Auriga Space has raised $4.6 million in a seed round and garnered $1.4 million in additional U.S. government funding to accelerate the development of an electromagnetic launch platform for “lab-scale and recoverable hypersonic testing,” and eventually frequent launches into orbit.
The seed round was led by the Netherlands OTB Ventures
and the Small Business Innovation Research Contracts were awarded by the U.S. Air Force AFWERX and U.S. SpaceWERX innovation units. The Los Angeles-based company, which was founded in 2022 and now has 20 employees, previously raised $5 million in venture funding.
“As the world accelerates efforts in space exploration, satellite technology, and next-generation defense systems like Golden Dome, the development of our Prometheus accelerator marks a major step toward truly on-demand, routine access to space,” Winnie Lai, founder and CEO of Auriga, said in a statement. “By commercializing Prometheus and offering hypersonic test services, we’re not only supporting the advancement of critical national defense capabilities, but we’re also building and validating the technologies that will power our future orbital launch systems.”
Last summer the company announced receipt of a $1.25 million Direct-to-Phase II SBIR award from the Air Force Research Laboratory for technical studies of Prometheus.
Prometheus is one step along the company’s roadmap, which will be followed by Thor, an outdoor full-scale hypersonic testing facility, and then Zeus, which is being designed for “on-demand and daily dedicated launches to orbit,” Auriga said.
Participants in the seed round included Trucks Venture Capital and Seraphim Space.
The House Armed Services Committee Tuesday approved fiscal 2026 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) provisions to, among other things, create a new Rapid Capabilities Program within the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA).
The provision within the committee’s Strategic Forces subcommittee segment of the markup is meant to “to enhance our ability to respond to growing nuclear threats from China and Russia,” Subcommittee Chair Scott DesJarlais (R-Tenn.) said. House Armed Services’ nuclear policy bill for fiscal 2026 would authorize $25.4 billion to the NNSA. The House Armed Services bill would also codify NNSA plans for plutonium pit production at two locations: Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and the Savannah River Site in South Carolina.
The House Committee’s NDAA bill would also support the Golden Dome, a proposed U.S. anti-missile system proposed by President Trump. The system would be akin to one employed by Israel but much more comprehensive.
There was skepticism expressed about the case for and implementation of the Golden Dome by Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.), the ranking Democrat on the Strategic Forces subcommittee.
It appears to reflect the Trump administration’s drift toward a philosophy “that we would try to defeat, not deter, a large-scale nuclear attack,” Moulton said. The White House has not offered a “rationale” or a plan for the Golden Dome, he said.
“And yet, we are throwing upwards of $25 billion in taxpayer money to the wind or, more accurately, into space,” Moulton said. “That is dangerous and, I dare say, dumb.”
On the whole, however, the bill is good and “largely bipartisan,” Moulton said.
The full committee adopted by unanimous consent a large bloc of amendments from Strategic Forces. One such bloc backs NNSA plans for modernization of the Office of Secure Transportation; improving warhead assembly and disassembly practices at the Pantex Plant in Texas; and a report on adequacy of the NNSA workforce.
The NNSA administrator would be required to brief House Armed Services by Feb. 1, 2026 on the workforce’s ability to carry out the NNSA mission, according to the amendment.
Exchange Monitor affiliate Defense Daily contributed to this report.
Austal USA on Friday delivered the 19th and last Independence
-variant Littoral Combat Ship (LCS), the future USS Pierre (LCS-38), to the U.S. Navy.
Austal built them and delivered this one at its Mobile, Ala., shipyard. This followed acceptance trials that concluded last month, which tested the ship’s major systems and equipment to demonstrate mission readiness (Defense Daily, June 20).
A Navy statement boasted LCS-38’s acceptance trial achieved the highest measured quality score of any LCS over the past 15 years. The next step for LCS-38 will be its pre-commissioning unit starting preparations to introduce the ship to the fleet.
The future USS Pierre (LCS-38) conducts sea trials in Mobile, Ala., in June 2025. Pierre is the 19th and final Independence-variant Littoral Combat Ship (LCS). (Photo: Austal USA)
“The delivery of the future USS Pierre will be one of our most memorable milestone achievements as it marks the conclusion of Austal USA’s Independence-variant Littoral Combat Ship program,” Austal USA President Michelle Kruger said in a statement. “Our shipbuilding team has poured years of dedication, innovation, and manufacturing excellence into this ship and the results are evident.”
“The delivery of the final Independence-variant LCS marks the end of a chapter, but not the story. The LCS program, for all its complexities, has pushed the boundaries of naval design and operational concepts. The LCS represents a bold vision for a more agile and adaptable Navy. We are seeing the Fleet operating these ships with the advanced mission packages they were designed for and they are continuing to evolve those operational concepts as more unmanned technologies come online,” Capt. Matthew Lehmann, program manager of the LCS Program Office, added.
The company noted the ships’ utility with near-shore operations, with the USS Oakland (LCS-24) recently having served as a mothership for unmanned surface vessels while its flight decks supported drones during an 18-month deployment to the U.S. 7th Fleet.
The company said it was proud to deliver this final LCS, which will “close a significant chapter in naval shipbuilding history while continuing to partner with the U.S. Navy.”
LCS-38 is due to be homeported in San Diego, with its sister ships of the class.
“The legacy of Pierre and her sister Littoral Combat Ships is the vibrant shipbuilding industrial base that we now have in the mid-tier yards that are now constructing the Navy’s next-generation warships,” Melissa Kirkendall, acting program executive officer for Unmanned and Small Combatants (PEO USC), said.
Separately, the Navy has already deployed mine countermeasures mission packages to sister ships USS Tulsa (LCS-16), Canberra (LCS-30) and Santa Barbara (LCS-32). The Independence-variant is focused on hosting the MCM mission packages to help succeed the aging and retiring Avenger-class MCM ships by using several unmanned systems.
Austal noted LCS-30 is serving a rotational deployment in Bahrain as part of the U.S. 5th Fleet and will later be joined by LCS- 32 and LCS-16.
Beyond the LCS work, Austal USA has nine other U.S. Navy vessels and one U.S. Coast Guard cutter under construction, with construction on a second cutter set to start by early August.
The House Armed Services Committee’s (HASC) proposed policy bill would direct the Joint Counter-small Unmanned Aircraft System Office (JCO) to report to the deputy secretary of defense while keeping the Army as the office’s executive agent.
The JCO currently reports to the Army acquisition executive but there is growing interest in Congress to increase its profile as concerns increase about the need to improve the defenses of forward deployed forces and military bases and facilities.
The Senate Armed Services Committee, in its version of the fiscal year 2026 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), would remove the Army as executive agent of the JCO and transfer it to the Office of the Secretary of Defense, arguing that the JCO lacks a joint service focus due to being solely staffed by the Army (Defense Daily, July 11).
The HASC recommendation is to elevate the JCO within DoD’s reporting structure, a committee aide told Defense Daily on Tuesday, which is when the committee released its version of the FY ’26 NDAA.
The JCO stood up in 2020 to align counter-drone efforts across DoD, although it remains focused on assessing and recommending land-based system with the Navy conducting ship-based evaluations. The JCO concerns itself with Groups 1, 2, and 3 unmanned aircraft systems, which weigh up to 20 pounds, 55 pounds, and less than 1,320 pounds, respectively, including payloads.
Language in the HASC bill says the JCO director would be a general or flag officer of one of the services, or a member of the senior executive service. So far, only Army generals have led the office.
The bill also says that the JCO would be the “primary” entity within DoD “for the validation and approval of counter-sUAS systems for procurement and use by the department.”
Another section of the HASC bill directs the secretary of defense to examine whether the Defense Innovation Unit should remain responsible for vetting small drones and their components for meeting certain requirements for inclusion on the Blue UAS Cleared List and Blue UAS Framework. The assessment should also assess whether another DoD organization take responsibility for the Blue UAS efforts.
The assessment would examine whether DIU has the resources to scale the Blue UAS initiatives or whether one or more DoD entities would be more effective.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth last week directed the Defense Contract Management Agency to work with DIU to help scale the Blue UAS efforts (Defense Daily, July 10).
The House Armed Services Committee’s (HASC) fiscal 2026 defense bill would require the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to establish a Title 10 requirement for the tactical, surveillance, reconnaissance, and tracking (TacSRT) program and would mandate that the Department of the Air Force fund TacSRT as a “program of record.”
Until now, TacSRT has been a pilot program using commercial data analytics for the benefit of the combatant commands (COCOMs). The Department of the Air Force did not budget for TacSRT in fiscal 2024 and fiscal 2025, but Congress funded the program at $40 million in both fiscal 2024 and 2025.
In April, an SSC official said that COCOM demand for TacSRT has been high and that COCOMs had POMed money on their own for the program, which the official said has aided U.S. efforts to share space data with allies (Defense Daily, Apr. 11).
SSC is collaborating with the Defense Innovation Unit to develop a multi-orbit Hybrid Space Architecture of commercial and government systems. Yet, the HASC bill said that the Department of the Air Force needs to step up funding for hybrid terminals on aircraft.
The department’s investment in commercial space “has resulted in the development of multi-orbit software-defined radios and antennas capable of providing resilient communications through
access to at least two frequency bands and satellites in three different orbital planes,” HASC said.
“These advancements have the potential to transform long-range communications across the Air Force fleet,” according to the bill. “However, the committee is concerned that the necessary funding to implement these systems on aircraft has not been adequately addressed in the president’s Budget Request. The committee directs the Secretary of the Air Force to submit a briefing to the House Committee on Armed Services not later than December 30, 2025, on the Air Force plan to install resilient Hybrid SATCOM terminals on Air Force platforms and include the timeline for developing requirements, programing funding and installation milestones.”
In May, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) and Space Force signed a memorandum of agreement on their respective TacSRT roles (Defense Daily, May 21).
A combat support agency, NGA maintains an extensive collection of tactical imagery from commercial vendors through the Global Enhanced GEOINT Delivery (GEGD) trove to respond to COCOM requests. Maxar Intelligence supports GEGD for NGA.
The U.S. Air Force plan to field a limited number of RTX [RTX] Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missiles (HACM) by 2028 has led to a stated concern by the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) that the service needs to accelerate its HACM production ramp.
“The committee notes that industry has been working since 2019 to develop, produce, and integrate high-speed technologies into air-breathing hypersonic weapons, to ultimately produce the next generation of tactical missile systems,” according to language in the HASC tactical air and land forces panel’s mark-up of its part of the fiscal 2026 defense authorization bill.
“The committee is concerned the Air Force continues working towards program maturity but does not currently have a clear path forward to meaningful production,” HASC TAL said. “This
potentially jeopardizes fielding the weapon in tactically relevant quantities and puts the nascent hypersonics industrial base at risk. The committee recognizes that the current HACM program intends to only deliver a quantity of approximately 12 initial HACM missiles through 2028 but does not have a clear path to establishing sustained production.”
“The committee believes the Air Force must field tactically relevant quantities of offensive HACM systems within the decade to offset near-peer adversary advantage in hypersonic weapons,” according to the language, which directs the secretary of the Air Force to submit a report by March 6 to congressional defense authorizers that “outlines a plan to transition the HACM
program to production to ensure that tactically relevant quantities of missiles begin delivery not later than the beginning of fiscal year 2030.”
The Air Force has said that it would flight test HACM this year, and the service requests nearly $803 million for HACM in fiscal 2026, an increase from the $466 million in the year-long fiscal 2025 continuing resolution enacted in March (Defense Daily, June 27).
“To prepare for a future production program that meets warfighter desired quantities in relatively short timelines, the [HACM] program will begin making targeted investments in manufacturing capacity enhancements,” the Air Force said in its fiscal 2026 research and development request. “These investments will ensure the industrial base can handle a ramp to full rate production that supports warfighter needs. Investments must begin in advance of a future production program to prevent significant delays in delivering assets to the field. The program will also make improvements to improve the operational suitability of the weapon.”
When the Air Force awarded RTX–then Raytheon Technologies–a more than $985 million contract for HACM in September 2022, the service said that it planned “to deliver a HACM capability with operational utility by fiscal year 2027.”
Northrop Grumman‘s [NOC] propulsion systems and control (PS&C) business in Elkton, Md., expects to build 440 solid rocket motors (SRMs) annually by 2027–up from the current 90–as part of a $100 million company investment at the Elkton site to boost production of solid rocket motors and hypersonic air-breathing engines (Defense Daily, June 2).
RTX and Northrop Grumman are teaming to build HACM’s scramjet engine, and HACM is PS&C’s largest program for the Air Force.
Northrop Grumman has conducted hypersonic wind tunnel testing at the company’s applied science site in Ronkonkoma on New York’s Long Island.
The head of a Navy task force focused on evaluating and using lower cost unmanned systems for 6th Fleet said recent testing at the Baltic Operations 2025 (BALTOPS) maritime exercise was the first time they brought these systems to test at scale with nearly two dozen systems.
Task Force 66 was established in 2024 under 6th Fleet to analyze and integrate low-cost robotic and autonomous systems that can help impose costs on adversaries.
Royal Navy Archer Class P2000 patrol vessel HMS Pursuer (P273) conducts counter unmanned surface vessel operations with global autonomous reconnaissance crafts (GARC) attached to Commander, Task Force 66 during Baltic Operations (BALTOPS) 2025, June 12, 2025. (Photo: U.S. Navy by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Christine Montgomery)
Task Force 66 is trying to “provide asymmetric dilemmas for the adversary to impose costs in their operations by having to deal with our asymmetric approaches. We use robotic and autonomous systems (RAS) to help with development of those dilemmas and to lower the risk to force, enrich the mission of operations by employing the RAS systems in that regard,” Rear Adm. Michael Mattis, Commander of Task Force (CTF) 66, told Defense Daily in a telephone interview.
He said the June BALTOPS exercise was unique in that they brought unmanned systems to the major regular exercise for the first time “at scale” with 22 unmanned surface vessels (USVs) that demonstrated tactics with Navy ships. They also acted as opposing forces for allied vessels to help other naval elements, like surface ships, familiarize themselves with the signature, capabilities and limitations of USVs.
Mattis said for the task force these vignettes were “good practice on developing some basic tactics, techniques and procedures on how we might generate an attack to create multiple dilemmas for them to defend against, and/or in order to generate surprise from the maritime environment for the attack to be more successful.”
He said CTF-66 is currently using three manufacturer-variant USVs: 10 HavocAI solar-powered electric motor Rampage USVs attritable contested logistics and maritime domain awareness, small SeaSat Lightfish solar-powered long-dwell USVs for maritime domain awareness USV, and BlackSea Global Autonomous Reconnaissance Craft (GARC) procured under the Replicator program.
Mattis noted the Rampage has a 300 nautical mile range, operates three to five knots but can sprint to 20 knots, and is cheap and attritable at under $100,000 per unit.
The smaller Lightfish USVs is a slower long-dwell vessel specialized only for maritime domain awareness mission, but is able to stay at sea for weeks to months at a time and can travel about about two to three knots but can sprint to five to 10 knots. Mattis said Lightfish is focused on low-speed loiter missions with a “very good camera and a good thermal camera on it as well, and some resilient communications methods that give us the ability to communicate with it via multiple mechanisms.”
Mattis also boasted Lightfish has a commercial radar and collision avoidance capabilities via LIDAR to avoid objects and meet COLREGS maritime collision avoidance regulations. However, the Lightfish is “a little more expensive than the HavocAI Rampages, runs probably between a quarter million and a half million dollars per unit, but again, very capable, long duration, dwell USV.”
He noted the third boat tested, GARC, is the U.S. Pacific Fleet’s one-way effector boat choice and they have 10 of the older prototype boats. He described GARCs as having a 500 nautical mile range, can reach 40 knots in their final attack mode, can cruise at 15 to 25 knots, and also “provide excellent maritime domain awareness in addition to their ability to be become interceptors or one-way attackers as needed.”
Graphic of HavocAI’s Rampage uncrewed surface vehicles (USVs). (Image: HavocAI)
Mattis said the GARCs were used in red vs. blue skirmishes during BALTOPS as the opposing red forces.
He also told Defense Daily the Navy is focused on having sailors operate multiple unmanned systems at once, in contrast to Ukraine’s structure. Mattis also leads elements of Ukraine partner support, including intelligence sharing.
“One of the things that our partners do in Ukraine, that we do not do generally, is they are very much focused on a first person view, or FPV operations with USVs. They look at one operator, one USV as sort of a standard way to operate,” Mattis said.
The U.S. military does not believe they can scale USV operations appropriately with that FPV model, so they are working on “broader collaborative autonomy, where we have one operator on what we call that single pane of glass, to operate multiple UXS, unmanned systems in general more broadly, off of the same single pane of glass.”
Mattis confirmed CTF-66 has demonstrated up to 12 USVs and one Unmanned Aerial Vehicle operating with one operator at once and they have not reached the upper limit.
“We just haven’t done more than that, because we haven’t had the opportunity to have all of those assets together than sort of the one time we did that. But I think we’re fairly confident that we could operate with all 22 of our boats, if we needed to, and probably more than one UAS if needed to.”
A Seasats 10-foot Lightfish autonomous surface vehicle (ASV). (Photo: Seasats)
He described that one operator for multiple vehicles works because each platform has autonomy to keep it sailing or flying and avoiding obstacles, then interacting with a collaborative autonomy model that tells the vehicles to take on a mission.
Mattis compared it to running a play in football.
“You would give those robots a mission to go secure an area or go look in an area, or go defend an area, or go attack a boat, or go swarm a boat. There’s lots of ways that you could give it a play so that that formation could collaborate and accomplish that mission together. And so that’s how you get a single operator we call on the loop, not in the loop operating each one of those directly, not tasking each post directly, but like drawing a box on a chart, on the single pane of glass, and then tasking all those boats to go create a blockade In that box.”
While the House Armed Services Committee’s defense policy bill draft backs most of the Army’s divestments as part of its new transformation plan, the legislation directs the service to provide more details on the budgetary impacts of its proposed cuts.
“…The committee is concerned with the manner in which the Army presented its plans to Congress, the lack of supporting analysis and the apparent lack of strategy and vision for what the Army should look like in 2030, 2035, and beyond,” lawmakers write in the HASC Tactical Air and Land Forces Subcommittee portion of the fiscal year 2026 National Defense Authorization Act.
A live fire demonstration of the Army’s newest combat vehicle, the M10 Booker, marks the conclusion of the M10 Booker Dedication Ceremony at Aberdeen Proving Ground, in Aberdeen, Md., April 18, 2024. (U.S. Army photo by Christopher Kaufmann)
“The Army has yet to provide complete budgetary details, tradeoffs and risk assessments of proposed divestments and investments of capabilities and programs associated with its Army Transformation Initiative,” the bill report adds.
As part of its new transformation initiative, the Army has detailed plans to cut “obsolete” programs such as the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle, Humvee, AH-64D Apache, the M10 Booker and Gray Eagle UAS, and potentially ending development of the Improved Turbine Engine Program, Future Tactical UAS, and the Robotic Combat Vehicle.
The Army’s FY ‘26 budget request includes shedding $4.9 billion of older and “ineffective” equipment as part of its new transformation plan (Defense Daily, June 27).
HASC is set to consider its defense policy bill proposal on Tuesday, which supports an $848 billion topline for the Pentagon that largely adheres to the Trump administration’s FY ‘26 discretionary spending request (Defense Daily, July 11).
The HASC chairman’s mark for the NDAA appears to authorize the Army Transformation Initiative (ATI)-related programs at the requested levels for FY ‘26, while adding $90 million to support the remanufacturing of three AH-64D Apaches to the last E-model configuration, stating the panel “supports the Army’s intent to divest of systems that are no longer relevant on the battlefield, and to more rapidly field new systems.”
The bill directs the Army secretary to brief HASC by October on the FY ‘26 budgetary impacts, funding requirements over the next five years, capability-based requirements and capability gaps identified as a result of planned divestments as it carries out the ATI plan.
Lawmakers also included a provision for the Army secretary to inform the congressional defense committees 30 days prior to implementing “any additional proposed changes taking place as part of the ATI or broader transformation effort.”
“There’s a lot of questions still from the committee that we’re looking for answers from the Army through those requirements,” a senior congressional official told reporters last week.
HASC has previously pressed the Army for more details on ATI, with Chair Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) telling Army officials that Congress needs a “detailed blueprint of the specific changes being proposed and how the Army plans to implement them” (Defense Daily, June 4).
House appropriators, who will ultimately set final spending levels, rebuked many of the Army’s planned cuts in its FY ‘26 defense bill, which includes more funding for JLTVs, Gray Eagles and Humvee upgrades as well as continuing development of ITEP and FTUAS (Defense Daily, June 12).
Startup autonomous surface vessel developer Saronic Technologies and legacy industrial ship repair and small vessel builder Vigor Marine Group have partnered to leverage their respective capabilities to increase support for autonomous systems at scale.
Saronic is developing and producing four autonomous surface vessels (ASVs) ranging from six to 150-feet in length.
Vigor operates in three divisions, Maintenance and Modernization, Marine Services, and Marine Fabrication. The Vancouver, Wash.-based company has facilities on the East and West Coasts, and has built more than a dozen unmanned surface vessels, including Leidos’s [LDOS] Sea Hunter ASV for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.
For Texas-based Saronic, the partnership will allow it to leverage a company with “trusted” existing and long-time Defense Department and commercial customers for ship repair, modernization, maintenance, and the building of small vessels, and bi-coastal infrastructure, a company spokesperson told Defense Daily.
The companies will “explore how to sustain a future fleet of larger autonomous ships,” the spokesperson said, adding that “we’ll be jointly exploring opportunities to build lifecycle solutions that meet the unique demands of larger autonomous vessels.”
The partnership also offers potential opportunities around maintenance and readiness of autonomous ships over the long-term, the spokesperson said.
“This partnership brings together two leaders in the maritime industry to collaboratively create a full lifecycle solution that can ensure our maritime customers are mission-ready today and into the future,” Dino Mavrookas, co-founder and CEO of Saronic, said in a statement. “Combining Saronic’s technical leadership in autonomous maritime systems and scaled production with Vigor’s strategically located infrastructure and experience in maintenance, repair, and overhaul, and lifecycle sustainment creates new opportunities to accelerate capability delivery and ensure that government and commercial customers can count on a reliable, trusted sustainment network to meet the readiness requirements for larger autonomous ships today and into the future.”
The announcement also suggested collaboration around vessel construction and integration.
“Exploring the combination of Saronic’s autonomy technologies and Vigor’s experience in marine vessel fabrication, subsystem integration, and MRO support enables us to find solutions to better support the warfighter,” Mark Norris, vice president of Vigor Marine Fabrication, said in a statement.
President Trump on Monday announced a new plan for NATO countries to purchase “billions of dollars” in U.S. military equipment that will be provided to assist Ukraine, including Patriot air defense systems.
The initiative was detailed alongside NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte and follows the Trump administration’s recent brief pause of weapons aid shipments to Ukraine.
President Trump meets with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte in the Oval Office on July 14, 2025. Photo: Screenshot of livestream.
“We make the best equipment, the best missiles, the best of everything. The European nations know that. And we’ve made a deal today…where we are going to be sending them weapons and they’re going to be paying for them. The United States will not be [making any payment]. We’re not buying it, but we’ll manufacture it and they’re going to be paying for it,” Trump said in the Oval Office where he was meeting with Rutte.
“This is a very big deal we’ve made. Billions of dollars of military equipment is going to be purchased from the United States going to NATO, etc., and that’s going to be quickly distributed to the battlefield. Ukraine will take it up,” Trump added.
Trump said that RTX [RTX] Patriot air defense batteries, which include Lockheed Martin [LMT]-built interceptors, could be provided to Ukraine by NATO partners “within days,” and said up to 17 Patriot systems that are part of a pending foreign military sale with another country may also be rerouted to Kyiv.
“We have one country that has 17 Patriots getting ready to be shipped. They’re not going to need them for [themselves]. So we’re going to work a deal where the 17, or a big portion of the 17, will be going to [Ukraine],” Trump said.
Rutte said that both Germany and Norway are involved in supporting potential Patriot battery deliveries, adding that the newly announced plan will allow countries to more rapidly transfer current equipment to Ukraine while having the opportunity to purchase capabilities from the U.S. via the FMS process to replenish their stockpiles.
“The U.S. has decided to massively supply Ukraine with what is necessary through NATO. Europeans [are going to be] 100 percent paying for that,” Rutte said.
Trump, who said he was “very unhappy” with Russia, added that Moscow has 50 days to work toward a peace deal with Ukraine otherwise the U.S. will improve 100 percent “secondary tariffs.”
“I’m disappointed in [Russian] President [Vladimir] Putin because I thought we would have had a deal two months ago, but it doesn’t seem to get there,” Trump said.
The Pentagon earlier this month said it had paused the shipment of some weapons and munitions to Ukraine, with Pentagon Spokesman Sean Parnell describing it as a “capability review” (Defense Daily, July 2).
Trump then confirmed last week the U.S. has resumed sending “primarily” defensive weapons to Ukraine (Defense Daily, July 8).
“We were pretty sure this [new deal] was going to happen, so we did a little bit of a pause,” Trump said on Monday.
The new weapons aid update follows the Trump administration’s move to place more of the security assistance responsibility on NATO, to include having the U.K. and Germany take over leading the Ukraine Defense Contact Group (Defense Daily, April 15).
“This is, again, Europeans stepping up,” Rutte said. “I’ve been in contact with many countries. I can tell you, at this moment, Germany, massively, but also Finland, Denmark, Sweden and Norway, the Kingdom of the Netherlands [and] Canada, they all want to be part of this. And this is only the first wave, there will be more.
“It will mean that Ukraine can get its hands on, really, massive numbers of military equipment, both for air defense but also missiles, ammunition, etc.” Rutte added.
At the NATO summit in The Hague, Netherlands last month, member nations agreed on a new target goal to spend five percent of their gross domestic product on defense (Defense Daily, June 23).
“Today’s announcement by President Trump demonstrates his determination to implement a peace through strength policy against the Russian dictator. I also commend NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte and our allies, especially Germany, for their commitment in this effort and for taking decisive action to transfer weapons immediately,” Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), chair of the Armed Services Committee, said in a statement. “I hope President Trump’s decision to accelerate military aid to Ukraine and to threaten crippling sanctions will drive this conflict closer to its end. The president should have every tool available to increase pressure on Putin.”
The Senate Armed Services Committee’s version of the fiscal year 2026 National Defense Authorization Act extends the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative through 2028 and authorizes funding up to $500 million, while the House Armed Services Committee’s version of the defense policy bill also extends USAI but at $300 million a year.
