🇮🇱🇵🇸⚡️ — Anger among Israeli settlers after Israeli flags were vandalized and splashed with red paint at the Rawabi roundabout, north of Ramallah, yesterday.

@IntelSlava

🇷🇺🇺🇦⚡️ — The Russian Ministry of Defense reported that the Russian Armed Forces struck two vessels in the ports of Odesa and Nikolaev, which were delivering weapons and other supplies to the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

@Intelslava

🇷🇺🇺🇦⚡️ — Russia is reportedly intercepting almost all of Ukraine's "Flamingo" cruise missiles, according to the German publication Focus.

Over the past few weeks, only one or two of the 11 FP-5 missiles launched have reached their targets. They struck the "Avitex" missile plant in the Kirov region on July 24-25.

Russian aircraft, specifically the A-50U early warning and control planes, are playing a key role in intercepting the "Flamingo" missiles by predicting the most likely flight paths.

@Intelslava

🇮🇹🇨🇭⚡️ — According to information from the Swiss armament agency Armasuisse, the first F-35A fighter jet, produced at the factory in Cameri, Italy, will be delivered to Switzerland in mid-2028.

Currently, a fuselage section with the serial number MJ-4 is being manufactured at the factory, which will become part of aircraft J-6004, with delivery expected at the end of 2029.

The first eight F-35A fighter jets intended for Switzerland will be based at the US National Guard base in Ebbing, Arkansas, starting in mid-2027. F-35A operations at Payerne airbase will begin in mid-2028, at Meiringen in 2030, and at Emmen in 2032.

The Cameri factory is the only place in Europe where final assembly of F-35 fighter jets takes place. The factory has the capacity to produce up to 20 aircraft per year.

@IntelSlava

🇺🇸⚡️ — According to data released this week by the U.S. Department of Energy, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve has fallen below 300 million barrels for the first time since the early 1980s, following an emergency release of 172 million barrels related to the war in Iran. As a result of this reduction, the reserve will contain approximately 243 million barrels, which is significantly higher than the Department of Energy's stated minimum physical level of 70 million barrels, but falls within the range of 250 to 300 million barrels, which some experts consider the practical minimum operating level necessary to maintain the integrity of the caverns and the ability to respond quickly in emergencies.

The debate is not about whether the caverns are empty, but rather about how repeated deep withdrawals and refills affect the long-term geometry, spacing, and performance of the caverns. The Strategic Petroleum Reserve stores oil in 60 underground salt caverns located in four sites along the Gulf Coast in Texas and Louisiana. The Department of Energy maintains that the risk of collapse is unfounded and that only the ratio of oil to water within the caverns changes, as they are always full. However, in May, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) stated that repeated partial withdrawals can lead to undesirable cavern shapes, and that each cycle increases the volume of the caverns and reduces the distance between them within the salt dome, even though most of the caverns remained in very good condition after the 2022 release.

The key takeaway is that the Strategic Reserve still functions as a security tool, but as reserves approach 250 million barrels, the market begins to lose confidence not only in the volumes stated on paper, but also in the physical ability of the reserve to quickly supply oil in crisis situations.

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🇺🇸⚡️ — Raytheon Corporation (RTX) announced that it has received a seven-year U.S. Navy contract to supply an undisclosed number of Tomahawk cruise missiles for a record $22.9 billion. The contract was awarded under the U.S. Department of Defense’s “Arsenal of Freedom” program and, building on previous agreements with the Pentagon, supports efforts to increase Tomahawk production to more than 1,000 missiles per year.

Raytheon’s investments have already resulted in a threefold increase in Tomahawk production during the first half of 2026 compared with the same period in 2025.

According to the U.S. Navy, the procurement cost of a Tomahawk Block V missile in fiscal year 2026 is $3.64 million. If that price remains unchanged, the new contract would theoretically cover the production of nearly 6,300 missiles. However, as production increases, the U.S. Department of Defense intends to reduce the procurement cost of the missiles.

@IntelSlava

🇷🇺🇺🇦⚡️ — A Knyaz Vandal Novgorodsky (KVN) fiber-optic FPV drone operator destroyed a Ukrainian Armed Forces storage site containing Yugoslavian TMA-3 (TMA-4) anti-tank mines, which had been established in a drainage tunnel beneath the M18 (E105) highway in Zaporizhzhia Oblast.

@IntelSlava