Ukraine’s air defenses have been intercepting nearly 60% of Russian Geran-4 jet-powered attack drones over the past three months, with the interception rate reaching 80% during some attacks, Ukraine’s General Staff said.

Russia has increasingly used jet-powered drones in its attacks on Ukraine, adding a faster-moving threat to the Shahed-type drones Moscow deploys against Ukrainian cities and infrastructure. Ukraine is working to improve interception rates while reducing the cost of countering these aerial threats amid shortages of surface-to-air missiles.

The General Staff’s update did not mention interception rates for Russia’s more advanced Geran-5 jet-powered drone.

F-16s, Mirage jets help intercept Russian drones

According to the General Staff, tactical aviation plays a significant role in destroying Russian jet-powered drones. Ukraine uses F-16s, French Mirage aircraft, and MiG-29 fighters to intercept them.

The military is also strengthening what it calls “short-range air defense” as Ukraine faces a shortage of guided anti-aircraft missiles. These systems include Gepard and Shilka anti-aircraft guns, newer Skynex, Skyranger, and Terrahawk Paladin systems, interceptor drones, and mobile fire groups deployed by different branches of Ukraine’s Defense Forces.

Mobile fire groups are equipped not only with machine guns and supporting equipment but also with man-portable air-defense systems (MANPADS). Ukrainian troops have been successfully using these missiles to shoot down Russian jet-powered drones, the General Staff said.

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Ukraine tests cheaper drone interceptors

Ukraine is also seeking to lower the cost of countering Russian aerial attacks by testing new interceptor drones.

According to the General Staff, some models have already downed dozens of Russian Geran jet-powered drones. The military did not provide further details about the interceptor models or the number of drones destroyed.

The rising interception rate reflects Ukraine’s efforts to adapt its air defenses to Russia’s evolving drone campaign while preserving scarce and expensive air-defense missiles for threats that require them.

German defense AI firm Helsing has unveiled Contra, an AI-run air defense system and two interceptor missiles designed to chase Russia’s jet-powered Geran drones, the company announced on 26 October. Officials pitch it as cheap, but it won’t reach the market this winter.

That leaves Ukraine on its own defenses as Russia shifts to jet drones. By early October, jet models made up about 40% of Russian drone launches, and Ukraine’s own interceptors for them won’t arrive in needed numbers before late November, Air Force Deputy Commander Yurii Cherevashenko said.

Two missiles, one AI brain

Contra is the command layer of air defense: it links radars and other sensors, tracks incoming drones and missiles, and assigns a weapon to each target, while people keep control over decisions, Helsing said. Besides the company’s own missiles, it can also use other firms’ interceptors, lasers, guns, or nets. AD-1 Inferno is jet-powered and designed to loiter, swarm, and re-engage targets, while AD-2 Ambush, a solid-fuel rocket, is designed to reach Mach 2.5, over twice the speed of sound, and a range of more than 20 km, the company said.

Inferno, with a 700 km/h speed and a 20-km range, would be the everyday shooter. Ambush would handle “leakers,” drones about to hit the ground, said Maxwell Adams, Helsing’s senior product director. Each shot should cost under $100,000, company officials said.

Built for the faster Gerans

Ukraine once downed 90% of Russia’s slower, propeller-driven Gerans, copies of Iran’s Shahed, Defense News reported. Russia has since fielded thousands of jet Geran-4s and Geran-5s flying at 400–700 km/h, and almost half now get through, Helsing co-founder and co-CEO Gundbert Scherf said.

Ukraine’s own nightly rates swing widely. On 28 September, President Zelenskyy put the shoot-down rate for jet drones at 57%. Overnight on 7 October, it exceeded 82%, National Security and Defense Council Secretary Ihor Klymenko said. Russian output of the two models has reached 4,000 a month, Helsing said, citing unspecified intelligence reports.

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German company introduces AI-powered HX-2 drone for Ukrainian military

Helsing has signed one Contra contract, Scherf said, but the system is still in testing, and he expects it on the market in the second half of 2027. Ukraine already uses Helsing’s HX-2 strike drones. Scherf said they should be integrated into a system like Contra.

Ukraine has finished its share of FREYJA, a joint European project to build a system against ballistic missiles, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told journalists on 17 October, Ukrinform reported. He added that Kyiv wants to test the first system as soon as possible.

Ukraine still relies on US-made Patriot interceptors to stop Russian ballistic missiles. Zelenskyy told ABC News on 23 October that Ukraine had received only 24 of them from the US in three months, while it needs 350 a month on average. FREYJA can not close that gap soon, because the system is still in development.

Ukraine’s missile and launcher, partners’ radars and sensors

Zelenskyy said the partners’ share of the work, with 10 countries taking part, is still underway. He also said he had discussed the project with French President Emmanuel Macron, and he named Norway as a key partner.

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Ukraine’s missile, Europe’s sensors—FREYJA enters active development on an early-2027 clock

Zelenskyy did not say what the partners still have to deliver. In August, he said Ukraine is capable of making the missile and launcher, while partners would supply critical components such as radars and sensors.

One part not made in Ukraine

In May, Fire Point co-founder and chief designer Denys Shtilerman said all components of the FP-7.x interceptor are made in Ukraine except one. “As for that one part we don’t manufacture in Ukraine, we’ve contracted a certain quantity of it. We already have it,” he said, but did not name the part.

In June, however, Shtilerman told the Financial Times that mass production depended on an infrared seeker Fire Point hoped to get from Germany’s Diehl Defence. Neither statement says whether the seeker is that one part.

Fire Point co-founder Iryna Terekh said in September that FREYJA was going through testing and technical integration in combat conditions in Ukraine. The company plans its first intercept of a ballistic target by mid-2027.

The official timeline has since moved closer. On 21 October, Zelenskyy wrote that officials had identified where to speed up so FREYJA reaches testing by the end of this year. A test is still a step short of an intercept.

• A shotgun-armed drone has joined the Blue UAS List of approved uncrewed systems.
• Skyborne Technologies said it built the drone to withstand a shotgun's recoil.
• The Blue UAS List helps the US military and other federal agencies identify vetted drones.

A drone armed with a shotgun has been added to the Pentagon's list of uncrewed systems approved for purchase by the US military and other federal agencies.

Shotguns are commonly seen as a last line of defense against uncrewed aerial systems. Now, US troops could find themselves using a drone armed with one instead.

Earlier this month, Skyborne Technologies' AI-enabled Cerberus MI was approved for the Blue UAS List. The drone is a small, man-portable UAS that the company says was specifically designed to absorb the recoil of attached weapons. The company says the aircraft weighs about 40 pounds, can fly for roughly 35 minutes when armed, and engage targets at a range of over 300 meters.

Instead of simply mounting a shotgun on a commercial, off-the-shelf drone, Skyborne purposefully designed and built the aircraft with the recoil of a CHAOS 12-gauge shotgun in mind.

In addition to the shotgun, Cerberus MI can also be equipped to carry a HAVOC 40mm low-velocity grenade launcher. An operator can send the drone into action, fire its weapons, and fly it back for reloading. According to Skyborne, that makes it a reusable alternative to one-way attack systems that are typically destroyed after striking a target.

The idea of arming drones with shotguns isn't new. Ukrainian defense company 3DTech, for example, developed a drone equipped with a six-barrel recoilless shotgun system to shoot down enemy drones. Other companies are pursuing similar technology, including Federal Ammunition, Mossberg, and Palladyne AI, which are collaborating on the SwarmShot project.

The Pentagon's Blue UAS program was established in 2020 to identify drones that meet US government standards, particularly cybersecurity and supply chain rules. Last year, the Defense Contract Management Agency launched an official website cataloging the models approved for use.

The DCMA said that the list would expedite the process of getting drones into troops' hands as the US Department of Defense and other federal agencies push to rapidly integrate uncrewed systems into operations. Drones, drone parts, and software are part of the program.

A major focus of the list is identifying drones that meet restrictions on Chinese-made components. According to the Association for Uncrewed Vehicle Systems International, Chinese companies control 90% of the commercial drone market. US officials have raised concerns about Beijing's leverage over the market.

Ukrainian postal company Nova Post has established its own private air defense capability and has already shot down Russian Shahed attack drones, company co-owner Viacheslav Klymov said on 27 October, according to Interfax-Ukraine.

As Russia increasingly targets Ukrainian factories, warehouses, transport hubs, and other civilian infrastructure, localized air defense is becoming more important. Ukraine’s expanding private air defense program allows businesses to help protect their facilities while operating within the country’s military air defense command system.

“We are one of the few companies that has implemented this project. I don’t want to disclose figures, but we have Shahed shootdowns,” Klymov said at the 12th Kyiv International Economic Forum, according to Interfax-Ukraine.

Klymov also argued that businesses can take on responsibilities that were previously considered exclusively the state’s domain. He pointed to firefighting as another area where companies can strengthen their own response capabilities.

Nova Post employees already extinguish many fires caused by Russian attacks on the company’s facilities without waiting for the State Emergency Service of Ukraine (DSNS) to arrive, he said. Large businesses are also looking for fire engines in Europe to establish their own firefighting units.

Private air defense expands across Ukraine

Ukraine began allowing private companies to establish air defense units under a government-approved framework in November 2025. These units operate under Air Force command, with the military coordinating their missions and integrating them into the national air defense network.

Nearly 100 companies have reportedly joined the experimental program. About 50 air defense groups had been formed, and crews from six companies were already carrying out combat missions. By 14 October, the groups had downed more than 60 aerial targets, mostly Russian drones, according to Ukraine’s Defense Ministry.

The program allows participating businesses to help defend industrial sites and critical infrastructure using capabilities that include interceptor drones and remotely operated heavy machine guns. The approach adds another layer of protection without requiring the military to cover every facility with its own units.

The need for such protection has grown as Russia continues launching long-range attack drones against civilian and industrial targets across Ukraine. Localized air defense can help protect specific sites and reduce the burden on military units, although it remains part of a coordinated national system rather than an independent replacement for military air defense.

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Not every company sees private air defense as the answer

The approach has its limits. On 26 October, Kateryna Zahorii, chair of the board of directors of major pharmaceutical company Darnytsia, said her company had studied private air defense but decided against deploying it, Interfax-Ukraine reported.

Zahorii said the changing nature of the threat could make the investment difficult to sustain, as companies might need to keep upgrading their defenses. Darnytsia is instead prioritizing attack monitoring, employee shelters, and safety procedures. The company has been hit by Russian forces three times in September, according to NV.

• The Army is working to cut delays between recruitment, training, and assignments.
• New scheduling tools aim to fill empty training seats and get soldiers into units faster.
• The Army also wants to consider family medical needs earlier in assignment decisions.

The US Army wants to streamline how it trains new soldiers and places them into roles, part of a larger push to cut bureaucratic delays that can leave recruits waiting months for training and create logjams down the line.

Service leaders want to cut the time soldiers spend waiting between recruitment, training, and assignments, while also ensuring specialties are consistently filled by personnel who are prepared for and interested in the jobs.

At the Association of the United States Army conference in Washington, DC, earlier this month, leaders from Army Human Resources Command discussed how they're modernizing personnel management to get soldiers trained into the jobs where they're needed faster.

The data-driven approaches are aimed at connecting what have long been separate processes to better match soldiers to specific locations and jobs based on the Army's needs and scheduling.

Part of the challenge for the service is getting "hundreds of disparate systems" to talk to each other, said Lt. Gen. Charles Lombardo, who's overseeing the effort.

The Army is tackling that problem through a broader technology overhaul touching systems spanning from personnel management to battlefield operations. The Army has described its wider human-resources overhaul as an effort to replace fragmented, paper-based processes with a unified data environment. It says that the effort is intended to improve forecasting, resource management, and real-time personnel services.

For training, Army leaders want better scheduling with an approach they're calling People Supply Chain Management.

Rather than handling enlistment, basic training, and advanced training as separate events, the service is examining how to better coordinate these processes to reduce downtime and fill empty training seats.

The Army announced the initiative last year, saying it recruits, trains, and assigns tens of thousands of people annually across more than 200 specialties. Some of the Army's most in-demand technical specialties, such as military intelligence and air defense, are top of mind because they have more specialized recruiting and training requirements. Without synchronization, bottlenecks can leave recruits waiting months for training or leave too many soldiers in particular job fields.

With this approach, if two dates are available for advanced training, the system would route soldiers graduating from basic training to the class that best fits their schedule or redirect soldiers to fill seats that open up if someone can no longer attend.

It's still early days for the program, and it remains to be seen whether the new approach can meaningfully reduce wait times, fill more training seats, and get qualified soldiers into units faster.

The service also hopes overhauls will improve assignments for families with members requiring special medical care or specific childcare by matching them with bases that have the necessary services and providers.The aim is to account for those needs before assigning soldiers to duty stations, rather than after a job match has been made.

• Ukraine's ground robots are carrying grenade launchers into dangerous areas.
• The robots bring short-range firepower closer to Russian troops without exposing Ukrainian soldiers.
• A brigade said operators tens of kilometers away used armed robots to pulverize Russian positions.

Ukraine is mounting grenade launchers on ground robots, allowing its forces to bring useful firepower closer to Russian troops without sending in soldiers to pull the trigger.

Grenades have long been important in Ukraine's fight against Russia's invasion, particularly in close-quarters trench combat, but the battlefield is changing.

Troops increasingly fight in smaller force concentrations from scattered defensive positions rather than heavily manned continuous trench networks. Meanwhile, the growing "kill zone, which is swarming with drones, makes it harder for troops to approach these front-line positions. While infantry remains critically important, drones and robots are bridging the gap and taking over more and more missions, from logistics to medevac to assault.

Defense manufacturers told Business Insider that grenade launchers are increasingly being mounted on uncrewed ground vehicles, or UGVs, allowing soldiers to strike Russian positions from a safer distance.

Oleg Fedoryshyn, the director of R&D for the Ukrainian robotic and defense company DevDroid, told Business Insider that grenade launchers are useful because soldiers "don't need to see the enemy to hit him."

A soldier in hiding is easier to hit with a grenade launcher than, say, a machine gun, which is a line-of-sight weapon.

Now, soldiers can mount them on ground robots so that they don't have to put themselves in harm's way. A soldier-carried grenade launcher might have a range of a few hundred meters, but using a robot, an operator can be tens of kilometers away.

DevDroid's TW-40 ground robotic system has a range of 70 kilometers on paved roads and up to 50 kilometers off-road, making it effective in the kill zone. And the mounted grenade launcher has a reach of 1.5 kilometers.

Ukraine has been using soldier-carried and truck-mounted grenade launchers since before Russia began its full-scale invasion in February 2022. The robots deliver similar firepower without risking human lives.

Ukraine's Third Army Corps, for example, said in September that it used grenade launchers on robots to "dismantle enemy positions" in its Operation Vivaldi, characterizing it as "a new tactic."

"Equipped with dual Bullspike grenade launchers, the UGVs attacked Russian positions before detonating directly inside the enemy's shelters. The occupiers believed they were under assault by an entire assault squad; in reality, they were being pulverized by the Third Assault Brigade's robots," the brigade wrote on Telegram.

It said that robots were able to strike, put psychological pressure on Russian forces, and clear the position "all without putting our infantry at risk."

"This is a tactic never before seen in the history of warfare. The robots were controlled by operators from a secure shelter located tens of kilometers away from the front line."

Robots armed with grenade launchers are another example of how this war is blending elements of old warfare with new, advanced technologies. In this war, it's not uncommon to see drones dropping grenades or electronic warfare sharing the battlefield with artillery.

In addition to grenade launchers, robots can also fire other weapons, such as RPGs and American-made M2 Browning machine guns.

DevDroid's goal with its systems is "to change all roles that we can change to save people's lives," Fedoryshyn said.

That goal is shared by Ukraine's soldiers, defense industry, and leadership. Oleksandr Yabchanka, the head of the robotic systems for Ukraine's Da Vinci Wolves Battalion, told Business Insider that Ukraine is constantly working to increase the distance between troops and the fighting.

"Our philosophy is, above all, to preserve our personnel," he explained. "We strive to position our fighters as far as possible from the line of contact and the zones of highest risk — the so-called 'kill zones.'"

Other manufacturers say they're seeing a shift in how soldiers use armed robots in combat.

Defense firm Frontline Robotics makes the Buria autonomous remote weapon station, which allows soldiers to fire grenade launchers and other weapons remotely. Early last year, Ukrainian forces were hiding them in prepared locations to stop Russian advances.

"But right now, everything has changed," Mykyta Rozhkov, chief business development officer, told Business Insider, pointing to the growing drone saturation on the battlefield.

Now, it's being mounted on UGVs, creating small tanks that can advance toward Russian positions without exposing troops.

DevDroid's Fedoryshyn said robots armed with grenade launchers are most effective when paired with robots carrying machine guns and aerial drones that can spot targets and direct fire.

Robots can be used to transport gear, evacuate the wounded, blow up enemy positions, lay mines, and fire various types of weaponry. Their use has increased dramatically. Ukraine's defense ministry said in June that it had contracted over 22,000 uncrewed ground vehicles so far in 2026, nearly twice as many as all of the previous year.

The Da Vinci Wolves' Yabchanka said that he sees that "many units have begun employing UGVs. This usage has already become widespread. Ground-based robotic systems are becoming an integral part of combat operations for most units deployed along the line of contact."

As UGV use grows, Rozhkov said that Frontline Robotics' goal is to "provide different robotic solutions to get people outside the danger zone. So just to keep the line with the robots."

Europe's top NATO members are ready to take greater responsibility for the continent's security while standing with the U.S. as an "indispensable ally," the organization affirmed Tuesday.

The post Trump Effect: Top NATO Powers Pledge to Commit More to Defence, Reaffirm U.S. Alliance appeared first on Breitbart.

• Ukraine downed about 74% of Russia's turbojet Shaheds while Starshield was throttled, ISW says.
• That's about 3 percentage points lower than its typical interception rate of about 77%, analysts said.
• Much of Ukraine's air defense against turbojet Shaheds now relies on fighter jets like the F-16.

Ukrainian data shows its air defenses largely held up against one of Russia's most prominent new threats despite a 10-day Starshield slowdown.

Though high-speed interceptor drones were hindered by the reported throttling, Kyiv's forces managed to intercept 74% of Russian jet-powered Shaheds from October 14 to 24, compared with a typical rate of 77%, according to analysts at the Washington-based think tank Institute for the Study of War.

The organization bases its analyses on interception data released by Ukraine's air force, which said Russia had launched hundreds of the turbojet attack drones over the 10-day period.

The drop of three percentage points, or roughly 3.8%, translates to a "still relatively high interception rate" but doesn't mean Ukraine can rest easy, the ISW analysts wrote.

Many interceptons were owed to Ukrainian fighter jets countering Russian jet Shaheds with air-to-air missiles or guns.

For months, fighter aircraft have been Ukraine's primary and most successful air defense so far against jet Shaheds — an assessment that Ukrainian air force spokesperson Col. Yuriy Ihnat repeated to local media on Monday after Starshield services returned to normal.

"We are counting on the aviation component," he told RBC Ukraine, referring to helicopters and fighter jets.

One of Ukraine's main aircraft in this fight is the F-16 Fighting Falcon, which Ihnat said in April could shoot down 10 Russian Shaheds each in a single night. The F-16 carries the M61A1 Vulcan, a six-barrel, Gatling-style rotary cannon that fires 20mm rounds.

Kyiv requisitioned more than 50,000 of these rounds from Denmark last week in a scramble to bolster its air defenses while Starshield, the military version of Starlink that its interceptor drones rely on, was limited by a speed cap. That many rounds is enough for roughly 100 sorties.

The F-16 pillar can't last forever

But ISW analysts wrote that the F-16 strategy poses a few complications for Ukraine. Using its gun to shoot down jet Shaheds, for example, "requires a high pilot skill level and increases the risk to the airframe and pilot," the wrote.

The practice also increases maintenance demands for Ukraine's already-strained fighter jets and distracts them from other missions they could be needed for, the analysts added.

"Supplementing the Ukrainian air defense umbrella with interceptor drones is Ukraine's best chance at developing a robust air defense umbrella capable of sustaining high interception rates of Russian jet-powered drones over the long term," the analysts wrote.

Indeed, before Russia began surging launches of jet-powered drones, Ukraine had reported much higher interception rates of over 90% against propeller Shaheds in some months.

These had been largely boosted by Ukraine's mass adoption of interceptor drones, or small drones that cost just a fraction of traditional interceptor missiles.

But Russia's increased use of turbojets on its attack drones, the more advanced of which can fly at speeds of up to 370 mph, meant Ukraine has to radically evolve its designs to keep up. While it now has several types of drones capable of catching and destroying jet-powered Shaheds, the new interceptor effort as a whole is still in early stages.

Many of these new interceptors became ineffective during the 10-day slowdown of Starshield, which Ukraine said stopped working when a drone flew faster than 100 mph.

The reason for the connectivity problems is still unclear. They emerged as President Donald Trump and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk both openly criticized Ukraine for strikes on Russian energy infrastructure as the White House sought to lower gas prices.

Trump and Musk have separately said they were not responsible for the slowdown to Starshield, which is owned and operated by the US government.

Musk, while maintaining that the US controls Starshield, later also accused Ukrainian forces of breaching civilian network Starlink's terms of service by using it for drone strikes.

On Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Starshield services were restored.

Meanwhile, some Ukrainians are already bracing for a new threat from Russia through cheap, mass-producible cruise missiles. One such missile, the Filin, has been listed by Russia as capable of flying as fast as 500 mph.

The US needs to creatively combine two counter-drone capabilities it already has and do it quickly to deal with swarm attacks of drones and cruise missiles. The Russians are already doing it. Counter-drone warfare is changing as the push for solutions gains momentum in the United States and worldwide. In modern combat scenarios, drones are […]

The post Combo interceptors best bet for US drone and missile defense appeared first on Asia Times.

Ukraine is remaking its air force on NATO’s model, down to the way its squadrons are organized and the aircraft they fly. The reforms are planned to be completed by 2035 and include modernizing its F-16s while pursuing the Swedish Gripen jets, Air Force Spokesperson Yurii Ihnat says, per Tse Baza.

Ukraine’s fighters are working hard against Russia’s air war, and in the previous month alone the Air Force faced around 3,500 jet-powered targets, with F-16s heavily used to intercept Russian drones. The new reform is meant to build an air force that can be sustained over the long term and can contest Russian jets and glide bombs, not only survive the next wave.

Wings and universal air bases

The central change, Ihnat said, is a move to the “wing” units that NATO air forces use. The first steps have already been taken: Ukraine has set up the 107th F-16 wing, which now has its own Facebook page and may publish material about its work.

Ukraine also plans to build universal air bases on the operational airfields it has used through the full-scale war. In the future, Ihnat says, those bases should be able to receive and service different models of combat aircraft, as NATO does.

A worn fleet, and the jets Ukraine wants next

Currently, the F-16s Ukraine flies are older Block 15 jets, used by other countries before they arrived, and intensive combat has left them in need of repairs, service life restoration, and upgrades.

Ukrainian officials discussed modernization with the American manufacturer Lockheed Martin, while Kyiv would prefer the newer Block 70/72 version, which Ihnat says would let its pilots stand up more confidently to Russia’s Su-35 fighters.

Keeping the current fleet flying has been hard: fewer than half of Ukraine’s F-16s may be operational, held back by slow maintenance abroad.

At the same time, Lockheed Martin and Kyiv are discussing a special F-16 variant for Ukraine, with a modern AESA radar, longer range, and a wider choice of weapons, though no firm deal exists yet.

Ukraine is also counting on Swedish Gripen fighters. Ihnat says Ukrainian pilots are drawn to them for their lower operating costs and simpler maintenance, with the country likely to receive older C/D models first, before the newer Gripen E that Saab is developing.

Ukrainian pilots have already begun their training on the Gripen, a jet seen as a counter to the Russian aircraft dropping guided glide bombs on the front, though delivery timing depends on further agreements.

• China, India, and the US have the largest active armed forces in the world.
• The International Institute for Strategic Studies compiled data about the world's militaries.
• The world's top armies spend hundreds of billions of dollars on defense each year.

The US military may lead the world in budget size and in the ambitions of its warfare technology, but there is one measure by which it is outsized by other nations.

Using data from the International Institute for Strategic Studies' 2026 Military Balance report, Business Insider ranked the top 25 countries by the size of their active armed forces during 2025 and listed their defense budgets that same year.

Active-duty force size is a tally of a country's uniformed troops: airmen, soldiers, sailors, special operators, and Marines.

Armies, in particular, depend on size to gain and occupy ground during armed conflicts.

Militaries can also be a tool of domestic repression. North Korea, for example, is one of the world's most repressive states, led by a dictator who has repeatedly threatened neighboring South Korea — and it also has one of the world's largest militaries.

The number of active-duty military personnel is far from the only factor that matters when comparing military power between countries, but it reflects latent power.

"Numbers have value, but there's a lot more to military capability," Mark Cancian, a senior advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington, DC-based foreign policy and national security think tank, told Business Insider.

IISS, a London-headquartered think tank, counts active armed forces, reservists, and paramilitaries as separate categories in its analysis, showing a fuller picture of each nation's manpower.

Some countries have significantly more reservists than others — Vietnam has the largest number in the world, estimated at 5 million — but the quality and longevity of their expertise can vary between systems.

"When you look at some countries' reserve numbers, you're often looking at people who haven't trained in 10 or 20 years," Cancian said. "It gives you a big number, but their military value is questionable."

Even when accounting for all of a military's manpower, personnel is only one of the factors that can qualify a nation's military strength, which also includes equipment and readiness.

There's also the role of technologies in global warfare, the size and sophistication of air forces and naval fleets, amphibious capabilities for landing assault forces, command-and-control systems, and nuclear forces, all of which shape military power.

Still, comparing global manpower offers insight into how countries prioritize military power.

See how the world's largest militaries stack up in terms of active troop numbers.

25. Iraq

Active armed forces: 193,000

Defense budget: $12.7 billion

24. Morocco

Active armed forces: 196,000

Defense budget: $7.5 billion

23. France

Active armed forces: 204,000

Defense budget: $70 billion

22. Japan

Active armed forces: 247,000

Defense budget: $58.9 billion

21. Saudi Arabia

Active armed forces: 257,000

Defense budget: $72.5 billion

20. Sri Lanka

Active armed forces: 260,000

Defense budget: $1.4 billion

19. Colombia

Active armed forces: 285,000

Defense budget: $8.3 billion

18. Mexico

Active armed forces: 301,000

Defense budget: $11.4 billion

17. Eritrea

Active armed forces: 302,000

Defense budget: Not reported

16. Turkey

Active armed forces: 355,000

Defense budget: $21.5 billion

15. Thailand

Active armed forces: 361,000

Defense budget: $5.8 billion

14. Brazil

Active armed forces: 375,000

Defense budget: $24.2 billion

13. Indonesia

Active armed forces: 434,000

Defense budget: $15 billion

12. Egypt

Active armed forces: 439,000

Defense budget: $2.3 billion

11. Vietnam

Active armed forces: 450,000

Defense budget: $8.4 billion

10. South Korea

Active armed forces: 450,000

Defense budget: $43.8 billion

9. Ethiopia

Active armed forces: 503,000

Defense budget: $484 million

8. Iran

Active armed forces: 610,000

Defense budget: $6.1 billion

7. Pakistan

Active armed forces: 660,000

Defense budget: $10 billion

6. Ukraine

Active armed forces: 677,000

Defense budget: $44.4 billion

5. Russia

Active armed forces: 1,264,000

Defense budget: $161.2 billion

4. North Korea

Active armed forces: 1,280,000

Defense budget: Not reported

3. United States

Active armed forces: 1,340,000

Defense budget: $921 billion

2. India

Active armed forces: 1,501,000

Defense budget: $78.3 billion

1. China

Active armed forces: 2,035,000

Defense budget: $251.3 billion

Ukraine has held its first international course in military surgery and resuscitation, under instructors from the American College of Surgeons and other Western trauma bodies, the Defense Ministry says. “Tryzub”, or Trident, has been conducted for front-line surgeons and anesthesiologists.

The week-long drills put 16 doctors, eight surgeons, and eight anesthesiologists through three standard Western trauma programs: Advanced Trauma Life Support, Definitive Surgical Trauma Care, and Advanced Surgical Skills for Exposure in Trauma. All of them work at stabilization points close to the fighting.

The course has been run with the International Association for Trauma Surgery and Intensive Care and the Global Medical Knowledge Alliance, a non-profit that helps rebuild Ukraine’s healthcare, with support from Razom4Ukraine and Expertise France.

The wounds have changed

The course answers a battlefield that has grown deadlier. Ukrainian combat medics say modern combat trauma has fundamentally changed: drones and shrapnel now cause most of the complex wounds, often tearing through several parts of the body at once.

Bleeding has become the main cause of death on the battlefield, and the window to stop it is measured in minutes. That is the gap a well-drilled surgical team near the line is meant to close.

“People who will do everything to save his life”

Defense Minister Yevhenii Khmara has framed the course as a promise to troops at the front.

“When a soldier goes into battle, he must know that if he is wounded, there will be people beside him who will do everything they can to save his life,” Khmara says.

Experience, he added, is a kind of trust that matters enormously at the front.

“That is why we want our medics to have the best knowledge and skills, and to be able to act as one team," he states.

Ukrainian front-line medicine already draws international notice: one Azov brigade medic was named Europe’s best military medic of the year, and off-duty Ukrainian medics recently saved a man’s life at a London crash scene.

• Ukraine has been waiting nearly a month for the US to sign off on crucial missile interceptors, its president says.
• Kyiv said it is specifically waiting for the Pentagon to approve Patriot and NASAMS missiles.
• Ukraine has repeatedly faced low stockpiles of interceptors as it defends against Russian missiles.

Kyiv has been waiting nearly a month for US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to sign off on crucial missile interceptors, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Monday.

Zelenskyy said Ukraine has been waiting on approval to procure interceptors for its Patriot and NASAMS systems. The former is the country's most reliable defense against Russian ballistic missiles.

The Ukrainian president said that he instructed his team "to raise this with the American side once again. Conversations with other countries are also ongoing."

Most of the interceptors for Ukraine's air defense systems, including its Patriot batteries, are supplied through NATO's Prioritised Ukraine Requirements List (PURL) initiative, in which allies and partners buy weapons from the US and then transfer them to Kyiv.

It is unclear how many interceptors have been held up, or why Hegseth had not signed off on their transfer.

A senior Pentagon official told Business Insider "there has been no change" to department policy "regarding intelligence sharing or any capabilities we are enabling Europeans to provide to Ukraine."

The PURL initiative "continues unaltered," the official added.

Ukraine has faced repeated interceptor shortages, making it difficult to effectively defend against worsening Russian ballistic missile attacks, which, alongside armed jet-powered drones, have hammered Kyiv in a series of deadly bombardments.

The American-made MIM-104 Patriot surface-to-air missile system is a key piece of Kyiv's defensive umbrella. Ukrainian officials have urged the US and European allies to send more interceptors — PAC-2 and PAC-3 models in particular. Global munitions stockpiles, however, are under increased strain.

"We are working on several tracks — with the United States, Europe, and other partners that have stocks of PAC-2 and PAC-3 missiles," Zelenskyy said Monday in a social media post.

The Iran war has put tremendous stress on munition stockpiles. Col. Yurii Ihnat, a spokesperson for the Ukrainian Air Force, said on Monday that the Patriot interceptors fired by the US and its Middle East allies during the Iran war could have supported Kyiv's defenses for several years.

The NASAMS (National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System) — a joint US-Norwegian project — is another important element of Ukraine's air defense network. It is not designed to engage ballistic missiles like the Patriot, but rather short- and medium-range targets such as aircraft, cruise missiles, and drones.

Zelenskyy's comment comes amid broader tensions between Ukraine and the US, which have escalated in recent weeks.

The Trump administration has publicly denounced Ukrainian drone strikes targeting Russian energy facilities, with Washington blaming Kyiv for high oil and diesel prices. Industry experts, however, have identified the Iran war as a major source of disruption in global markets.

In October, Ukrainian officials reported multiple instances where Kyiv did not receive any advance warning of Russian ballistic missile launches from international partners through usual channels, leaving it little to no time to detect them before impact. The apparent suspension of intelligence sharing was lifted after a few days.

Ukraine also experienced a sudden disruption of its Starshield services, the military-grade version of Starlink, earlier this month, with speed caps affecting drone operations, logistics, and communication, said sources in Kyiv's defense ministry.

On Saturday, Ukrainian Defense Minister Yevhenii Khmara said that monitoring systems had recorded speed recovery for Starshield and Starlink, SpaceX's commercial satellite internet service.

The incident has raised alarms among Ukrainian officials. Elon Musk, the SpaceX CEO, accused Kyiv of breaching Starlink's terms of service by using the civilian service for drone strikes and said last weekend that this ultimately led to the disruption. Some of Kyiv's top drone advisors have pushed back on that argument.