The Ministry of Defence has signed new contracts with Thales in the UK for hundreds more Lightweight Multirole Missiles, an order intended to rebuild stockpiles and support the air defence of British forces in the Middle East, according to the department.

The contracts, announced on 1 June 2026, are worth a combined £36 million. According to the Ministry of Defence, deliveries will begin in the coming months and run through 2026. The most recent agreement was placed by the National Armaments Director Group in May and follows a further order for the same missile in April.

The Lightweight Multirole Missile, known as LMM, is designed and built by Thales at its Belfast facility, where the work supports around 700 jobs. The department said the orders form part of a wider effort, run with the National Armaments Director Group, to strengthen resilience in munitions supply chains so that the UK can sustain operations alongside allies.

The LMM is a lightweight precision-guided weapon developed for use against a range of targets including small aircraft, fast boats and, increasingly, uncrewed systems. It has been adopted across all three British services, and is fired from the Royal Navy’s Wildcat helicopters as well as from ground-based launchers.

According to the Ministry of Defence, the missile has been used to defeat drone attacks in the Middle East, with more than 100 drones shot down using the weapon, including by RAF Regiment gunners operating the Rapid Sentry air defence system.

Defence Secretary John Healey described the orders as the government’s industrial partnership with the defence sector in practice. “Our UK defence industry is the backbone of our Armed Forces. This is our new partnership with industry in action,” he said. “We’re getting UK-built kit into the hands of our forces faster as we support good skilled jobs and drive growth across the UK. These interceptor missiles are battle-proven – successfully used in action by our RAF sharp shooters over recent months.” He added that the missiles would help British forces keep the UK and its partners more secure in the Middle East and beyond.

The contracts come as the UK has increased its military presence across the Middle East, with the Ministry of Defence reporting more than 1,000 personnel deployed in the region, among them fast jet squadrons and specialist counter-drone teams. British air defence assets have also operated from UK bases in Cyprus, where Wildcat helicopters carrying the missile have been used in the defence of bases and allied forces.

The LMM was originally developed for the helicopter-launched role before being adapted for ground and naval launchers, and its growing use against drones reflects a wider shift in air defence priorities. The proliferation of cheap uncrewed aircraft has placed a premium on interceptors that can engage them at low cost relative to larger surface-to-air missiles, and the LMM sits in that category.

The United States has approved a possible foreign military sale to Belgium for AGM-184 Joint Strike Missiles and related equipment, a package the US State Department values at up to 236 million dollars.

The US State Department made the determination on 18 May 2026, with the US Defense Security Cooperation Agency notifying Congress under transmittal number 26-52. According to the notification, Belgium has requested the missiles themselves along with spare and repair parts, training aids and devices, test and multi-purpose missile equipment, classified and unclassified software and support, technical publications, transportation support, and US government and contractor engineering, technical and logistics services.

The AGM-184 is the US designation for the Joint Strike Missile, a long-range, low-observable precision weapon developed by Norway’s Kongsberg. Designed for both anti-ship and land-attack roles, the missile is notable for being sized to fit inside the internal weapons bay of the F-35A, allowing the aircraft to carry it without compromising the stealth shaping that external stores would degrade.

Its combination of low radar signature, a sea-skimming and terrain-following flight profile and a range of several hundred kilometres is intended to let a launching aircraft engage targets from well outside the reach of many shorter-range defences.

Two principal contractors were named: Kongsberg Defence and Aerospace of Kongsberg, Norway, which builds the missile, and RTX Corporation of Arlington, Virginia.

Glasgow and Edinburgh airports were affected by a jet fuel supply issue over the weekend that led some flights to divert for refuelling, the UK Defence Journal understands.

The problem emerged on the evening of 31 May 2026, with both airports reporting that a supplier was working to resolve an issue affecting several airline customers. TUI services leaving Glasgow were routed through Prestwick to refuel, while some Edinburgh departures bound for Paris and Dubai stopped at Manchester to take on fuel.

Several airlines also loaded additional fuel at their outbound airports before positioning aircraft to Scotland for overnight stays. An overnight delivery was made, and affected airlines resumed departures from both airports the following morning.

A fuel delivery was made overnight, allowing affected airlines to resume departures from Glasgow and Edinburgh this morning.

To minimise disruption, several airlines had previously been double fuelling at destination airports prior to overnighting aircraft in Scotland.

Some… https://t.co/7ObJqA7IaB

— Aviation News UK (@AviationNews_UK) June 1, 2026

Neither Glasgow nor Edinburgh is connected to the Exolum pipeline, which supplies Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted and Manchester, as well as a number of Royal Air Force stations. Jet fuel for the two Scottish airports is instead brought in by road.

A spokesperson for Glasgow Airport said:

“A short‑term staffing issue has affected one of the fuel suppliers used by airlines at the airport, with work underway to return stock levels to normal. There have been no related flight cancellations, and the airport remains fully operational.”

A Royal Air Force RC-135W Rivet Joint carried out a signals intelligence mission over the Baltic region on 27 May 2026, flying from its home station at RAF Waddington and topping up from a United States Air Force tanker before heading east.

The aircraft, registration ZZ666 and using the callsign RRR7227, was tracked on publicly available flight-monitoring data departing Waddington and routing across the North Sea toward the Low Countries before continuing on toward the Baltic. Before pushing east, the Rivet Joint took on fuel from a USAF KC-135 Stratotanker in an air-to-air refuelling area off eastern England.

Tracking placed the aircraft over the Baltic at around 14:00 UTC, holding at roughly 36,000 feet as it worked an area that runs up toward the Baltic states and the approaches to Russian territory around Kaliningrad and St Petersburg.

The RC-135W is the RAF’s premier signals intelligence platform, a heavily modified Boeing fitted with sensors that detect, identify and geolocate emissions across the electromagnetic spectrum. The aircraft intercepts communications and radar signals and passes the resulting intelligence to commanders and allied partners. According to the Royal Air Force, the type is a dedicated electronic surveillance aircraft that can be employed in all theatres on strategic and tactical missions, with sensors that, in the service’s words, “soak up” electronic emissions from communications, radar and other systems.

Flights of this kind have become a regular feature of NATO’s posture along its eastern and northern frontiers since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The missions are deliberately conducted in international airspace and are routinely visible on civilian tracking sites, a transparency that serves both an intelligence and a signalling purpose.

The Baltic in particular has drawn sustained allied attention, bordered as it is by NATO members and by Russian territory at Kaliningrad, and crossed by undersea cables and pipelines that have featured in recent security concerns.

The RAF operates three Rivet Joint aircraft, all flown by 51 Squadron from RAF Waddington in Lincolnshire, having acquired the fleet from the United States under the Airseeker programme to replace the retired Nimrod R1. The type entered British service in 2014 and reached a decade of operations in 2024. It is run as a joint UK–US enterprise, with the two air forces collaborating on training, maintenance, test and evaluation, and the exchange of intelligence, an arrangement that lets the small British fleet draw on data gathered by the much larger American RC-135 force.

Jet-driven aerial target drones flew as simulated adversaries during the live-fire integrated air and missile defence serial at Balikatan 2026, giving US and Philippine air defence teams moving targets to track and engage.

The event took place at Naval Station Leovigildo Gantioqui in Zambales, Philippines, on 28 April 2026. According to US Indo-Pacific Command, its J7 Pacific Multi-Domain Training and Experimentation Capability, known as PMTEC, supplied remotely piloted aerial drones to represent adversary aircraft or cruise missiles, providing live targets for the combined force to detect and engage. The command said the use of the drones improves technical proficiency and builds collaboration between the two nations’ air defenders.

Qinetiq has supplied Banshee targets to operators in more than 40 countries, and the US Army’s Threat Systems Management Office fields a tailored variant designated the MQM-185B, integrated with its Army Ground Aerial Target Control System.

QinetiQ markets the Banshee as a means of replicating the kinds of threats air defence units expect to face. According to the company, the twin-jet Banshee Jet 80+ reaches airspeeds of around 200 metres per second, can operate up to 30,000 feet, and is able to fly low-level sea-skimming and terrain-following profiles to emulate cruise missiles and fast jets. The wider Banshee line spans the propeller-driven Whirlwind and the Jet 40+ and Jet 80+ variants, each able to carry a range of payloads for maritime, air-to-air and land-to-air training.

Demand for such targets has grown as Western forces seek to rehearse against the threats now seen in active theatres. QinetiQ has said recent Banshee use includes generating drone-swarm scenarios that mirror attacks observed in Ukraine and the Red Sea, and in 2025 the company marked the production of its 10,000th Banshee airframe.

Balikatan is a long-running annual exercise between the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the US military. US Indo-Pacific Command describes the drill as a demonstration of the alliance between the two countries and of a combined force intended to support regional security, with the 2026 edition again drawing the two militaries together across multiple domains.

The Royal Air Force Poseidon P-8A force, based at RAF Lossiemouth, took a leading role in Exercise Dynamic Mongoose 2026, providing the UK’s air power contribution to one of NATO’s principal anti-submarine warfare exercises, according to the RAF.

Running from 18 to 29 May, the exercise was directed by NATO Maritime Command and drew together surface ships, submarines and aircraft from the UK, Norway, the Netherlands, Portugal, Germany and Denmark across the North Sea and the High North. According to the RAF, the aim was to sharpen the alliance’s ability to find and defeat underwater threats in waters off Norway and Iceland, a region the service describes as strategically vital to both NATO security and wider global stability given the critical shipping lanes and undersea infrastructure that run through it.

Crews flew sorties in which the Poseidon acted as both hunter and hunted, working through scenarios intended to mirror the pressures of real operations. Anti-submarine warfare is among the most demanding tasks in modern air operations, and one P-8 aircrew member, quoted anonymously in the release, captured the difficulty of the work. “It’s like trying to find a needle in a haystack,” the crew member said. “Do it alone and it’s incredibly difficult; but together, sharing small pieces of intelligence, you build the bigger picture of what’s happening below the surface.”

To carry out that tracking, RAF P-8 crews used detection tools including sonobuoys and Electronic Signal Underwater Sound devices to simulate engagements against submarines. The RAF said each sortie offered live training in tactical flying, tracking and communications under pressure, producing what it characterised as a force better prepared for operations where coordination and speed of decision-making matter most.

The exercise also drew on closer ties between the UK and Germany. A German Navy P-8A Poseidon detachment operated from RAF Lossiemouth during the period, an arrangement the RAF linked to the Trinity House Agreement signed by the two countries in November 2024. A Bundeswehr representative, quoted in the release, said the deployment was valuable for building interoperability.

“This deployment offered an outstanding opportunity to conduct intensive maritime operations alongside allies and strengthen interoperability,” the representative said. “In today’s challenging security environment, unity, trust and cooperation among P-8A nations are essential for credible defence.” The representative added that the support provided at RAF Lossiemouth reflected the spirit of the agreement and contributed to the exercise’s success.

Dynamic Mongoose is held annually in northern European waters and rotates through host nations and operating areas, bringing allied maritime patrol aircraft, frigates and submarines together to practise tracking and prosecuting subsurface contacts. For the RAF, the message from this year’s iteration was that integration, interoperability and shared intelligence offer decisive advantages in the contest beneath the surface.