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A Soviet-era turboprop still has a job in Russia’s intelligence fleet.The Ilyushin Il-20 first appeared decades ago, yet NATO fighters were still being sent to identify the aircraft in 2026. In March, Norwegian F-35s shadowed an Il-20M flying in international airspace off Finnmark during the Cold Response exercise. The aircraft’s transponder was off, but Norwegian sensors detected it and the fighters identified it visually.The same pattern showed up around the Baltic.Lithuanian defense officials reported NATO fighters identifying Il-20 and Il-20M aircraft on several occasions during 2026.On July 30, an Il-20 flying from mainland Russia toward Kaliningrad was identified and escorted…

UFC bantamweight veteran Raoni Barcelos has not yet been cleared to leave the hospital following his UFC Vegas 121 medical scare last weekend at Meta Apex, but the Brazilian is well enough to post on social media.All you need for that is a couple of fingers and a tolerance for toxicity.All’s well that ends well?“Hey guys, I want to let you all know that I’m doing great and as soon as I can I will send you all a video,” Barcelos wrote on Instagram. “Thank you so much for everyone’s love and prayers! I promised a great fight and I…

The Cetradex Itachi Open 2026 will take place on 7 November 2026 in Sommelsdijk, the Netherlands, bringing together karate competitors for a full day of kumite and kata. The tournament is organized by Itachi Dojo under the auspices of the Netherlands Karate Kyokushin Organization and will be held at SRGO De Staver, Olympiaweg 32, 3245 DL Sommelsdijk. The competition will follow KWF rules, with one specific exception: mawashi geri gedan, or low kicks, will be permitted in all categories. The organizers also reserve the right to refuse an entry depending on the participant’s level of experience. Registration Registration for the…

Audio of this article is brought to you by the Air & Space Forces Association, honoring and supporting our Airmen, Guardians, and their families. Find out more at afa.org The Air Force has invested $87.4 million to upgrade the F-16 Fighting Falcon‘s electronic warfare capabilities, bolstering the fighter’s self-protection against increasingly advanced threats. Bringing the total program value to $1.92 billion, the move is expected to jump-start fielding by funding low-rate initial production of the AN/ALQ-257 Integrated Viper Electronic Warfare Suite, or IVEWS, which is integrated into the fighter’s airframe. This money is intended to produce an upgraded Viper for…

The original N Raven loitering munition. (Paramount)Previously developed under the N-Raven programme name, the V-Raven has moved from the original catapult-launched drone towards a vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft family capable of operating from dispersed locations without a runway, catapult or fixed launch infrastructure. Development of the original N-Raven loitering munition began in 2021. It had a wingspan of 3.6 m. weighed 55 kg, carried a 13.5 kg payload, and reached a speed of 180 km/h. The electric version had an endurance of two hours, while the petrol version had 4.5 hours, with a range of up to 100 km.  V-Raven is designed as a…

LOS ANGELES – Alexander Volkanovski and Movsar Evloev have taken a long road to the championship main event of UFC 333, but that won’t be the first time the featherweights have crossed paths.MMA Fighting’s José Young spoke to Volkanovski and Evloev during UFC 331 fight week in Los Angeles, and learned more about how the fighters trained together years ago when Volkanovski was on his way to the top of the 145-pound division, while Evloev was wrapping up a run as M-1 bantamweight champion.“I used to be a bantamweight at that time, it was before UFC,” Evloev said. “We just…

I spent more than 20 years in U.S. Army air defense, much of it in cramped control stations where the difference between a successful engagement and a catastrophic loss came down to the soldier at the console. The radar did its job. The fire control system did its job. But the responsibility, the weight, and the trust sat on one person making a call in seconds, sometimes less.Now I sit on the other side of the fence, as vice president of space, air, and missile defense for business development at Leonardo DRS. I work for a defense contractor with a…

Nurol Makina, one of the leading land vehicle manufacturers in the Turkish defense industry, will participate in ADEX 2026 – the 6th Azerbaijan International Defence exhibition, to be held in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, from 30 September to 2 October 2026. At the exhibition, to be held at Baku Expo Center, Nurol Makina will display large-scale models of the Ejder Yalçın 4×4, NMS 4×4 and NMS-L 4×4 vehicles, developed and tested for operations across different geographies and operational conditions, at Stand No: A116 in Hall 3. Visitors will have the opportunity to take a closer look at Nurol Makina’s…

NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Transformation, Adm. Pierre Vandier, returns to the studio to discuss how the alliance is continuously adapting to a new era of warfare driven by software, data, and uncrewed systems, and where it still lags. He explains why NATO is favoring field experimentation, how allies can build sovereign defense tech ecosystems without sacrificing interoperability, and what the right balance between unmanned and legacy platforms might look like.Image: 1st Sgt. Austin Berner via DVIDS.

At UFC 332 this Saturday, the UFC dares to ask the question: what exactly is the lowest standard the fanbase will tolerate? With the UFC focused on its end-of-year schedule, UFC 332 appears to have been the forgotten event, headlined by a last-minute vacant title matchup between Natalia Silva and Wang Cong, after Valentina Shevchenko was forced out due to injury. To be frank, given Shevchenko’s stature in the division, this “undisputed” title feels extremely hollow, even more so considering that Wang leapfrogged several more deserving contenders to get her opportunity.On top of that, while the rest of the UFC…