Russia withdrew Thursday from a 25-year-old agreement with the United States that had both parties cut back on leftover plutonium from weapons from the Cold War, Russia’s State Duma website said.
The Duma voted on the bill Thursday, and State Duma speaker Vyacheslav Volodin said the agreement “should have been terminated long ago.” The bill denouncing the agreement said that disposing of plutonium, 34 tons of weapons-grade plutonium declared a surplus by each country, was no longer necessary for defense purposes.
Russia also exited a treaty with the U.S. in August that prohibited deploying intermediate-range missiles, but President Donald Trump and Russian president Vladimir Putin are working to extend the New START treaty by one year past its February 2026 expiration date.
Russian nuclear energy company Rosenergoatom, which oversees Russia’s Novovoronezh nuclear power plant, said Ukraine attacked the plant’s cooling tower with a drone overnight between Monday and Tuesday.
“There was no damage or injuries,” the company said in a statement, adding that radiation levels were normal and stagnant. “However, the detonation left a dark mark on the cooling tower. The safe operation of the nuclear power plant is ensured.”
Meanwhile, in Ukraine, IAEA director general Rafael Grossi said in an agency statement Thursday that “a plan has been set in motion” to restore external electricity to the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, since it lost all access to the electric grid since Sept. 23.
Huntington Ingalls Industries announced at the beginning of the month that Roger Kelly is the new Vice President of Contracts and Pricing of the company’s Newport News Shipbuilding division.
Kelly’s responsibilities include contracts and pricing, as his title alludes, as well as licensing for the shipbuilding division. He succeeds Matt Mulherin, who is now Vice President of Supply Chain and Strategic Sourcing at Newport News Shipbuilding.
Kelly began his career with the company in 1999 as a nuclear engineer supporting the Virginia-class submarine program. His most recent position was as director of contracts and pricing for construction contracts at the shipyard.
Tim Walsh, a combat veteran and Colorado real estate developer, was confirmed by the full U.S. Senate Tuesday to head the Department of Energy’s $8-billion Office of Environmental Management.
Walsh was confirmed 51-to-47 by the Senate Tuesday as part of a bloc of dozens of nominees from President Donald Trump who have been awaiting a floor vote. Walsh was first nominated by President Trump in March to be assistant secretary for Environmental Management. He was reported out of the Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee in July.
The Walsh nomination had been put on hold last month by Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) last month pending confirmation that the multiple-billion-dollar Waste Treatment Plant at the Hanford Site in Washington state would go forward. Hot operations were expected to start this week.
During his address last week at a rare gathering of hundreds of high-ranking military officials to push new standards at the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth also teased plans for a speech in October to detail “generational” acquisition reforms.
“This urgent moment, of course, requires more troops, more munitions, more drones, more Patriots, more submarines, more B-21 bombers. It requires more innovation, more AI in everything and ahead of the curve, more cyber effects, more counter-UAS, more space, more speed. America is the strongest, but we need to get stronger and quickly,” Hegseth said at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia. “The moment requires restoring and refocusing our defense industrial base, our shipbuilding industry and onshoring all critical components.” He added that he’ll “be giving a speech next month that will showcase the speed, innovation and generational acquisition reforms we are undertaking urgently.”
The planned speech follows a memo Hegseth signed in late August detailing major reform of the Joint Requirements Oversight Council (JROC) that included eliminating the Joint Capabilities Integration and Development System (JCIDS) for validating requirements, with an aim to shift greater authority to the military services and streamline the acquisition process to more rapidly field new capabilities.
The Missile Defense Agency (MDA) on Oct. 2 extended the submission period for responses for the Scalable Homeland Innovative Enterprise Layered Defense (SHIELD) multiple award Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) Request for Proposal (RFP) another week to October 16 due to “considerable interest,” the government said.
The Sept.10 SHIELD RFP began competition on the $151 billion vehicle for missile defense projects aimed at President Trump’s Golden Dome initiative. It seeks to create a qualified group of contractors that can compete for individual orders in the decade-long contracting period. The solicitation is using full and open competition. First unveiled in a May 2025 presolicitation notice, MDA said the contracting vehicle seeks to allow MDA and other DoD entities to “rapidly issue orders under one enterprise flexible vehicle.”
The SHIELD RFP is aimed at developing the wide scale of increased missile defenses that the administration announced Golden Dome is oriented towards, including hypersonic, cruise, and even intercontinental ballistic missiles from Russia and China.
The Trump administration’s nominee for general counsel of the Department of the Air Force said that he will try to help accelerate system acquisition and fielding.
“This is a concern of mine and will be a top priority,” William Lane, a former Army armor officer and private practice lawyer, told the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) on Tuesday in response to a question from Sen. Tim Sheehy (R-Mont.), a former Navy SEAL.
“We need to be getting equipment quickly,” Lane said. “I remember on active duty having trailers full of equipment, some of which we didn’t use and didn’t need, and then other equipment we needed not arriving in time. It’s looking at what’s on the books and seeing how we could take advantage of statutory provisions and regulations to get things quickly. I know this committee has been working very hard on improving our acquisition system. I look forward to some of those provisions being passed and then working with the committee to think of more ideas.”