 U.S. Stratolaunch company has achieved a significant milestone by conducting a captive carry flight with the first-powered Telone hypersonic vehicle, TA-1, under its RockMothership recording to the company's press release, this successful flight marks a momentous step towards the company's objective of executing a powered flight with the Telone vehicle. It was a great day for the Stratolaunch team. I am extremely proud of their perseverance to reach this point, company president Zachary Krever said in a statement. While I can't share the specific altitude in speed TA-1 reached, we reached high supersonic speeds approaching Mach 5 and collected a great amount of data at an incredible value to our customers, he said. Defense contractors hope to capitalize on the shift to hypersonic weapons not only by building them but also by developing new systems to detect and defend against them, Stratolaunch hopes to complete development of the reusable Telone this year. Primary objectives for the flight test included accomplishing safe air launch release of the TA-1 vehicle, engine ignition, acceleration, sustained climate altitude, and a controlled water landing, the statement said, the US and its global rivals are speeding up work on hypersonic weapons, which travel in the upper atmosphere at more than five times the speed of sound. Concurrently, Stratolaunch is advancing with the production of TA-2 and TA-3 vehicles, envisioned as the initial fully reusable units in the Telone product line. These developments align with the company's commitment to driving forward the innovation and progress of hypersonic technology. Russia focused on Baltic to take fight to NATO, Lithuania warns. Russia is preparing for a long-term confrontation with NATO. While it steps up its campaign in Ukraine, an intelligence report has disclosed, according to the National Media Outlet. As a result of lessons learned from the bloody fighting with its neighbor, Moscow has an army that has improved its combat effectiveness, Lithuania's intelligence agencies reported. Russia is planning a war with NATO while it continues its campaign against Ukraine, where it is learning valuable tactical lessons, especially in the use of drones, the report said. The National says that the Baltic Sea region was the key focus for the Kremlin's potential attack on the Alliance, where it has increased its air and naval resources, according to Lithuania's declassified 2024 National Threat Assessment. This included missile cruisers, equipped with the Kaliber cruise missile near St. Petersburg, and its force of Tupolev Tu-22 backfire heavy bombers, conducting five sorties over the Baltic Sea last year in 2022. Russia is preparing for a long-term confrontation with NATO, including in the Baltic Sea region, and is gradually expanding its military capability westward. The report said there is also a strong likelihood that President Vladimir Putin will use his near-guaranteed victory in next week's Russian presidential election, starting on Friday as a platform to make unpopular decisions. This could well include the imposition of greater mobilisation for Russian men to bolster the army's ranks, which could allow the Kremlin to address some potential constraints on its long-term war effort, the Institute for the Study of War said. The Washington think tank also reported that Russian military thinkers were now openly discussing how Russia can go to war against NATO in the near future. It quoted an article in the Russian Ministry of Defense journal Military Thought that suggested the war in Ukraine could escalate into a large-scale war in Europe. The Russian colonel author argued that peace in Ukraine would not lead to the end of confrontation between the West and Russia. Lithuania's intelligence chiefs suggested Russia had the manpower, material and financial resources to sustain the Ukraine fight. Despite suffering heavy losses in personnel and equipment since the 2022 invasion, Russia has been able to rebuild its armed forces in greater numbers. Moscow is able to evaluate the lessons learned and improve its combat effectiveness, said the report composed by Lithuania's State Security Department and the Defense Intelligence and Security Service. Russia continued to prioritize quantity of manpower and material over quality of forces it added. Journalists identify at least 46,000 Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine. More than 46,000 Russian military servicemen have been identified as victims killed in the war against Ukraine since February 2022. BBC Russian Service reported on March the 8th, referencing a joint investigation with independent Russian outlet MediaZona. According to the report, 5,565 of the dead were mobilized troops and 8,599 were convicts who were recruited into the Russian military. In the investigation which collects data from open sources, journalists note that the largest number of losses in the Russian army are among volunteer fighters, mobilized personnel and recruited prisoners. On January the 12th, they wrote about more than 42,000 Russian military personnel killed in the war against Ukraine. The journalists write that many reports of the losses were registered during the battle for Abdiyevka Donetsk Oblast. They have also found out that since February 2022, 12 female Russian soldiers have been killed in the war, most of them serving as combat medics. As of March the 7th, the journalists confirmed the deaths of 3,227 Russian officers, 992 of whom were specialists of the command level of airborne troops, marines, special forces, special forces of the National Guard and military pilots. Among the regions of Russia, the highest casualty figures were recorded in Krasnodar Kray, 1,799 killed, Svedlovsk Oblast, 1,575 killed and Bashkortostan, 1,509 killed. Finally the investigation found that up to 23,500 fighters from Russian proxies LPR and DPR were killed in the war by mid-January 2024 along with 520 dead from Moscow and 523 from St. Petersburg. A senior US defense official revealed staggering Russian losses from Moscow's brutal war in Ukraine, citing 315,000 Russians killed or wounded, at least 20 Russian Navy vessels sunk and up to $215 billion in direct financial costs to supply and sustain its military operations. Russia has also lost an estimated $10 billion in postponed or cancelled arms sales along with another $1.3 trillion in previously anticipated economic growth through 2026, according to the US official.