stormed the headquarters of the United Nations’ Human Rights Office in the capital, Sanaa, seizing documents, furniture and vehicles. The seizure was the latest move in a crackdown by the Houthis on people working with the U.N., aid agencies and foreign embassies.

Military & Defense

• Ukraine controlled at least 800 square kilometers (308 square miles) of territory in Russia’s Kursk region as of Monday, according to an AFP analysis of data provided by the Institute for the Study of War. Kyiv launched a surprise offensive into Russia’s western Kursk region across the border last Tuesday, capturing over two dozen settlements in the most significant cross-border attack on Russian soil since World War II.

• Secretary of State Antony Blinken approved about $20 billion in possible weapons sales to Israel, the State Department announced Tuesday. The proposed sale includes up to 50 F-15 fighter jets as well as 30 advanced medium-range air-to-air missiles,120 mm tank cartridges, high explosive mortar cartridges and medium tactical vehicles, according to the Defense Security Cooperation Agency

Cybersecurity

• The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) on Monday announced the disruption of online infrastructure associated with a nascent ransomware group called Dispossessor (aka Radar). The effort saw the dismantling of three U.S. servers, three United Kingdom servers, 18 German servers, eight U.S.-based criminal domains, and one German-based criminal domain

• South Korea’s ruling party has revealed that North Korean cybercriminals managed to obtain classified technical data about two of its key military reconnaissance planes. A Seoul-based defense analyst warned that the breach could provide Pyongyang with critical insights about South Korea’s surveillance methods.

• Federal law enforcement agencies are investigating an apparent hacking incident involving Donald Trump’s campaign, which the former president is blaming on Iran, after a trove of documents were dumped to reporters over the weekend.

• Hackers have targeted the Grand Palais Olympics venue and other museums in Paris, launching a ransomware attack aimed at the collection system for financial data from stores and boutiques in museums across France.

Counterintelligence & Espionage

• An academic and author who helped start a pro-democracy organization in New York City that opposes the current communist regime in China, was convicted by a federal jury in Brooklyn on all four counts of an indictment charging him with acting and conspiring to act as an agent of a foreign government without prior notification to the U.S. Attorney General, criminal possession identification and making false statements to law enforcement.

• Pakistan's former spymaster - who was once tipped for the army's top job - has been taken into military custody. Lt Gen Faiz Hameed has been accused of abusing his power and raiding a private property development business during his time as head of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency.

• China Tuesday said it has uncovered more than 1,000 cases of Taiwanese espionage in recent years. The State Security Ministry said these cases were exposed through a series of special operations and pledged to maintain pressure on Taiwan's "pro-independence forces," according to a report by South China Morning Post.

• A US Army intelligence analyst pleaded guilty on Tuesday to providing sensitive defense information to China, including documents about US weapons systems and military tactics and strategy.

Transnational Organized Crime

• The Drug Enforcement Administration in Atlanta made a methamphetamine bust of a Mexican cartel’s planned drug drop off at a Clayton County farmer’s market inside a tractor-trailer. Agency officials say that this seizure is the largest in the division's history, with more than 2,000 pounds recovered.

• The capture of notorious drug cartel leader Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada in the U.S. has led to a treason investigation in Mexico, where President Andrés Manuel López Obrador was apparently angered by the incident.

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

The Earth was hit Monday by an intense solar storm that could bring the Northern Lights to night skies farther south than normal, a U.S. agency announced. Conditions of a level-four geomagnetic storm — on a scale of five — were observed Monday from 1500 GMT, according to a specialized center at the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Solar or geomagnetic storms can degrade high-frequency communications, disrupt satellites and cause overloads on the electricity grid. Operators of sensitive infrastructure have been notified to put in place measures to limit these effects, NOAA said.

In other news…

A Chinese Long March 6A rocket broke apart in low-Earth orbit and formed a debris field with hundreds of pieces, confirmed by U.S. Space Command.

Whisper Aero partners with Oak Ridge National Laboratory to advance development of its nine-passenger electric airplane by running simulations on the Summit supercomputer at ORNL.

NASA's Cold Atom Lab, a first-of-its-kind facility aboard the International Space Station, has taken another step toward revolutionizing how quantum science can be used in space. Members of the science team measured subtle vibrations of the space station with one of the lab's onboard tools—the first time ultra-cold atoms have been employed to detect changes in the surrounding environment in space.

DEALS & FUNDING

Venture capital investors are flocking to larger defense-tech deals while overall dealmaking for the year slows.

Defense tech has historically not been as popular with VC investors as it can increase reputational risk for firms. Many VCs simply aren’t able to invest in the sector due to LP agreements with regards to weapons. Securing government contracts is also a lengthy process dominated by a handful of established players, making investments riskier. A decade ago, only $4.3 billion was invested in the sector, compared to $34.9 billion last year. But with the rise in geopolitical tensions, national security has become a higher priority for countries that are increasingly turning to technology for defense. Success stories like Anduril and Shield AI have also given VCs more confidence.

In other news…

Chinese commercial rocket firm Deep Blue Aerospace announced new funding for its vertical takeoff and vertical landing rocket, with a 100-kilometer-level launch and landing test scheduled for later this month.

The Defense Innovation Unit and the Navy have awarded contracts to prototype small sea drones, in line with the department's Replicator program timeline to field thousands of attritable, unmanned systems by August 2025 to counter China's military mass.

The US Air Force / AFWERX has awarded PeakMetrics, an AI-driven narrative intelligence platform, a $1.85 million Tactical Funding Increase (TACFI) contract to rapidly identify foreign malign influence within the information environment.