The D Brief: F-35s in Puerto Rico; 2nd Russian drone over NATO; Army Pacific’s tech tryouts;

and more

D Briefs are good when time is short

Six F-35Bs were spotted landing in Puerto Rico on Saturday as the Trump administration continues using the military to fight drug trafficking around Latin America, Reuters and The War Zone reported Saturday. Four more are reportedly on the way. 

“drug trafficking”

President Trump last week ordered 10 of the cutting-edge aircraft to the region just days after the U.S. military said its troops killed 11 people in a speedboat allegedly transporting drugs to the U.S., though no evidence has been provided to back up those claims, as the New York Times reported Wednesday following a Pentagon briefing on Capitol Hill. 

For what it’s worth, “the F-35s seen landing…have no unit markings on their tails. This could be [a] force protection/security tactic, but the reason isn’t clear at this time,” TWZ’s Howard Altman observed. 

No unit markings?- More here on the F-35’s in Puerto Rico

Markings like tail codes on US Navy and Marine Corps aircraft, or serial numbers on the tails of US Air Force F-35s, help identify the unit, base, or assigned air wing

Markings are used to differentiate between F-35 models, with US Air Force F-35s denoting the “A” model, and US Marines and Navy aircraft indicating the “B” or “C” model

There are already at least eight U.S. Navy vessels in the region, including a nuclear-powered submarine. “A second flight of four F-35s from MCAS Yuma is also headed toward Puerto Rico,” Altman reported, citing open-source flight trackers like this. 

New: Venezuelan officials say the U.S. Navy raided a tuna boat in Venezuelan waters on Saturday. Eighteen U.S. troops reportedly boarded the vessel during an “illegal” search that lasted around eight hours, the Associated Press reports, citing Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yván Gil. The nine fishermen onboard the vessel “were then released under escort by the Venezuelan navy,” AP writes.

Around the world

Another Russian drone breached NATO airspace last week, prompting Romania to scramble two F-16 fighter jets after radar detected a Russian drone in Romanian airspace at about 6 p.m. local time. 

The drone incursion lasted 50 minutes, and didn’t cause any damage or casualties, Foreign Minister Oana-Silvia Țoiu said.  

“This is Russia’s second incursion into NATO airspace over the course of four days,” analysts at the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War noted in their latest assessment. It’s also the 11th incursion into Romanian airspace since Russia launched its full-scale Ukraine invasion in 2022, Romanian officials told ABC News. Reuters has a bit more. 

Update: Trump backed off his latest promise to sanction Russia further, writing Saturday online that he wants all NATO allies to stop buying Russian oil and place 50 to 100% tariffs on China first—then he said he’d be “ready to do major Sanctions on Russia.” The New York Times reports “The condition is almost certain not to be met, which Mr. Trump and his advisers know.”

Background: “The European Union had been heavily dependent on Russian energy before Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. It has taken steps to reduce those purchases, but they have not disappeared entirely,” NPR explains. For example, behind China and India, Turkey is Russia’s third-largest importer of oil, followed closely by Hungary.

Panning out: “Trump has repeatedly threatened to punish Russia with new sanctions if it refuses to reach an agreement with Ukraine, but has failed to follow through as Moscow has ignored several deadlines,” Time magazine writes. 

Big-picture consideration: “Trump telegraphed great strength and vowed he could end Russia’s war against Ukraine with a single phone call,” Boston College historian Heather Cox Richardson explained Saturday. “When he failed to get any buy-in at all from Russia’s president Vladimir Putin for his , Trump threatened to impose strong new sanctions against Russia. This afternoon he backed away from that altogether,” she said, citing Saturday’s developments.

A blurb on Ukraine and drones, but, I want to skip to this part

Typhon missile debuts in Japan, drawing China’s ire.

Monday’s appearance of the U.S. Army’s newest intermediate-range missile system in an exercise in Western Japan “underscor[es] Washington and Tokyo’s growing willingness to field weapons that Beijing has condemned as destabilising,” writes Reuters. That follows the launcher’s 2024 deployment to the Philippines, “a move that drew sharp criticism from Beijing and Moscow, which accused the U.S. of fuelling an arms race.”

Expert reax: “In the past, these deployments would have been nixed by DC and Tokyo bureaucrats out of fear of the Chinese reaction. You can see that’s less of an issue than it was, say five years ago,” said Grant Newsham, a Japan Forum for Strategic Studies research fellow and retired U.S. Marine Corps colonel who worked alongside the Japanese military. Read on, here.

Still more to read, so please do at the D-brief link!