The long-range Russian drones come in swarms each night, buzzing for hours over Ukraine by the hundreds, terrorizing the population and attacking targets from the industrial east to areas near its western border with Poland.

Russia now often batters Ukraine with more drones in a single night than it did during some entire months in 2024, and analysts say the barrages are likely to escalate. On July 8, Russia unleashed more than 700 drones — a record.

Some experts say that number could soon top 1,000 a day.

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The spike comes as U.S. President Donald Trump has given Russia until early September to reach a ceasefire or face new sanctions -– a timeframe Moscow is likely to use to inflict as much damage as possible on Ukraine.

Russia has sharply increased its drone output and appears to keep ramping it up. Initially importing Shahed drones from Iran early in the 3 1/2-year-old war, Russia has boosted its domestic production and upgraded the original design.

The Russian Defense Ministry says it’s turning its drone force into a separate military branch. It also has established a dedicated center for improving drone tactics and better training for those flying them.

Fighting ‘a war of drones’

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Russian engineers have changed the original Iranian Shahed to increase its altitude and make it harder to intercept, according to Russian military bloggers and Western analysts. Other modifications include making it more jamming-resistant and able to carry powerful thermobaric warheads. Some use artificial intelligence to operate autonomously.

The original Shahed and its Russian replica — called “Geran,” or “geranium” — have an engine to propel it at 180 kph (just over 110 mph). A faster jet version is reportedly in the works.

The Washington-based Institute for the Study of War noted that cooperation with China has allowed Russia to bypass Western sanctions on imports of electronics for drone production. Ukraine’s military intelligence estimates that Russia receives up to 65% of components for its Geran drones from China. Beijing rejects the claims.

Russia initially launched its production of the Iranian drones at factory in Alabuga, located in Tatarstan. An Associated Press investigation found employees at the Alabuga plant included young African women who said they were duped into taking jobs there. Geran production later began at a plant in Udmurtia, west of the Ural Mountains. Ukraine has launched drone attacks on both factories but failed to derail production.

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A report Sunday by state-run Zvezda TV described the Alabuga factory as the world’s biggest attack drone plant.

“It’s a war of drones. We are ready for it,” said plant director Timur Shagivaleyev, adding it produces all components, including engines and electronics, and has its own training school.

The report showed hundreds of black Geran drones stacked in an assembly shop decorated with Soviet-style posters. One featured images of the father of the Soviet nuclear bomb, Igor Kurchatov, legendary Soviet space program chief, Sergei Korolyov, and dictator Josef Stalin, with the words: “Kurchatov, Korolyov and Stalin live in your DNA.”

Shifting tactics and defenses

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The Russian military has improved its tactics, increasingly using decoy drones named “Gerbera” for a type of daisy. They closely resemble the attack drones and are intended to confuse Ukrainian defenses and distract attention from their more deadly twins.

By using large numbers of drones in one attack, Russia seeks to overwhelm Ukrainian air defenses and keep them from targeting more expensive cruise and ballistic missiles that Moscow often uses alongside the drones to hit targets like key infrastructure facilities, air defense batteries and air bases.

Former Russian Defense Ministry press officer Mikhail Zvinchuk, who runs a popular war blog, noted the Russian military has learned to focus on a few targets to maximize the impact. The drones can roam Ukraine’s skies for hours, zigzagging past defenses, he wrote.

“Our defense industries’ output allows massive strikes on practically a daily basis without the need for breaks to accumulate the necessary resources,” said another military blogger, Alexander Kots. “We no longer spread our fingers but hit with a punching fist in one spot to make sure we hit the targets.”

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Ukraine relies on mobile teams armed with machine guns as a low-cost response to the drones to spare the use of expensive Western-supplied air defense missiles. It also has developed interceptor drones and is working to scale up production, but the steady rise in Russian attacks is straining its defenses.

How Russia affords all those drones

Despite international sanctions and a growing load on its economy, Russia’s military spending this year has risen 3.4% over 2024, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, which estimated it at the equivalent of about $200 billion. While budgetary pressures could increase, it said, the current spending level is manageable for the Kremlin.

Over 1.5 million drones of various types were delivered to the military last year, said President Vladimir Putin.

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Frontelligence Insight, a Ukraine-based open-source intelligence organization, reported this month that Russia launched more than 28,000 Shahed and Geran drones since the full-scale invasion began in 2022, with 10% of the total fired last month alone.

While ballistic and cruise missiles are faster and pack a bigger punch, they cost millions and are available only in limited quantities. A Geran drone costs only tens of thousands of dollars — a fraction of a ballistic missile.

The drones’ range of about 2,000 kilometers (1,240 miles) allows them to bypass some defenses, and a relatively big load of 40 kilograms (88 pounds) of explosives makes them a highly effective instrument of what the Center for Strategic and International Studies calls “a cruel attritional logic.”

CSIS called them ”the most cost-effective munition in Russia’s firepower strike arsenal.”

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“Russia’s plan is to intimidate our society,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, adding that Moscow seeks to launch 700 to 1,000 drones a day. Over the weekend, German Maj. Gen. Christian Freuding said in an interview that Russia aims for a capability of launching 2,000 drones in one attack.

Russia could make drone force its own military branch

Along the more than 1,000-kilometer (600-mile) front line, short-range attack drones have become prolific and transformed the fighting, quickly spotting and targeting troops and weapons within a 10-kilometer (6-mile) kill zone.

Russian drone units initially were set on the initiative of midlevel commanders and often relied on equipment purchased with private donations. Once drones became available in big numbers, the military moved last fall to put those units under a single command.

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Putin has endorsed the Defense Ministry’s proposal to make drones a separate branch of the armed forces, dubbed the Unmanned Systems Troops.

Russia has increasingly focused on battlefield drones that use thin fiber optic cables, making them immune to jamming and have an extended range of 25 kilometers (over 15 miles). It also has set up Rubicon, a center to train drone operators and develop the best tactics.

Such fiber optic drones used by both sides can venture deeper into rear areas, targeting supply, support and command structures that until recently were deemed safe.

Michael Kofman, a military expert with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said the Russian advancements have raised new defensive challenges for Ukraine.

“The Ukrainian military has to evolve ways of protecting the rear, entrenching at a much greater depth,” Kofman said in a recent podcast.

Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what’s in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience.

Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what’s in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience.

Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what’s in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience. Generate Key Takeaways

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth met with Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on Monday to discuss strengthening military ties and deterrence in the Asia-Pacific region.

The high-level meeting signals Washington’s renewed focus on countering China’s growing assertiveness in disputed waters while bolstering alliances with key Pacific partners.

Both leaders reaffirmed their commitment to the U.S.-Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty during a meeting on July 21. They emphasized the alliance’s crucial role in promoting regional stability through its strength.

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Hegseth praised the Philippines as “a model ally” and commended Marcos for his “leadership and resolve in standing up to aggressive and coercive actions in the South China Sea.” The defense secretary’s remarks underscore growing concerns about Beijing’s territorial claims in the contested waterway.

The Pentagon chief pledged increased support for the Philippines’ economic resilience and national security, including strengthening both nations’ defense industrial bases —a priority for the Trump administration.

The leaders agreed to expand collaboration on modernizing the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Philippine Coast Guard. They also discussed enhancing collective defense and deterrence capabilities in the region.

Hegseth will accompany President Trump when Marcos visits the White House for further discussions on the alliance. The timing of that meeting was not announced.

The Philippines remains a crucial strategic partner for Washington’s Indo-Pacific strategy. The archipelagic nation sits along vital shipping lanes and provides access to key military facilities near potential flashpoints.

President Donald Trump ordered U.S. nuclear submarines to be positioned in “the appropriate regions” after former Russian President Dimitri Medvedev reminded Trump of Moscow’s nuclear capabilities ad told him to watch the apocalyptic series “The Walking Dead.”

The war of words started over Trump’s threats to impose sanctions if Russia doesn’t comply with ceasefire in 10 days.

Both Medvedev’s remarks and Trump’s response are pure theatrics. Having refrained from the use of nuclear weapons over the past three years, Russia is obviously not going to launch them in response to a new round of U.S. sanctions — especially since it has successfully overcome several previous rounds.

Trump is right to ask of his new sanctions, “I don’t know if sanctions bother him (Putin).” This almost amounts to admitting that the new sanctions are pointless in terms of putting pressure on Russia and are really intended to defend Trump against domestic criticism.

Trump’s announced — or alleged — “deployment” of U.S. nuclear submarines is also completely empty. The U.S. has nuclear submarines capable of striking Russia on permanent deployment.

Medvedev and Trump are both trying to look tough for domestic audiences. The rest of us are not however required to applaud this theatre. At the same time, Trump is right to say that words matter, and there should be no place for empty theatrics in a matter as serious as the threat of nuclear war. President Putin should silence his increasingly erratic and provocative subordinate. Trump should take heed of his own words and moderate his own often overblown language and threats.

Putin for his part is correct to say that “in order to approach the issue (and end to the Ukraine war) peacefully, we need to have detailed conversations, and not in public.” This would require the Trump administration to prepare a detailed plan for peace and develop a confidential “back channel” through which to present it to the Russian government.

However, if such confidential discussions were to have any chance of success, it would also be necessary for the Russian government greatly to moderate its present conditions for a peace settlement.

ROME (AP) — A concert by Russian conductor Valery Gergiev has been canceled, organizers in Italy announced Monday, following protests against giving the stage to the conductor who has been largely barred from European venues for failing to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Gergiev had been invited to conduct during a summer festival at the Royal Palace of Caserta near Naples next Sunday. The regional governor, Vincenzo de Luca, had defended the invitation, saying that “the logic of preclusion … does not help peace.’’

The invitation had been widely criticized by human rights activists, Russian opposition figures and European parliamentarians.

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Gergiev, 72, is considered close to President Vladimir Putin. He has been the artistic director of the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg since 1988 and in December 2023 also became artistic director of the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, where he replaced general director Vladimir Urin, who signed a petition against the war.

Milan’s La Scala was the first theater in the West to cut off relations with Gergiev, who was engaged at the theater when Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, after he failed to respond to Milan Mayor Giuseppe Sala’s appeal to speak out against the war. Gergiev was fired as chief conductor of the Munich Philharmonic in March 2022.

Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what’s in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience.

Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what’s in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience.

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Claim:

An old photo authentically shows U.S. President Donald Trump and his wife Melania Trump with convicted sex offender Ghislaine Maxwell.

Rating:

Rating: True

In mid-July 2025, an old photo widely circulated on social media purportedly showing convicted sex offender Ghislaine Maxwell with U.S. President Donald Trump and his wife, Melania Trump.

The picture spread amid reports that Maxwell, an associate of sex trafficker and child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, may be willing to testify before Congress about Epstein’s activities. She is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence (archived) for helping Epstein sexually abuse underage girls.

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One X user who shared the photograph (archived) suggested that its alleged existence explained why the Republican Party did not want Maxwell to testify before Congress: “Why don’t Republicans want Ghislaine Maxwell to testify? Answer.”

(BlackKnight10k/X)

The X post, which had amassed roughly 380,000 views as of this writing, came after Republicans in the House of Representatives blocked a legislative amendment demanding the release of the so-called Epstein files.

Meanwhile, a similar post featuring the image appeared elsewhere on X (archived).

In short, the picture was authentic and not digitally manipulated or produced using artificial intelligence (AI). Therefore, we have rated this claim as true.

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The picture can be found on Getty Images, where the caption stated that it showed “future married couple fashion model Melania Knauss (later Melania Trump) and American real estate developer Donald Trump, with British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell.” Getty’s caption said it was taken on Sept. 18, 2000, at the Anand Jon Fashion Show in New York City.

For further reading, Snopes also investigated whether another photo showed Maxwell posing with Tesla CEO Elon Musk.

Sources:

Esposito, Joey. ‘House Republicans Blocked Legislative Amendment Demanding Release of Epstein Files?’ Snopes, 15 Jul. 2025, https://www.snopes.com//fact-check/republicans-jeffrey-epstein-block/.

Hays, Tom, and Larry Neumeister. “Ghislaine Maxwell Sentenced to 20 Years for Helping Epstein.” AP News, 29 June 2022, apnews.com/article/ghislaine-maxwell-jeffrey-epstein-sentencing-aeac127f9cc3811d975ce8e10d171260. Accessed 15 July 2025.