The D Brief: Ukraine loses another town; Report: US might lose a war; Anti-drone “sugar boxes”; Missile-defense debunking; And a bit more.

The U.S. military just pledged another $1.7 billion in additional weapons for Ukraine, with an emphasis on air defense, artillery, and anti-tank weapons like National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems, RIM-7 air defense missiles, and High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems missiles. 

Also included: “Commercial satellite imagery services,” unspecified “precision aerial munitions,” as well as “explosives material and demolitions equipment,” according to the Defense Department.

Kyiv’s POV: This latest batch contains “critical ammunition, including air defense ammunition, electronic warfare capabilities,” and more, Ukrainian President Volodymir Zelenskyy said in a note of thanks on social media Monday. 

Battlefield latest: Russia’s invasion forces have taken another small settlement in eastern Ukraine, Pivdenne in the Donetsk, Moscow’s Defense Ministry announced Tuesday morning on Telegram. The settlement had a prewar population of just 1,404, according to Reuters. 

An adjoining city, Toretsk, was a coal mining town of nearly 30,000 before the war. Both “are located close to the longtime frontline in place since 2014, when Russian-backed forces seized parts of the Donetsk region,” the wire service reports. Photographer Maryan Kushnir visited besieged Toretsk and filed this slideshow dispatch for Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty last week.

Scenes from an occupation: The New York Times combed social media to “piece together” how Ukraine recently lost two villages in Donetsk, Urozhaine and Staromaiorske, in a special report published Tuesday. Those villages had been won back during Ukraine’s little-to-show-for counteroffensive; but by mid-July, they were both back in Russian control. 

“The battles took place in ruins, from basements,” one Ukrainian army major told the Times. Then the Russians rushed in more troops, making any retreat deadly and almost impossible. 

Panning out: Other Ukrainian troops “said they were feeling the strain of three large-scale Russian assaults in October, November and February, and then three months of intense fighting in Urozhaine,” the Times writes. “They described the Russian assault troops as a determined and motivated force.” Read the rest, here. 

ICYMI, counter-drone edition: The Washington Post reported this week about so-called “sugar” boxes used to detect drones in occupied Ukraine. They’re described as “radars that identify and warn of circling drones.” This is almost certainly a reference to the popular “sugar” drone detector that Defense One’s Sam Skove reported on back in December. “Sugars didn’t exist in Ukraine a year ago but are now common,” the Post reported Sunday. 

And in pictures: Here’s a Ukrainian drone jammer in the hands of a soldier on the front lines in Donetsk, via David Guttenfelder of the NYTs. 

Additional reading: 

---

Welcome to this Tuesday edition of The D Brief, brought to you by Ben Watson with Bradley Peniston. Share your newsletter tips, reading recommendations, or feedback here. And if you’re not already subscribed, you can do that here. On this day in 1945, and just four days after secretly ferrying nuclear bomb parts across the Pacific, the American cruiser USS Indianapolis was attacked by a Japanese submarine and sank in just 12 minutes. About one-quarter of the ship’s nearly 1,200 crew died in the attack; about 600 more perished over the next four days before the remaining survivors were spotted by an aircraft and later rescued. The attack, recounted by Robert Shaw’s character Quint in the 1975 film “Jaws,” remains the U.S. Navy’s largest loss of life from a single sunken ship.

New: The U.S. might lose a war with China, congressional commission says. This is because the U.S. military “lacks both the capabilities and the capacity required to be confident it can deter and prevail in combat,” in the judgment of the Commission on the National Defense Strategy, a group of former lawmakers and military leaders, and policy experts. Defense One’s Patrick Tucker reported Monday.

Among its findings, per the RAND Corp., which supported the effort:

• “The United States faces the most challenging global environment…since the end of the Cold War. The trends are getting worse, not better.
• “DoD cannot, and should not, provide for the national defense by itself…A truly ‘all elements of national power’ approach is required to coordinate and leverage resources across DoD, the rest of the executive branch, the private sector, civil society, and U.S. allies and partners.
• “DoD is operating at the speed of bureaucracy when the threat is approaching wartime urgency.
• “The NDS force-sizing construct is inadequate for today’s needs and tomorrow’s challenges. We propose a Multiple Theater Force Construct—with the Joint Force, in conjunction with U.S. allies and partners—sized to defend the homeland and tackle simultaneous threats in the Indo-Pacific, Europe, and the Middle East.
• “U.S. industrial production is grossly inadequate…
• “The Joint Force is at the breaking point of maintaining readiness today. Adding more burden without adding resources to rebuild readiness will cause it to break.
• “The United States must spend more effectively and more efficiently to build the future force, not perpetuate the existing one. Additional resources will be necessary. Congress should pass a supplemental appropriation to begin a multiyear investment in the national security innovation and industrial base.” 

Congressional reax: “The American public must be educated on the threats we face, and encouraged to engage in national service, whether through the military or civil service. I support the Commission’s urgent call to engage more in this area,” said Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Jack Reed from Rhode Island in his opening statement for Tuesday’s hearing.

“In light of the wide-ranging global security challenges presented by Chinese aggression in the Indo-Pacific region, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the persistent terrorist threat posed by extremist groups and rogue regimes, the committee would appreciate the Commission’s assessment of the resources necessary to prevail in strategic competition, as well as its recommendations for strengthening U.S. global engagement and alliances,” said Reed. 

By the way: The Senate Armed Services approved two Defense Department nominees Tuesday morning:

• Michael Sulmeyer to become the next assistant secretary for cyber policy;
• And Tonya Wilkerson to fill the post of undersecretary for intelligence and security. 

Context: These are “likely the only civilian picks who could potentially be confirmed before [the] August recess,” Politico’s Connor O’Brien wrote on social media.

New: Five firms will compete to make brains for USAF robot wingmen. One or more will eventually be chosen to produce autonomous control systems to be integrated onto collaborative combat aircraft built by General Atomics and Anduril, the Air Force’s program executive officer for fighters and advanced aircraft said Monday.

Which firms? The service is keeping that a secret, in an apparent bid to keep foreign potential adversaries from stealing the technology. Defense One’s Audrey Decker reports, here.

And lastly: Can Donald Trump really build an Iron Dome over America? “In a word, no. The president-turned-candidate is still selling the same old missile-defense snake oil,” writes national-security analyst Joe Cirincione in an op-ed that doubles as a quick summary of what kinds of systems can shoot down what kind of missiles, and why Trump, the GOP’s 2024 platform, and Project 2025 seem to all get it wrong. Read that, here.

Defense One