The Global Combat Air Programme means “reindustrialization and building back up our production capacity, so we can give our armed forces the kit they need, as well as building and buying British, so that we deliver good jobs in communities in every part of our country,” Streeting said.

On the steps of Downing Street on Monday, Burnham — who took over from Keir Starmer this week — promised that “reindustrializing Britain” will be a key focus as PM. “We are going to honor our commitments on defense — and use that investment to transform people’s lives,” Burnham said in a statement on the fighter jet project.

The British government earmarked £8.6 billion for the jet over the next four years in its Defence Investment Plan.

The sixth-gen fighter jet already supports 4,500 jobs in the U.K. at about 600 different firms in the supply chain throughout the country.

As the first observer nation to join the project, “Canada will gain direct insight and privileged access into GCAP, including capability development, industrial collaboration, and long-term delivery plans,” Streeting said. While there is “no commitment” for Canada to buy the jet, he added later, it will set a pathway for discussions with Canada about its aerospace and manufacturing base contributing to the project.

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“Allies are taking a historic step to enhance NATO’s fuel supply chain to ensure our forces have the energy supplies they need,” he told reporters. “While allies continue to finalize the details, we know that this €27 billion investment will modernize our existing fuel storage and distribution infrastructure.”

Despite that, Ankara has indicated it still wouldn’t green-light the proposal unless the 21 projects on Turkish territory are considered for fast-tracked funding, the diplomats said. Ankara’s push reflects the fact the largest share of funding will be disbursed in the first five years of the overhaul.

“They just want their projects brought forward, to the detriment of more mature plans in other allies,” said one of the diplomats. “Of course, Russia is the one happiest with these delays.”

NATO countries had previously disagreed over the high costs of the agreement — touted by diplomats as the alliance’s most expensive commonly funded project ever — while some fretted over the fact it would lock in fuel projects for decades. Capitals later agreed to drop their opposition to the scheme as eastern flank states in particular lobby hard for a rapid agreement.

Ankara’s move risks delaying an agreement on the pipeline extension until September, when NATO ambassadors will reconvene after the summer break, one of the diplomats said.

Turkey’s permanent representation to the alliance declined to comment. NATO referred POLITICO to Rutte’s remarks on the fuel pipeline agreement earlier this month at the summit.

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Streeting take over less than six weeks after predecessor Dan Jarvis, who was appointed amid a fierce row within government over defense spending, was named to the job.

Jarvis was responsible for delivering the government’s long-awaited Defence Investment Plan, which allocated money to the capabilities needed to deal with the biggest threats to the U.K. over the next four years.

While he managed to secure extra funding for defense as part of the plan, much of it is meant to come from savings which have not yet been identified, leaving a significant challenge for the newcomer at the Ministry of Defence.

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The Texas stop would provide a more ceremonial element to the trip.

A rollout is the formal public unveiling of a newly assembled aircraft — not yet its delivery to the German military. Germany’s first F-35 entered final assembly at Lockheed Martin’s Fort Worth factory earlier this year and is due to make its first flight and be officially presented on Sept. 18, according to Lockheed Martin.

Germany ordered 35 of the stealth fighters to replace its aging Tornado fleet, including in the sensitive role of carrying U.S. nuclear bombs stationed in Germany in the event of war.

The first eight German aircraft will initially remain in the United States, where pilots will train at Ebbing Air National Guard Base in Arkansas. The first F-35s are expected to arrive at Germany’s Büchel air base in 2027.

Berlin has also been mulling an expansion of the fleet with another 15 aircraft, POLITICO previosuly reported. The planning notes, however, do not indicate whether that potential purchase will be among the projects discussed during Pistorius’ visit in September.

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Energy Secretary Chris Wright said Sunday that despite renewed fighting with Iran, oil tankers continue to make it through the Strait of Hormuz.

Speaking to host Jonathan Karl on ABC’s “This Week,” Wright said: “We’re at a little under 14 million barrels a day from the Arabian Gulf region. That’s two-thirds of pre-conflict traffic, dramatically up from where we were back in March when I was last on your show. I mean, not 100% yet, but two-thirds of flow right now.”

Wright said that public reports indicating that most shipping traffic has stopped in recent days are just not true.

“Almost all the public data I’ve seen is incorrect,” he said.

Commenting on the war, Wright characterized the current combat, which led to American fatalities at a U.S. base in Jordan on Friday, as a resumption after a pause for talks that ultimately did not bring peace.

“Now what we’re doing is assuring that oil and gas and other products can flow through the Strait of Hormuz, with or without Iranian cooperation,” Wright told Karl.

Wright also said that President Donald Trump’s mission remains the same, preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

“The president’s mission is essential for peace in the Middle East,” he said, “and peace in the world.”

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In a speech on becoming leader, Burnham said he had not yet chosen his Cabinet, and a government official — not one of the figures cited above — said incumbent ministers had not been given any indication either way over whether they would remain in post.

However, if the new prime minister does opt to remove Jarvis, it would likely cause upset at the MoD after the recent change of leadership.

One Labour MP with a background in security said it was “difficult to think of anyone better qualified” than Jarvis for the job, and that another major upheaval was “not in the interest of the military at all.”

A second Labour MP connected to the sector said the move would not provide the “stability” needed at a crucial time.

The same MPs said Streeting had been put forward as a potential successor to Jarvis, after he was previously linked to the job of foreign secretary. MPs on the “soft left” of the party have been lobbying against the former health secretary being handed a policy-heavy domestic brief.

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The attacks aim to prevent Russia from supplying fuel to the occupied regions of Eastern Ukraine and Crimea and curb its effort to circumvent sanctions, Brovdi explained. “The goal is incurable paralysis of oil, fuel, cargo logistics in circumvention of sanctions,” the commander wrote.

Overall, 159 ships from the shadow fleet of the Russian Federation were hit in the last 10 days, Brovdi writes: “117 ships in the Azov Sea, and 42 ️units in the Black Sea.”

Kyiv has recently intensified the attacks on Russia’s energy infrastructure. Ukrainian drones regularly hit the Kremlin’s oil refineries as well as fuel tankers along the “Novorossia 280 highway” — the main route connecting Russia to the occupied territories and Crimea. As a result, a significant energy and utility crisis with widespread power and water outages has emerged in the region.

To maintain fuel supplies to Crimea, Moscow stepped up shipments by small vessels across the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea, linking southern Russia with the occupied peninsula. In response, Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces launched Operation Molochka (Moscow will fall through Crimea) in July to further disrupt the supply chain.

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The White House last month announced hostilities between the two countries would temporarily cease under the memorandum — but President Donald Trump this week formally notified lawmakers the U.S. was once again at war with Iran.

Leavitt on Thursday said Iran continues to reach out to the U.S. to negotiate a permanent ceasefire. Despite the blockade, she added, “the strait is open for ships that are not traveling to and from Iranian ports.”

“President Trump is not going to sit by and allow these active acts of terrorism to take place in the strait without ensuring Iran pays consequences for that,” Leavitt said.

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“They even refused to sit at the same table without me,” he added. “I had to make a choice.”

That choice, to get rid of rogue reformer Fedorov, who in his six months in office launched major positive changes in the army, shocked many prominent Ukrainian service members and watchdogs, and surprised foreign partners.

Ukrainians held another cardboard protest on Thursday, demanding that Zelenskyy return Fedorov to the ministry. In the evening, Zelenskyy announced that Khmara, who is acting head of Ukraine’s SBU intelligence agency, will fill the vacancy — but only in an acting capacity, until he can formally resign from the military to take up the civilian role.

Fedorov vs Syrskyi

Fedorov said that Syrskyi forced Zelenskyy’s hand into pushing him out. Though Fedorov was also reportedly pushing for Syrskyi’s removal for a long time. The general has a reputation as a butcher and as a Soviet general, rewarding loyalists and destroying the initiative of field commanders.

“When the president said he has no plans to fire [Syrskyi], I accepted and was ready to learn how to work with him, because we both have one goal — to serve the Ukrainian people. But what we faced was that all our initiatives were blocked. Syrskyi was not ready to openly discuss problems, but was instead plotting against us and finally set an ultimatum for me to be out,” Fedorov said at a press conference in Kyiv on Thursday.

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Khmara was appointed the acting head of the Security Service of Ukraine at the beginning of this year and, under Ukrainian law, cannot simultaneously serve as defense minister. He is expected to retire from military service in the coming days, allowing Zelenskyy to request that parliament appoint him as defense minister formally.

“I have tasked Yevhenii Khmara with serving as acting minister, continuing to reform the defense sector, and ensuring that Ukraine achieves all of the results we have discussed,” Zelenskyy wrote on Facebook.

He added: “Khmara has gained extensive and, in many respects, unprecedented experience with technological combat operations. This is exactly where our defense efforts should be focused during this war.”

Zelenskyy dismissed former Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov on Wednesday as part of a cabinet reshuffle. The 35-year-old had held the post for only six months. While reforming the military’s technology, Fedorov also clashed with top generals, who said they found him difficult to work with.

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In a landmark speech in March, Macron said several European countries — including Germany — had agreed to enhance cooperation on nuclear deterrence. Options for this range from participation in Poker — which simulates air-launched nuclear strikes — to temporary deployment of nuclear-capable French Rafale fighter jets.

An Elysée Palace official also hinted that Paris and Berlin would agree to move forward on nuclear deterrence this week. “Significant progress on forward deterrence will have been made one year after the Île-Longue speech, with the first signs appearing [on Friday],” they told reporters.

The talks come as European governments question how long they can rely on the U.S. for their security. The ministerial meeting was happening against the backdrop of growing pressure from China and a transatlantic partnership that could no longer be taken for granted, said the German official.

Laura Kayali reported from Paris.

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Ukraine and its allies are hoping they can retain their momentum and support in Washington in the coming months despite the untimely death of stalwart ally Sen. Lindsey Graham.

Graham had served as an essential go-between from MAGA world to Kyiv. And he’d been a chief driver of efforts on the Hill to crack down on the Kremlin’s back doors for military help and so-called shadow fleet.

Ukrainian officials insist that they’re picking up where Graham left off — one of his last official acts was to visit Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to brief him on his latest push for legislation to sanction those who buy oil from Russia.

“That’s why we’re actively working with the Trump team and Congress to finally pressure Russia into making peace,” said a top Ukrainian official, who like others interviewed, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal conversations. “Of course, everyone is sad that Graham is dead. But we’re hoping for constructive action from Washington.”

Graham’s death came on the heels of an eleventh-hour breakthrough in talks between members of Congress and the Trump team on language for the late senator’s sanctions bill during NATO’s annual leaders’ summit in the Turkish capital of Ankara. It appeared to be an about-face by the U.S. administration, which had repeatedly sought to water down the bill.

The new language, released Tuesday, limits Trump’s ability to wriggle out of sanctioning Russia during talks, and calls on Trump to name and hit Russian shippers and providers of sensitive military tech, such as sensors and machine tools, with sanctions. However, it also gives Trump wide latitude to waive the application of any sanctions or restrictions.

But as Ukraine faces a hard winter and a shortage of air defense interceptor missiles to stave off Russian missile attacks, it’s not yet clear who will step up as Ukraine’s biggest champion on the Republican side — or whether they’ll have Trump’s ear.

Without Graham on the scene, some of Ukraine’s allies in Washington worry that there would be no one left to help manage Trump’s tempestuous relationship with Zelenskyy, which has been marred by on-camera arguments. Graham was also an essential interlocutor on the minerals deal inked between Washington and Kyiv in 2025.

“Ukraine needs Trump translators because they don’t understand Trump,” said a former Trump administration official. “They lost that. … I think that’s a hindrance.”

Though Graham’s sanctions bill has more than 80 cosponsors, he was the rare Republican in Congress with a line to both Zelenskyy and Trump.

Senate Armed Services Chair Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) has also advocated for arming Kyiv, but other staunch allies, such as Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), are set to retire. And Democrats such as Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, who co-authored the Russia sanctions bill, have little access to the White House or ability to sway Trump.

“Senator Graham is dead. Senator [Mitch] McConnell is in the hospital. Our most powerful friends,” Oleksandra Ustinova, a member of the Ukrainian parliament from the Holos political party, said in a social media post this weekend.

“Many Republican friends of Ukraine do not want and do not run for reelection, leaving the Senate and Congress. We are losing Ukraine’s best friends who publicly and privately supported and lobbied us,” added Ustinova, who is also head of the Ukrainian parliament’s Monitoring the Receipt and Use of International Military Assistance During Martial Law.

Some in Kyiv fear for the fate of Graham’s sanctions package and are playing through a number of possible scenarios the White House might take to tank the bill. Trump might drag out the negotiations further, or could just decide not to use his leverage against Russia.

“Even if the White House supports killer sanctions, and Senate votes, Trump can drag with signing, especially if Iran is included,” said a person close to the Ukrainian government. “Then he might just not use sanctions, as they just give him permission, but not oblige him to actually impose sanctions.”

Coming off a NATO summit in which Trump mostly complimented European leaders instead of dressing them down with insults, some European officials had hoped that Kyiv’s champions across the Atlantic might be able to keep the U.S. president on message.

One European diplomat said they personally spent long evenings on calls with Graham as he worked over Trump to try to bring more support to Ukraine. He said there are others who could take up Graham’s mantle.

“He’s a loss for sure, we’ll miss him,” the diplomat said. “But there are others who can make the calls. It does make [NATO Secretary General Mark] Rutte more vital.”

Some of Ukraine’s allies in Europe have earned reputations as Trump whisperers. Finnish President Alexander Stubb, a frequent Trump golf partner, has also lobbied Trump to keep up the pressure on Ukraine.

But some of Europe’s mainstays are leaving the political scene. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer may have only days left in the job after resigning last month. French President Emmanuel Macron is term-limited and will leave office next year.

And Trump’s frustration with European allies over their lack of support for the Iran war has led him to cast aside some of his longstanding confidants in NATO, such as Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.

The implications of Graham’s death on U.S policy toward Ukraine “will be the most important issue on every European diplomat’s mind,” said a Washington-based European diplomat. “Senator Graham was a crucial driving force there, and I’m sure he will be missed on that file. Hopefully the person succeeding him will follow that same line.”

Phelim Kine and Alex Gangitano contributed to this report.

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“I will continue to work for the mission with which I came to the ministry of defense earlier — to defeat the enemy through asymmetry, speed of innovation, and organizational strength,” Fedorov said.

Fedorov, 35, had only been in the post for half a year and was seen as a reformer who brought private-sector speed and decisiveness to Ukraine’s military. But his efforts to slash corruption, revamp the tendering process and boost Ukraine’s drone technology clashed with the approach of the commander in chief, Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi.

“Zelenskyy said he cannot choose between Fedorov and Syrskyi, and said Fedorov was the one who failed mobilization reform,” Yaroslav Zhelezhyak, an MP with the opposition Holos party, said in a post on Facebook Wednesday, describing the decision as “stupid and unfair.”

In the six months he was in office Fedorov persuaded Elon Musk’s SpaceX to switch off Starlink terminals being used by the Russian military, creating chaos for the Kremlin’s forces. He also helped push the mid-range strike campaign that uses drones to hit targets up to 100 kilometers behind the front lines, disrupting Russian logistics and slowing the Kremlin’s territorial gains.

Fedorov, who previously served as the digital transformation minister, used his tech background to introduce an after-action review after Russian attacks, something that helped the Ukrainian air force improve its drone interception rate.

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But in recent years, both Ukrainian and EU officials have expressed growing concerns regarding Kyiv’s need for fighting men. “I really want Ukrainians, especially men, to return home,” said Zelenskyy after an April meeting with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz. “It is a matter of justice. We have people, soldiers at the front, they need rotations,” he added.

Commissioner for Migration Magnus Brunner, who initiated the issue at EU level, said last month that “temporary protection is not to be granted as a rule to newly arriving persons who are not authorized by the Ukrainian authorities to leave Ukraine in view of their military obligations.”

Ukraine introduced martial law the day Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, prohibiting men aged 25 to 60 who are eligible for military service from leaving the country — barring certain exemptions. It is estimated that approximately 1.17 million adult Ukrainian men are currently benefiting from temporary protection across the EU. In 2023, Ukrainian media had reported around 650,000 Ukrainian men of fighting age had left for the EU.

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Governor of the Odesa region, Oleh Kiper, said Russia had launched a “massive combined missile and drone attack” on the region for the fifth consecutive day, accusing Moscow of “deliberately targeting the civilian population” alongside industrial and port infrastructure.

A missile strike hit a residential high-rise, killing three people and injuring at least three others, while rescue workers pulled three residents — including two children — from the damaged building. “Cleanup operations are ongoing,” Kiper said, adding that investigators were documenting what he described as Russian war crimes.

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As the U.S. war with Iran resumes, there is little sign that diplomacy can stop it.

Efforts by Arab, Pakistani and other mediators to revive negotiations or restore a ceasefire have shown no public signs of progress, and the overall feeling in the Middle East and beyond is that the fighting will simply continue for now, according to two analysts and a person familiar with the situation.

The White House is “not really sure where this is headed,” said a former U.S. official in touch with Trump administration staffers, who, like others quoted in this story, was granted anonymity to describe sensitive conversations. “This could go on for some time. There’s no trust between Iran and the U.S., and that’s kind of the basis for any kind of diplomacy.”

The renewed fighting includes a U.S. naval blockade of Iranian shipping and Tehran launching multiple attacks on U.S. allies.

President Donald Trump has made clear Tehran must relinquish control of the vital energy shipping lanes in the Strait of Hormuz. But Iran has weathered previous assaults and still managed to threaten oil shipping with drones and missiles, and it’s not clear how this latest campaign would eliminate that threat.

“I think the president will try to destroy Iran’s capabilities threatening the strait,” said Fred Fleitz, Trump’s former National Security Council chief of staff and vice chair of the American First Policy Institute’s American Security. “I think that we will have to take a so-called mowing the grass strategy, where the U.S. and Israel will respond militarily to provocations, then maybe we simply have to wait until the Iranian people take their country back.”

Trump did offer a concession of sorts on Tuesday when he reversed himself and said the U.S. would not impose a 20 percent fee on countries shipping goods through the strait. Instead, he said the Navy would assist ships through the waterway in exchange for investment deals with the United States.

The latest about-face is a hallmark of the president’s decision-making process and the minute-by-minute governing policy he favors.

But White House allies see the American response as necessary.

Trump “has to respond when the Iranians break faith, and I think that’s what he’s doing,” said Alex Gray, National Security Council chief of staff during Trump’s first term. “We can’t get back to an equilibrium unless the Americans demonstrate our willingness to escalate as needed. … I think it’s more of a tactical response to their bad behavior.”

Just before the blockade was to go into effect on Tuesday, Iran launched a fresh wave of missile and drone attacks against Bahrain, Jordan and Kuwait — all nations that host U.S. military bases. The Iranian strikes come less than a day after a punishing five-hour American air assault on Iranian targets.

The Kuwaiti military alone said it shot down 33 drones, a cruise missile and a ballistic missile.

And the American military retains a powerful presence in the Middle East — another indication of continued hostilities.

The U.S. maintains two aircraft carriers in the region, part of about 20 warships and a contingent of 2,500 Marines at sea. Most of the ships are capable of firing long-range missiles, and warplanes and long-range rocket artillery remain stationed in friendly countries along the Persian Gulf.

Overall, there are about 50,000 American troops deployed in the Middle East since the war began in late February with U.S. and Israeli airstrikes against Iranian government and military targets.

“The arsenal remains in place,” said one U.S. official. “We’re there, and we’re swapping out pieces, but we’re not going anywhere.”

The U.S. Central Command said in a statement that on Tuesday night local time, U.S. forces “began launching an additional round of strikes against Iran to continue degrading Iranian capabilities used to attack commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.” The strikes took place “as American forces prepare to resume the naval blockade against Iranian ports and coastal areas.”

Windward intelligence, a private firm that tracks shipping though the strait, said on Tuesday it was tracking 23 vessels operating in the Persian Gulf “as potential blockade-breakers, 10 of them laden with approximately $432.3 million in cargo.”

The monthslong bottleneck continues to wait for a final, workable agreement to resume shipping through the strait. And while the U.S. and Iran agreed to a memorandum of understanding designed to halt the fighting just a month ago, both sides have since accused the other of violating its terms on multiple fronts.

Iran, for instance, interpreted the agreement as granting it control over the strait, through which flows a critical amount of oil, fertilizer and other global needs. The U.S., however, has tried to help ships get through the passage in ways Iran saw as a violation. The U.S. argued that Iran’s firing on commercial vessels trying to traverse the strait undermined the truce.

While in Ankara, Turkey, attending a NATO summit this month, Trump declared an end to the ceasefire.

“To me, I think it’s over,” he said upon arriving at the gathering just hours after U.S. forces struck Iranian military sites in retaliation for Iranian attacks on commercial shipping.

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President Donald Trump on Tuesday walked back threats to charge a 20 percent fee on all cargo ships that pass through the Strait of Hormuz, the critical waterway that has been central to the renewed U.S.-Iran conflict.

In a post to Truth Social, Trump said the strait will be open to “ALL Ship traffic except for Iran” and the U.S. will implement a “FULL Blockade, but only on Ships coming to and from Iranian ports, or carrying anything have to do with Iranian cargo.”

The president added that the previously announced 20 percent fee will be replaced with trade and investment deals between Gulf states and the U.S. “Those Investments will be MASSIVE but, at the same time, extraordinarily good for them, and their future,” Trump said.

Trump’s announcement marks a swift backtrack from his proposal to charge all ships traveling the strait a 20 percent fee, a plan he announced Monday. It triggered grumbling from international allies and even some Republicans on Capitol Hill.

This is a breaking news story that will be updated.

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Radev has been in power since his election victory in April. On June 9, Defense Minister Dimitar Stoyanov announced Bulgaria would stop donating weapons to Ukraine, before clarifying a day later that commercial arms sales would continue. The prime minister has repeatedly argued the war cannot be won on the battlefield and has previously described Ukraine’s cause as “doomed.”

The prime minister insisted Bulgaria remained fully engaged in NATO and EU decision-making. He also defended Sofia’s willingness to threaten a veto over the EU’s latest sanctions package after raising objections to the inclusion of several individuals, including Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill. “There’s nothing wrong with a country defending its national interest within a collective framework,” he said.

Macron invited leaders from across Europe to Paris to discuss continued support for Ukraine and attend the annual Bastille Day parade. Led by France and the U.K., the Coalition of the Willing brings together more than 30 countries seeking to coordinate long-term security guarantees for Ukraine in the event of a ceasefire.

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Sen. Lindsey Graham’s death is a major blow to Israel’s efforts to persuade the U.S. to keep up its military campaign against Iran, as well as to other Israeli goals in Washington, according to those familiar with U.S. strategy in the region.

The 71-year-old Republican from South Carolina was long one of Israel’s biggest champions. He backed the Middle Eastern nation on numerous fronts, from securing arms deals with the U.S. to trying to normalize relations with the Saudis.

Above all, Graham — a national security hawk — supported Israel against the Islamist regime in Tehran, at times advocating for military strikes even when President Donald Trump hesitated. Graham’s close ties to Trump and his senior status in Congress, where he had sway over foreign policy spending, enhanced his influence.

Graham’s death is especially untimely for Israel because the country, where he was a frequent guest, has been bleeding support among Americans. Both Democrats and Republicans have had growing frustrations with Israel, especially over its heavy-handed military campaign in Gaza and its guns-first approach to Iran.

Israelis “always knew that Lindsey was trying to integrate Israel into the region and to combat Iranian influence. To lose that as a permanent aspect — someone who would be on TV, using his gavel with that authority, everything else, and to lose that — that hurts,” said one Middle East analyst with ties to Israeli officials who was granted anonymity to discuss sensitive conversations.

On Monday, Trump listed Israel among those “who really lost” from Graham’s death. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised the late senator on Sunday as a man who “never wavered,” including on stopping Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.

Asked for comment on Graham’s role in Trump’s Iran policy, White House spokesperson Anna Kelly praised Graham but said, “The president listens to many opinions on any given issue, including Iran, but ultimately decides based on what he feels is best for the country.”

Iran’s state-controlled media, meanwhile, reacted with glee to the loss of one of their biggest opponents in Washington. One article was headlined “Death of the Merchant of Death.”

Graham’s office did not immediately reply to requests for comment.

While Graham was known for his support of military action against Iran, he also was careful about staying on Trump’s good side, former U.S. diplomats and analysts said. He expressed support for Trump’s efforts to end the war with Iran via a diplomatic agreement, but made it clear he was skeptical the effort would succeed. His skepticism was shared by the Israeli government, which views the Iranian regime as an inherently unreliable diplomatic partner.

Tom Nides, who served as a U.S. ambassador to Israel during the Biden administration, said Graham also was a powerful voice pushing for the establishment of diplomatic ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia — something Netanyahu badly wants to achieve.

Graham had earlier spoken out harshly against Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman over his alleged role in the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. But, after a process that included talks with Biden administration officials, Graham made up with the prince in 2023 and began pushing for Israel and Saudi Arabia to establish relations.

The Saudi-Israel normalization project has been largely sidelined in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza and Saudi demands that Israel support a pathway to a Palestinian state.

Nides and others pointed to Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) as possible successors who could advocate for Israel in the same way Graham did. Both are hawkish on national security, especially when it comes to dealing with Tehran, but they are not as close to Trump and are considered less personable by Democrats.

“Graham is an unusual figure because Democrats liked him, too. I mean, they got pissed at him, but they liked him,” Nides said.

Cruz and Cotton’s offices did not immediately reply to requests for comment.

Fred Fleitz, who served as a National Security Council chief of staff in Trump’s first term, suggested that Secretary of State Marco Rubio and CIA Director John Ratcliffe are two already prominent voices who might become even more influential on Iran in the days ahead, although neither is believed to have been as gung-ho about going to war as Graham had been.

“Trump listens to a lot of people, but he clearly listens to Senator Graham,” Fleitz said. “He would call him for advice, and Graham would call him constantly to try to give him his counsel to help him push responsible national security policy.”

Jerry Wu and Megan Messerly contributed to this report.

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It is designed to integrate with existing NATO-standard radars, command posts and data links from all the participating countries rather than acting as a standalone national system. The goal is to deliver a cheaper, mass-produced alternative to the Patriot PAC-3.

“What we are building here is not only for Ukraine. It is a demonstration that Europe can provide for its own security, defend its interests and act with force,” French President Emmanuel Macron said, adding that the meeting was also attended by representatives of the European defense companies.

The Freyja project is not without risks, especially given the recent collapse of another ambitious cross-border military partnership, the Future Combat Air System , the Franco-German-Spanish next-generation fighter project.

And despite major advances in the Ukrainian defense sector during the war — especially in drone technology — developing and fielding Freyja poses significant technical and industrial challenges. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he hoped the system would be operational in a year.

U.S. President Donald Trump also agreed in principle with Zelenskyy last week to allow Ukraine to build its own Patriot interceptors; only Germany and Japan have such permission. But the deal still needs to be negotiated and approved and then complex production set up inside Ukraine, meaning it will not provide immediate relief against Russian attacks.

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“All other countries will have fair and open use of the Strait,” he said, but added that “as a matter of FAIRNESS, [the U.S.] will be reimbursed, at the rate of 20% on all cargo shipped, for any and all costs necessary to do the job of providing safety and security to this very volatile section of the World.”

This is a breaking news story that will be updated.

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Macron spent much of the 27-minute speech boasting about the steep increase in military spending under his presidency, which he vowed to safeguard.

“I set a clear and measurable target: to achieve a level of defense spending equivalent to 2 percent of national wealth by 2025,” Macron said, referring to his first speech to the French military in 2017. “That promise was kept.”

France’s military spending is expected to reach €64 billion in 2027, double the €32 billion spent in 2017, the year Macron was elected. This year, France is projected to spend 2.2 percent of GDP on defense, a large increase on previous spending but well short of the trajectory needed to reach the alliance’s 2035 target of 3.5 percent of GDP.

The increase has come amid a Europe-wide rearmament drive aimed at countering the threat from Russia, sending weapons to Ukraine and making the continent less reliant on a Donald Trump-led United States.

“Europe is becoming a power built on the states that make it up, one that respects their sovereign decisions but is prepared to defend itself and take action, united,” said Macron, who has long advocated a more muscular European defense posture.

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Ukraine’s advantage remains fragile. Moscow’s economy is still on a war footing, Russia has expanded drone production, and its forces have repeatedly found ways to counter Ukrainian innovations. That’s why Kyiv is pressing allies to move faster with financing and procurement.

Ukraine’s Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov told POLITICO this month that Kyiv needs billions more in military aid to sustain the current momentum. “If we have enough resources to launch a new cycle of war innovations before Russia adapts to the current one, we will get another six months,” Fedorov said.

The defense ministers of Sweden, the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Estonia, Poland, Latvia, Finland and Lithuania earlier this month wrote to European Defense Commissioner Andrius Kubilius and foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas calling for the Commission to move faster in approving Ukraine’s planned spending of EU financial support, to enable Kyiv to press its advantage.

Ukraine’s Economy Minister Oleksii Sobolev said Kyiv’s edge comes from necessity and short innovation cycles. “When people are trying to kill you, you have to survive and you have to innovate,” he told POLITICO. “There is no other way around it.”

But Ukraine does lack the advantage in one area: At NATO’s Ankara summit last week, Zelenskyy warned that Kyiv lacks sufficient means to stop Russian ballistic missiles, a point underscored by a string of attacks that have killed and injured dozens of Ukrainians.

“Please help us get more air defense missiles,” Zelenskyy said. “We are capable of doing everything else ourselves. But when it comes to air defense, we need our partners’ determination.”

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“Then the full-scale invasion happened, and all of a sudden everyone realized that this huge, future-oriented continent largely didn’t understand Ukraine’s story because it did not hear it,” Scherba said. “And that it was, in many cases, a sandbox for Russian propaganda.”

So far it’s a battle in which Ukraine has been losing ground. In 2022, the only African country to vote against a U.N. resolution condemning Russia’s invasion was Eritrea. This year, six African countries opposed a Ukraine-backed measure condemning Russia’s invasion.

“Russia has been forming Ukraine’s image as a neo-Nazi state ruled by racists and supporters of apartheid,” a Ukrainian foreign intelligence service official said. “Moscow spreads these messages through their propaganda outlets, in universities, and through loyalist associations.”

A 55-year-old Ghanaian citizen, who asked to be identified only by his call sign Future, hopes that Russia and Ukraine will eventually exchange the international prisoners fighting on both sides of the conflict.

“If Ukraine really wants to be friends with Africa, it should let us go, in exchange for other internationals fighting for Kyiv,” Future said as prisoners took a cigarette break after lunch.

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