Military Corruption Media Articles

Excerpts of Key Military Corruption Media Articles in Major Media

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Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth says he has a singular mission. "We do warfighting here at the Department of Defense," he said. Right now, the U.S. military is looking to pour money into the renovation of 35 golf course sand traps at the Woodlawn Golf Course at Ramstein Air Base in Germany. Air Force Special Operations Command also wants to purchase sterile mushroom compost for the golf course greens at Cannon Air Force Base in New Mexico. The Army, for its part, plans to issue a service contract that will cover maintenance in the golf course clubhouse at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, New York. What golf has to do with lethality is a question that the Defense Department failed to answer. Nor would the Pentagon weigh in on the hundreds of millions of dollars wrapped up in, or swallowed up by, military golf courses. The Pentagon did not provide a full tally of its current inventory of golf courses, which The Intercept put at around 145. Even at a time of rampant cost-cutting across the federal government ... the U.S military's golf habit is not on chopping block. The Trump administration announced this week that hundreds of federal properties were available for sale. The General Services Administration, the government's real estate arm, released a list of 443 structures and properties deemed "not core to government operations." Currently, no military golf courses are up for sale on the GSA's website.

Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on government waste.

Every two years since 1990, at the start of each new Congress, [Government Accountability Office] scientists, actuaries and investigators have produced a "high risk list" of where the federal government mismanages its resources and taxpayer money. Over that 35-year span, more than three-quarters of a trillion dollars has been saved by implementing the GAO's recommendations. The 2025 list cites at least $150 billion in payment errors and fraud in each of the past seven years – chiefly in overpayments by Medicare, Medicaid, the unemployment insurance system and the Earned Income Tax Credit. And that $150 billion figure is no doubt vastly understated, given that agencies failed to report improper payments for at least nine "risk-susceptible" programs. The government's failure to collect all the taxes that it is owed was estimated to have cost more than $600 billion in the 2022 tax year alone, which underscores how absurd it is for Musk to cut the Internal Revenue Service workforce in half. The Defense Department ... is responsible for about half of discretionary spending. "There are many major acquisitions across the government, including DOD weapons systems, GAO boss Gene Dodaro [said]. "They're on the high list." Pentagon contracts and the ones the Energy Department signs regarding nuclear weapons, he added, "are consistently overrun, over budget and delays occur. And they don't deliver on the promises."

Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on government waste.

Alexander Balan was on a California beach when the idea for a new kind of drone came to him. This eureka moment led Balan to found Xdown, the company that's building the P.S. Killer (PSK)–an autonomous kamikaze drone that works like a hand grenade and can be thrown like a football. The PSK is a "throw-and-forget" drone, Balan says, referencing the "fire-and-forget" missile that, once locked on to a target, can seek it on its own. Instead of depending on remote controls, the PSK will be operated by AI. Soldiers should be able to grab it, switch it on, and throw it–just like a football. The PSK can carry one or two 40 mm grenades commonly used in grenade launchers today. The grenades could be high-explosive dual purpose, designed to penetrate armor while also creating an explosive fragmentation effect against personnel. These grenades can also "airburst"–programmed to explode in the air above a target for maximum effect. Infantry, special operations, and counterterrorism units can easily store PSK drones in a field backpack and tote them around, taking one out to throw at any given time. They can also be packed by the dozen in cargo airplanes, which can fly over an area and drop swarms of them. Balan says that one Defense Department official told him "This is the most American munition I have ever seen." The nonlethal version of the PSK [replaces] its warhead with a supply container so that it's able to "deliver food, medical kits, or ammunition to frontline troops" (though given the 1.7-pound payload capacity, such packages would obviously be small).

Note: The US military is using Xbox controllers to operate weapons systems. The latest US Air Force recruitment tool is a video game that allows players to receive in-game medals and achievements for drone bombing Iraqis and Afghans. For more, read our concise summaries of news articles on warfare technologies and watch our latest video on the militarization of Big Tech.

On February 1, 2025, U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM), in coordination with the federal government of Somalia, conducted the first airstrikes in the country under the new Trump administration. The strikes targeted ... a hub for ISIS-Somalia (IS-S). IS-S is now an integral financial and recruitment hub for the global Islamic State network, generating millions of dollars in revenue and growing its ranks with fighters from as far north as Morocco to as far south as Tanzania. The United States has been carrying out operations in Somalia since at least 2002 without a formal war declaration. Shortly after the September 11, 2001, plane attacks, George W. Bush ... sent Special Forces and CIA operatives to Somalia to capture suspected al-Qaeda members. The Obama years saw an unprecedented rise in drone warfare. The full scale of the air war remains unknown. The death toll of these operations are also unknown; U.S. claims denying civilian casualties are routinely disputed by people on the ground and the Somali government. A 2023 letter authored by 24 Somali and international rights organizations and addressed to the Secretary of Defense says: "Civilian victims, survivors, and their families have yet to receive answers, acknowledgement, and amends despite their sustained efforts to reach authorities over several years." From Somalia to Afghanistan, Iraq to Libya, the American promise of safety arrives on the wings of drones, its humanitarianism indistinguishable from war.

Note: Read a leaked CIA report that admits drone strikes and targeted killings can backfire by increasing support for extremist groups, especially when civilians are killed or insurgent leaders gain notoriety. For more, read about the failure of US military policy in Somalia.

Elon Musk's so-called Department of Government Efficiency began its cost-cutting efforts by dismantling the U.S. Agency for International Development. DOGE has since targeted agencies focused on children's education, protecting the natural world, and food safety. But after more than a month running roughshod through government, DOGE has made strikingly few cuts at the Pentagon, whose bloated budget tips the scales at around $850 billion – accounting for about 13 percent of federal spending. One Pentagon official said that DOGE has so far taken on "weak" agencies, but that Musk's cost-cutters will be "steamrolled" if they lock horns with the Defense Department. Major savings at the Pentagon can be found through the reduction or elimination of dysfunctional, expensive, or dangerous weapon systems like the F-35 combat aircraft; vulnerable Navy ships with limited utility like a new generation of aircraft carriers; and the Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile program, according to William Hartung, a senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. The F-35 combat aircraft is a bloated boondoggle, and it's already on Musk's radar. More than two decades in, the F-35 is still suffering from key flaws in its software and hardware – a total of 873 unresolved defects, according to one Pentagon analysis. If it's allowed to run its course, the F-35 will be the most expensive weapons program in history, at a total cost of $1.7 trillion.

Note: Learn more about unaccountable military spending in our comprehensive Military-Intelligence Corruption Information Center. For more, read our concise summaries of news articles on government waste.

On February 10, U.S. President Donald Trump issued an executive order ... to pause the enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. The FCPA was the first law in modern history to ban a country's own citizens and companies from bribing foreign officials. Citing the law as one of the "excessive barriers to American commerce abroad," President Trump has instructed the attorney general to–at her discretion–"cease the initiation of any new FCPA investigations or enforcement actions." This move ... risks a revival of the pre-1970s period, when bribery was a routine practice among major U.S. arms contractors. In late 1975 and early 1976, Idaho Sen. Frank Church's Subcommittee on the Conduct of Multinational Corporations of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee exposed widespread foreign bribery on the part of U.S. oil and aerospace firms, with the starring role played by Lockheed Martin, which bribed officials in Japan, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Indonesia, Mexico, and Colombia in pursuit of contracts for its civilian and military aircraft. A 2022 Quincy Institute study found that U.S.-supplied weapons were present in two-thirds of the world's active conflicts, and that at least 31 clients of the U.S. arms industry were undemocratic regimes. If President Trump is serious about his campaign pledge to "stop the war profiteering," it is the worst possible time to shelve the FCPA, given that bribery by U.S. companies is alive and well.

Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on government corruption.

Last April, in a move generating scant media attention, the Air Force announced that it had chosen two little-known drone manufacturers–Anduril Industries of Costa Mesa, California, and General Atomics of San Diego–to build prototype versions of its proposed Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA), a future unmanned plane intended to accompany piloted aircraft on high-risk combat missions. The Air Force expects to acquire at least 1,000 CCAs over the coming decade at around $30 million each, making this one of the Pentagon's costliest new projects. In winning the CCA contract, Anduril and General Atomics beat out three of the country's largest and most powerful defense contractors ... posing a severe threat to the continued dominance of the existing military-industrial complex, or MIC. The very notion of a "military-industrial complex" linking giant defense contractors to powerful figures in Congress and the military was introduced on January 17, 1961, by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in his farewell address. In 2024, just five companies–Lockheed Martin (with $64.7 billion in defense revenues), RTX (formerly Raytheon, with $40.6 billion), Northrop Grumman ($35.2 billion), General Dynamics ($33.7 billion), and Boeing ($32.7 billion)–claimed the vast bulk of Pentagon contracts. Now ... a new force–Silicon Valley startup culture–has entered the fray, and the military-industrial complex equation is suddenly changing dramatically.

Note: For more, read our concise summaries of news articles on warfare technologies and watch our latest video on the militarization of Big Tech.

Critics of overspending at the Pentagon were excited to see a Washington Post piece ... that initially gave the impression that the Trump administration was entertaining the idea of imposing substantial cuts in the Pentagon budget. The piece ... opens as follows: "Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered senior leaders at the Pentagon and throughout the U.S. military to develop plans for cutting 8 percent from the defense budget in each of the next five years, according to a memo obtained by The Washington Post and officials familiar with the matter – a striking proposal certain to face internal resistance and strident bipartisan opposition in Congress." But upon clarification, it became clear that the plan is not to reduce the Pentagon's top line, but to shift any savings found in one part of the department to pay for other systems and activities more in line with the preferences of the administration. If the Trump team – or any administration – really wants to save substantial sums at the Pentagon, it should rethink America's overly ambitious military strategy, an interventionist approach that is backed up by hundreds of overseas military bases, up to 170,000 troops stationed abroad, and counter-terror operations in dozens of countries. Add to this near record U.S. arms sales for 2024, and the enormous focus America places on war and preparation for war becomes clear. Making America more secure at a lower cost must involve a genuine reevaluation of the nation's strategic goals.

Note: Learn more about unaccountable military spending in our comprehensive Military-Intelligence Corruption Information Center. For more, read our concise summaries of news articles on military corruption and government waste.

Russia and the U.S. agreed Tuesday to start working toward ending the war in Ukraine and improving their diplomatic and economic ties, the two countries' top diplomats said after talks that reflected an extraordinary about-face in U.S. foreign policy under President Donald Trump. After the meeting, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the two sides agreed broadly to pursue three goals: to restore staffing at their respective embassies in Washington and Moscow, to create a high-level team to support Ukraine peace talks and to explore closer relations and economic cooperation. He stressed, however, that the talks – which were attended by his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, and other senior Russian and U.S. officials – marked the beginning of a conversation, and more work needs to be done. No Ukrainian officials were present at the meeting. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his country would not accept any outcome from the talks since Kyiv didn't take part. Ties between Russia and the U.S. have fallen to their lowest level in decades in recent years – a rift that has been widening ever since Russia illegally annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and only worsened after Moscow's full-scale invasion. The U.S., along with European nations, imposed a raft of sanctions on Russia in an effort to damage its economy. Meanwhile, Russia continued to pummel Ukraine with drones, according to Kyiv's military.

Note: Watch our new video on transforming the war machine. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on war.

Logan Sowell's suicide in July 2021 is one of at least seven in the past five years involving the Marine Corps' stable of drill instructors, according to military casualty reports obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests. In 2023, three occurred at Parris Island within less than three months. A study completed by the Marine Corps in 2019 found that during the previous decade, 29 drill instructors either ended their lives or openly acknowledged they had contemplated doing so – an aberration the study's authors characterized as startlingly high compared with the occurrence of suicidal ideation among Marines who had never held that job. Rates of addiction and divorce among drill instructors also were higher, researchers found. Critics and relatives of those who died accuse the Marine Corps of fostering an environment that contributed to their deaths. They describe routine 90-hour-plus workweeks, sleep deprivation and an always-on culture that frequently caused the job's requisite intensity to seep into their personal lives, igniting disputes with loved ones. Others detailed bouts of depression or alcohol dependency. The Marine Corps lacks adequate services for those who are struggling and need help, and tacitly condones a culture that stigmatizes those who seek it. "We put a drastic expectation on them to act perfect," said a Marine officer who has supervised dozens of drill instructors. This top-down pressure ... "causes this stress that trickles into their home life."

Note: Read about the tragic suicides and traumas of military drone operators. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on military corruption and mental health.

The Defense Advanced Research Project Agency, the Pentagon's top research arm, wants to find out if red blood cells could be modified in novel ways to protect troops. The DARPA program, called the Red Blood Cell Factory, is looking for researchers to study the insertion of "biologically active components" or "cargoes" in red blood cells. The hope is that modified cells would enhance certain biological systems, "thus allowing recipients, such as warfighters, to operate more effectively in dangerous or extreme environments." Red blood cells could act like a truck, carrying "cargo" or special protections, to all parts of the body, since they already circulate oxygen everywhere, [said] Christopher Bettinger, a professor of biomedical engineering overseeing the program. "What if we could add in additional cargo ... inside of that disc," Bettinger said, referring to the shape of red blood cells, "that could then confer these interesting benefits?" The research could impact the way troops battle diseases that reproduce in red blood cells, such as malaria, Bettinger hypothesized. "Imagine an alternative world where we have a warfighter that has a red blood cell that's accessorized with a compound that can sort of defeat malaria," Bettinger said. In 2019, the Army released a report called "Cyborg Soldier 2050," which laid out a vision of the future where troops would benefit from neural and optical enhancements, though the report acknowledged ethical and legal concerns.

Note: Read about the Pentagon's plans to use our brains as warfare, describing how the human body is war's next domain. Learn more about biotech dangers.

Children on top of rubble… playing with ammunition casings. A close look reveals where they come from -- printed on the side: USA... DOD for the Department of Defence. Hala Rharrit was an American diplomat who ... worked on human rights and counterterrorism. Part of her job was to monitor Arab press and social media to document how America's role in the war was perceived in the Middle East. Daily reports Rharrit sent to senior leadership in Washington [contained] gruesome images: Hala Rharrit: "I would show the complicity that was indisputable. Fragments of U.S. bombs next to massacres of ... mostly children. And that's the devastation. It's been overwhelmingly children ... I would show images of children that were starved to death. I was basically berated, 'Don't put that image in there. We don't wanna see it.'" Three months into the war ... she was told her reports were no longer needed. The U.S. has sent $18 billion in American military assistance to Israel since the war began, largely in the form of taxpayer-funded weapons. Most of the bombs come from America. Most of the technology comes from America. And all of the fighter jets, all of Israel's fixed-wing fleet - comes from America. Andrew Miller was the deputy assistant secretary of state for Israeli-Palestinian affairs. He ... has since become the highest ranking Biden administration official to go public with his concerns about the U.S. role in the war. The State Department issued a report saying it is "reasonable to assess" that Israel may have used American weapons in violation of international law. Hala Rharrit: "Protests began erupting in the Arab world ... with people burning American flags. We worked so hard after the war on terror to strengthen ties with the Arab world."

Note: A new study shows that death feels imminent for 96% of children in Gaza. War destroys, yet these powerful real-life stories show that we can heal, reimagine better alternatives, and plant the seeds of a global shift in consciousness to transform our world.

In 2023, the Government Accountability Office revealed that a government contractor had lost 2 million spare parts for the F-35 fighter jet, together worth tens of millions of dollars, since 2018. The Department of Defense followed up on only 20,000 of those parts. Military officials don't know how many F-35 spare parts exist in total, paid for by American taxpayers but spread out at contractor warehouses around the world. The 1985 aircraft carrier scandal continued this pattern of failure to keep track of valuable materiel. After a group of smugglers was caught stealing F-14 parts to sell to Iran, the Pentagon ran an audit on the spare parts stored on aircraft carriers. Auditors found the Navy had lost track of $394 million in parts between 1984 and 1985. Not to worry! It turns out only about $7 million in parts had been stolen by the gunrunners, and the remaining $387 million were misidentified or misplaced. Perhaps the most infamous cases of waste occurred in Afghanistan, where the United States spent 20 years trying to prop up a friendly Afghan government only to have Taliban rebels sweep the capital in a lightning-quick August 2021 offensive. Although the U.S. military extracted all of its own gear, it left $7.12 billion of American-provided equipment with the doomed Afghan army; it soon fell into the Taliban's hands. Images of Taliban fighters riding around with captured vehicles became a symbol of American failure.

Note: Learn more about unaccountable military spending in our comprehensive Military-Intelligence Corruption Information Center. For more, read our concise summaries of news articles on military corruption.

Videos have surfaced online of Syria's new justice minister, Shadi al-Waisi, overseeing the execution of two women in 2015 over charges of adultery and prostitution. Al-Waisi is part of the new Syrian government led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which took power after ousting former President Bashar al-Assad on December 8. In one video, al-Waisi is seen reading a ruling that the woman was found guilty of "corruption and prostitution" and sentencing her to death. In the other video, al-Waisi appears to be carrying a gun and tells a woman to sit down as she's pleading for her life. Once she moves down, another armed man shoots her in the head. At the time, al-Waisi was working as a "judge" enforcing Sharia law in areas of Syria's northwest Idlib province that were under the control of the al-Nusra Front, the al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria that merged with other Islamist groups in 2017 to form HTS. HTS and its leader, Abu Mohammed al-Julani, who has been going by his real name Ahmad al-Sharaa, have tried to present themselves as moderates since taking over Syria despite their al-Qaeda past. An HTS official speaking to Verify-Sy downplayed the video, insisting the group has "moved beyond" such practices. The US supported the HTS takeover of Syria even though the group still being listed as a foreign terrorist organization by the State Department. US officials also seem to be buying the rebranding campaign despite HTS's brutal history.

Note: Watch former CIA director John Brennan suggest that the Syrian rebels we previously supported now pose more of a threat to Syrians and American interests. As recently as 2016, Syrian militias armed by the Pentagon were fighting with Syrian militias armed by the CIA. Learn more about war failures and lies in our comprehensive Military-Intelligence Corruption Information Center.

Matthew Livelsberger, a Green Beret and the main suspect in the Cybertruck attack in Las Vegas, reportedly sent a manifesto-like email to retired U.S. Army intelligence officer Sam Shoemate just days before a car bomb exploded in front of Trump International Hotel. Shoemate revealed the email on The Shawn Ryan Show podcast, describing its contents as allegations of advanced drone technology, a cover-up of a 2019 airstrike in Afghanistan, and claims of being under U.S. government surveillance. Livelsberger allegedly [detailed] concerns about advanced drones using "GDIC propulsion systems," which he described as anti-gravity technology. Livelsberger claimed that the U.S. and China developed and deployed the drones. He alleged that China launched them from submarines along the U.S. East Coast, calling them "the most dangerous threat to national security" because of their stealth, ability to evade detection and unlimited payload capacity. Livelsberger also referenced his involvement in a 2019 U.S. airstrike in Nimruz Province, Afghanistan. He claimed the operation, which targeted drug facilities, caused civilian casualties, including women and children, and was covered up by U.S. authorities. The allegations align with a 2019 U.N. report criticizing the strikes as unlawful. Livelsberger said the incident pushed him to speak out. Additionally, he accused the FBI and Homeland Security of monitoring and tracking him, describing efforts to avoid being detained.

Note: Watch this episode of the The Shawn Ryan Show. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on UFOs and military corruption.

The two men who carried out apparent terror attacks on New Year's Day – killing 15 people by plowing a pickup truck into a crowd of New Year's revelers in New Orleans, and detonating a Tesla Cybertruck outside a Trump hotel in Las Vegas – both had U.S. military backgrounds, according to the Pentagon. From 1990 to 2010, about seven persons per year with U.S. military backgrounds committed extremist crimes. Since 2011, that number has jumped to almost 45 per year. Military service is also the single strongest individual predictor of becoming a "mass casualty offender," far outpacing mental health issues, according to a ... study of extremist mass casualty violence. From 1990 through 2023, 730 individuals with U.S. military backgrounds committed criminal acts that were motivated by their political, economic, social, or religious goals. From 1990 to 2022, successful violent plots that included perpetrators with a connection to the U.S. military resulted in 314 deaths and 1,978 injuries – a significant number of which came from the 1995 bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. [Matthew] Livelsberger's weaponized Tesla Cybertruck was rented from Turo, the vehicle-sharing service that was also used in the New Orleans attack. [Shamsud-Din] Jabbar reportedly used the Turo app. Both Livelsberger and Jabbar spent time at the military base formerly known as Fort Bragg and now called Fort Liberty, a massive Army garrison in North Carolina.

Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on terrorism and military corruption.

As the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction since 2012, my staff and I have audited and investigated U.S. programs and spending to rebuild Afghanistan. We have detailed a long list of systemic problems. One general told us that he faced a challenge: How to spend the remaining $1 billion from his annual budget in just over a month? Returning the money was not an option. Another official we spoke to said he refused to cancel a multimillion-dollar building project that field commanders did not want, because the funding had to be spent. The building was never used. The entire system became a self-licking ice cream cone: More money was always being spent to justify previous spending. Important information for measuring the success of initiatives was – at times deliberately – hidden from Congress and the American public. Since 2021 the United States has funneled $3.3 billion to Afghanistan through public international organizations, mainly United Nations offices, for humanitarian purposes. Some of this money helps the Afghan people, and some goes to the Taliban. Between the American withdrawal in August 2021 and this past May, U.S.-funded partners paid at least $10.9 million in taxes and fees to Taliban authorities. In July, we reported that two out of five State Department bureaus were unable to show that their contractors working in Afghanistan in 2022 had been vetted sufficiently to ensure their work was not benefiting terrorist organizations.

Note: The US was involved in human rights abuses including torture in Afghanistan. Learn more about war failures and lies in our comprehensive Military-Intelligence Corruption Information Center. For more, read our concise summaries of news articles on military corruption.

If zombies attack, the US military has a plan. Really. Upon authorization from the president or the defense secretary, US Strategic Command would begin preparations for safeguarding the civilian population, protecting vital infrastructure, and eradicating the zombie menace. And all without violating the rights of threatened humans and possibly the zombies themselves. "This plan was not actually designed as a joke," says CONPLAN 8888-11 (or "Counter Zombie Dominance"), issued on April 30, 2011, by USSTRATCOM, whose normal responsibilities include overseeing America's strategic nuclear weapons, global strike capabilities, and missile defense. It originated as a scenario to train junior officers in the Department of Defense's Joint Operation Planning and Execution System, through which the US military devises contingency plans. Instructors discovered that a zombie-apocalypse scenario was a better teaching tool than using fictional scenarios about Tunisia or Nigeria as was customary at the time, which also risked being misunderstood by the public as real scenarios. One potential hurdle to deploying the US military is lawfare. Laws such as the Insurrection and the Posse Comitatus Acts strictly limit the deployment of the US military in domestic affairs. Though martial law would almost certainly be declared in the event of a mass zombie plague, deployment against undead who were formerly living US citizens could raise questions of Constitutional rights.

Note: Read about the US military's fake town to train its soldiers for warfare, where actors are often recent refugees, having fled one real-world conflict only to enter another, simulated one. For more, read our concise summaries of news articles on military corruption.

Militaries, law enforcement, and more around the world are increasingly turning to robot dogs – which, if we're being honest, look like something straight out of a science-fiction nightmare – for a variety of missions ranging from security patrol to combat. Robot dogs first really came on the scene in the early 2000s with Boston Dynamics' "BigDog" design. They have been used in both military and security activities. In November, for instance, it was reported that robot dogs had been added to President-elect Donald Trump's security detail and were on patrol at his home in Mar-a-Lago. Some of the remote-controlled canines are equipped with sensor systems, while others have been equipped with rifles and other weapons. One Ohio company made one with a flamethrower. Some of these designs not only look eerily similar to real dogs but also act like them, which can be unsettling. In the Ukraine war, robot dogs have seen use on the battlefield, the first known combat deployment of these machines. Built by British company Robot Alliance, the systems aren't autonomous, instead being operated by remote control. They are capable of doing many of the things other drones in Ukraine have done, including reconnaissance and attacking unsuspecting troops. The dogs have also been useful for scouting out the insides of buildings and trenches, particularly smaller areas where operators have trouble flying an aerial drone.

Note: Learn more about the troubling partnership between Big Tech and the military. For more, read our concise summaries of news articles on military corruption.

Nearly one in five of the world's children live in areas affected by conflicts, with more than 473 million children suffering from the worst levels of violence since the second world war, according to figures published by the UN. The UN humanitarian aid organisation for children, Unicef, said on Saturday that the percentage of children living in conflict zones around the world has doubled from about 10% in the 1990s to almost 19%, and warned that this dramatic increase in harm to children should not become the "new normal". With more conflicts being waged around the world than at any time since 1945, Unicef said that children were increasingly falling victim. Citing its latest available data, from 2023, the UN verified a record 32,990 grave violations against 22,557 children, the highest figures since the security council mandated monitoring of the impact of war on the world's children nearly 20 years ago. The death toll after nearly 15 months of Israel's war in Gaza is estimated at more than 45,000 and out of the cases it has verified, the UN said 44% were children. In Ukraine, the UN said it had verified more child casualties during the first nine months of 2024 than during all of 2023. Unicef drew attention in particular to the plight of women and girls, amid widespread reports of rape and sexual violence in conflicts. It said that in Haiti there had been a 1,000% increase in the number of reported incidents of sexual violence against children over the course of 2024.

Note: UNICEF's recent findings reveal that human conflicts are behind 80% of the world's humanitarian needs, calling 2024 one of the worst years in history for children affected by conflict. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on war.

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