While declining to provide classified details in a public setting, Caine said, “There’s definitely some action there.”

By Vered Weiss, World Israel News

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine told U.S. senators on Thursday that Russia has been assisting Iran’s war effort, confirming involvement during testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Speaking at a hearing on the ongoing two-month-old U.S. war against Iran, Caine said Russia is taking active steps that affect U.S. military objectives in the region.

While declining to provide classified details in a public setting, he said, “There’s definitely some action there.”

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker, a Republican, supported that assessment, saying, “There is no doubt that Vladimir Putin’s Russia is taking serious actions to undermine our efforts to achieve success in Iran.”

Reports cited during the hearing indicate that Russian support includes providing intelligence to assist Iran in targeting U.S. positions and military bases in the Middle East.

The testimony came as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Caine faced questioning from lawmakers regarding the conduct of the war.

Separately, on April 27, the Russian president met Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi in St. Petersburg, where the two sides reaffirmed their relationship.

Araghchi described ties between Iran and Russia as a “strategic partnership.”

During the meeting, Araghchi briefed Putin on the status of the conflict, while Putin confirmed he had received a message from Iran’s Supreme Leader the previous week.

Putin also expressed his intention to take steps to ensure peace in the region and praised Iranian resistance.

Discussions between the two officials included the ongoing conflict involving the United States and Israel.

Araghchi’s visit to Russia followed diplomatic engagements in Oman and Pakistan as Tehran seeks to gather support for a diplomatic resolution.

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Caine also noted that the United States has demolished more than 50 Iranian naval ships using a “combination of artillery, fighters, bombers, and sea-launch missiles.”

By Adam Kredo, The Washington Free Beacon

The U.S. military has sunk more than 50 Iranian naval ships and hit more than 5,000 targets inside the country, dropping dozens of 2,000 pound GPS-guided bombs on “deeply buried missile launchers” across the Islamic Republic, according to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine.

“Those jets are fully loaded with missiles and bombs, and they are a world-class team combined with the naval aviation and the aviators in those jets,” Caine told reporters during a Tuesday morning press conference at the Pentagon alongside Secretary of War Pete Hegseth.

“This beautiful symphony of American spirit is the definition of perfectly organized chaos, and these crews do it every single time the carrier is at work.”

“We’ve begun to target Iran’s military and industrial complex again, focusing on centers of gravity to get upstream of the shooters out in the field in order to deny them the ability to continue to generate those one-way attack drones,” Caine said.

“We also have struck several one-way drone factories to get at the heart of their autonomous capability.”

The United States has three primary objectives: Destroy Iran’s ballistic missile stockpiles, eradicate its drone capabilities, and stop the Islamic Republic from fomenting terrorism across the Middle East. To accomplish this goal, the United States is “attacking launch sites, command and control nodes,” and weapons stockpiles hidden across Iran,” Caine said.

U.S. forces will now “start working on and going deeper into Iran’s military and industrial base in order to prevent the regime from being able to attack Americans, our interests, and our partners for years to come and project power outside their borders,” Caine noted.

Targets will include “production facilities, research and development sites, and infrastructure” linked to the hardline regime’s terror forces.

Iran’s “higher-end surface-to-air missile systems are not factors,” Caine added, meaning Iranian airspace is now under U.S. control. “We’re able to move around fighters that are moving deeper with relative impunity.”

Caine also noted that the United States has demolished more than 50 Iranian naval ships using a “combination of artillery, fighters, bombers, and sea-launch missiles,” eliminating Tehran’s ability to strangle the Strait of Hormuz and threaten commercial ships traveling there.

U.S. forces will also begin dismantling mine-laying vessels in the Persian Gulf to ensure freedom of navigation for ships ferrying oil through the critical trade route.

The United States’ joint operations with Israel, meanwhile, now focus on countering Iran’s one-way attack drones.

Both countries have used fighter jets and attack helicopters to shoot unmanned systems out of the air, decreasing Tehran’s output by around 83 percent since the campaign started.

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“The United States remains unwavering in its commitment to enduring peace and stability in the region,” the Joint Staff spokesman said.

By JNS

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine met with Israel Katz, the Israeli defense minister, in Israel on Saturday.

“We discussed the close strategic and operational cooperation between the Israel Defense Forces and the U.S. military, a partnership that is shaping the new reality in the Middle East,” Katz stated.

“We spoke about the challenges across the various fronts, first and foremost Gaza, and our commitment to bringing all the hostages home, demilitarizing Gaza and dismantling Hamas,” the Israeli minister added.

In photos that Katz shared, the U.S. Air Force general, who appears without a tie, holds a notebook and pen in his hands as he listens to the Israeli minister. Katz wears a tie and a yellow hostage pin.

The Israeli military shared a photo of the U.S. military leader and IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir and their respective staffs, all in uniform, in a meeting on Friday. Caine was an “official guest” of Zamir, the IDF said.

“During the visit, the general and the chief of the general staff held a joint situational assessment, during which they discussed regional challenges, focusing primarily on the situation in Gaza and future challenges in both nearby and distant arenas,” per the IDF.

Joseph Holstead, the Joint Staff spokesman, stated that Caine and Zamir “discussed regional developments across multiple fronts, coordination through the Civil-Military Coordination Center in Kiryat Gat and efforts to sustain the Gaza ceasefire and prevent further escalation.”

The two “reaffirmed the strength of the U.S.-Israel defense partnership and emphasized the importance of continued cooperation to deter shared threats and ensure humanitarian assistance reaches civilians in need,” the Joint Staff spokesman said.

He added that Caine saw “areas near the Gaza Strip, spoke with international liaisons to the CMCC and received operational updates from IDF senior leadership, including a briefing from Maj. Gen. Yaki Dolf, the IDF’s liaison to the CMCC.”

“The United States remains unwavering in its commitment to enduring peace and stability in the region,” he said.

Caine and Pete Hegseth, now the U.S. war secretary but then called the defense secretary, hosted Katz at the Pentagon in July, and Katz hosted Hegseth in Israel last month.

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