Turkish defense firm Roketsan successfully destroyed a moving target during a first test firing of its Sungur air defense missile from a mobile armored vehicle.

The test marked the addition of a new firing capability to Türkiye’s layered air defense architecture, the company said in a statement.

A video released by Roketsan showed Sungur missile being integrated into the Burç mobile air defense system, before striking a moving aerial target.

Burç combines Sungur missiles and a 20/30-millimeter cannon with active and passive sensors to engage current and future aerial threats on the battlefield.

Roketsan describes the system as a next-generation, cost-effective mobile air defense solution designed to provide the firepower and operational flexibility required against a range of threats.

It is intended to protect mobile and fixed military units and facilities in both forward and rear areas against short-range aerial threats.

The Sungur missile has a range of more than 8 kilometers (around 5 miles) and is designed for shoulder-launched air defense missions. It can also be integrated with different platforms.

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More than 70% of Turkish users say they are using artificial intelligence every day, putting Türkiye among the countries where consumer AI adoption is advancing most rapidly, a senior executive of Russian tech giant Yandex said Monday.

Alexander Popovskiy, international CEO of Yandex Search and general manager of Yandex Türkiye, said generative AI was becoming part of consumers’ daily lives faster than expected and that Türkiye was one of the most advanced markets in this respect.

“More than 70% of Turkish users say they used AI every day last week. This is an extremely striking rate,” Popovskiy said, citing Yandex data. “For example, this rate is much higher than in Russia, another market where we operate.”

Users initially experimented with generative AI for entertainment, image creation and animating photographs, but increasingly began incorporating the technology into their everyday routines, he told Anadolu Agency (AA).

AI applications have already begun to emerge as alternatives to traditional internet searches and browsers, according to Popovskiy.

Turkish users were not limiting AI use to complex tasks, he said, noting that they also used it for everyday needs such as getting news, following football matches and understanding the latest developments in television series.

“Turkish users are using AI to make their experiences easier across all their traditional areas of interest,” Popovskiy said. “They even use AI to understand what happened in the latest episode of a television series and what might happen in the next one.”

Local companies need share of AI market

Popovskiy said Turkish stakeholders understood the importance of developing local AI models and data centers, but argued that AI sovereignty involved more than building domestic models and infrastructure.

“The more important issue in AI sovereignty is gaining a share as the market grows and being able to engage directly with users,” he said.

Consumers should be able to use AI services from Turkish companies as well as global firms, Popovskiy said, adding that Yandex was ready to support local businesses by offering proven solutions through a white-label model.

“This would help them develop their own services around this technology and gain a share of the growing AI sector,” he said.

Popovskiy identified telecommunications as the sector with the greatest potential for consumer AI, followed by banks and other financial institutions.

Companies in these sectors have large customer bases and digital platforms through which they can offer additional services, he said.

AI could be used not only to improve customer support but also to strengthen customer relationships and increase loyalty by providing access to AI assistants and chatbots as part of a broader service ecosystem, Popovskiy added.

He said Yandex was holding talks with telecommunications companies and banks in Türkiye and other markets on developing white-label AI applications.

Yandex AI use rises

Sedat Öztürk, general manager of Yandex Search and AI, said Türkiye had been quick to adopt new technologies and that the share of Yandex AI users in the country had risen by nearly 75% over the past two to three months.

AI integration could make a range of telecommunications services more intelligent, including starting or ending subscriptions, changing packages, checking tariffs for use abroad and accessing billing information, Öztürk said.

He also highlighted the importance of developing skilled human resources if Türkiye is to become a regional AI and datacenter hub.

Yandex Türkiye has established Türkiye’s first master’s program in AI engineering with Middle East Technical University (METU), he said.

Öztürk added that Yandex Türkiye had launched work with the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Türkiye (TÜBITAK) on “BILGE,” a Turkish large language model.

Through its “Yandex AI for Business” solution, the company aims to help businesses develop their own applications around AI or integrate their existing services with Yandex AI, he said.

In e-commerce, an AI assistant could help users search for products more intelligently, provide style and purchasing recommendations, analyze previous purchases and manage budgets more effectively, Öztürk said.

“We have prepared our products and functions to make customer journeys fully AI-based,” he said. “We have already started discussions with some companies.”

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A key Saudi oil pipeline hit in an attack will be largely out of service for weeks while repairs are carried out, two regional officials said Monday, as Yemen’s Houthi rebels seized more islands along Red Sea shipping lanes in another setback for Saudi Arabia’s oil exports.

Oil prices gained more than 2% amid growing worries about global petroleum supplies as the new developments strained efforts by Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest exporter, to get its crude to market.

The Iran war has forced the kingdom to shift its exports away from the Persian Gulf, since Iranian attacks have stifled shipping through the gulf’s sole exit, the Strait of Hormuz.

So the kingdom has relied on the East-West Pipeline, which runs 1,200 kilometers (745 miles) across the breadth of the country, to move its crude production from Gulf ports to ports on the Red Sea. From there it can be put on tankers for export. But authorities were forced to shut down the pipeline after an attack Thursday that Saudi Arabia blamed on drones from Iranian-backed militias in Iraq.

Repairing the damage, including at a major pumping facility, could take three to five weeks, the officials, who have been briefed on the matter, told The Associated Press (AP). The line may work partially during the repairs, one of the officials said, but they could not say how much oil might get through.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to brief the media.

The pipeline appeared to be moving about 4 million barrels of oil a day, about 4% of total world oil supplies, based on the amount being exported per day from its Red Sea outlet, the port of Yanbu, according to a report earlier this year by Allison Minor, director of the Atlantic Council’s Project for Middle East Integration. The pipeline has a total capacity of up to 7 million barrels per day.

The Saudi oil company Aramco, which operates the pipeline, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. The government-run Center for International Communication, which oversees foreign media in the kingdom, said it was looking into an AP inquiry about how long it will take to repair the pipeline.

Houthis strengthen hold on key outlet from Red Sea

Meanwhile, Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthi rebels continued to expand their threat to Saudi shipping routes out of the Red Sea by capturing the strategic islands of Greater and Lesser Hanish, government and Houthi officials said Monday.

The islands lie 160 kilometers north of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. The strait is a choke point that connects the Red Sea to the open ocean and Saudi Arabia’s key Asian markets.

The Houthis’ advance also puts them just 32 kilometers from the U.S. military base in the tiny Horn of Africa nation of Djibouti, on the other side of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.

For more than a month, the Houthis have been striking Saudi oil infrastructure and shipping in the Red Sea, stepping up pressure on global oil prices and boosting Iran’s leverage in its war with the United States.

The Houthi advances have seemed to come with little resistance from Saudi-backed Yemeni government forces. The rebels deployed on the Hanish islands after hundreds of government-allied forces withdrew from the archipelago, according to two government officials and a Houthi official. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to journalists.

Last week, the rebels seized the port city of Mokha and the island of Mayun, inside the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.

Government forces are now attempting to rally and fight back. On Sunday, the military said it launched airstrikes on Houthi positions in Mokha, the coastal town of Dhubab and elsewhere in Taiz province.

Houthi cross-border attacks continue

A rebel spokesperson said the Houthis fired dozens of missiles and drones at the King Khalid Air Base in the southern Saudi city of Khamis Mushait, targeting hangars, radar installations and ammunition depots. The statement Monday by Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree did not specify when the attack took place, but the Houthis often take hours or days to claim responsibility for attacks.

Saudi authorities sounded sirens in Khamis Mushait and the nearby city of Abha Sunday afternoon, warning residents to take shelter from potential incoming fire. Both areas, near the border with Yemen, were repeatedly attacked by the Houthis in recent weeks. One projectile hit in an area near the border close to the Red Sea, injuring two people and damaging a mosque, Saudi civil defense said.

There was no immediate comment from Saudi Arabia on the Houthi claim of striking the base.

The fighting in Yemen is pushing the impoverished nation back into full-fledged civil war, after a truce that largely maintained quiet since 2022. Even as they advance along the Red Sea, the Houthis have waged an offensive farther inland, particularly in the longtime battleground province of Taiz.

Some 150 civilians have been killed in fighting since Sept. 3, including a pregnant woman killed Saturday in a village in Taiz province, the government’s Human Rights Ministry said. More than 200 civilians have been wounded, it said.

Thousands of families have fled their homes in Taiz and nearby provinces in the past day, said Khanzad Shah, acting head of Islamic Relief, a charity that operates in the area.

“Many of them don’t have enough food or water as they had to flee with whatever they could carry. In some areas, whole villages have reportedly emptied,” he said.

The United Nations has estimated that more than 80,000 people have been displaced in the past two weeks, including over 2,000 people who fled by boat to Djibouti.

The fighting threatens to reignite a war that for more than a decade brought disaster to Yemen, killing more than 150,000 people and driving the country to the brink of famine. Since 2014, the Houthis have controlled the north, including the capital, Sanaa, and much of the western heartland of the country where most of the population is located.

The internationally recognized government, backed by an array of disparate militias, controls the south and east, including the key southern port of Aden.

For years, Saudi Arabia waged a destructive air campaign against the Houthis, while backing the government and allied militias. But it has appeared reluctant to throw itself fully back into the war, despite the Houthi attacks on oil infrastructure and shipping.

Türkiye has completed the production, assembly and integration of the spacecraft being developed for the country’s first Moon mission, Industry and Technology Minister Mehmet Fatih Kacır said Monday.

The spacecraft has been sent to the Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) Space Systems Integration and Test Center for system-level environmental testing, Kacır said at a press briefing.

Türkiye aims to become the ninth country in the world and the first Muslim nation to carry out a Moon mission with its own engineering capabilities, Kacır said.

The approximately 3.5-ton spacecraft is planned to launch in the first months of 2027 and is expected to reach a polar, circular orbit about 100 kilometers above the Moon’s surface after a journey of roughly two months.

The spacecraft is initially scheduled to operate for at least three months, Kacır said, with the mission potentially extended to up to 18 months depending on performance.

During the mission, the spacecraft will study the interaction of solar winds with the lunar surface, the mechanisms behind the formation of water on the Moon, the Moon’s magnetic fields and the thermal properties of its surface. It will also conduct radiation measurements using scientific equipment developed domestically.

Following completion of the scientific mission, Kacır said Türkiye plans to guide the spacecraft toward the lunar surface through controlled deceleration maneuvers.

A domestically developed hybrid propulsion system will be one of the key components of the mission, according to the minister. The system will be used for orbit-raising maneuvers as well as the final firing sequence to leave lunar orbit and approach the Moon’s surface.

“As part of this mission, the hybrid propulsion system, which we developed and manufactured entirely with domestic and national resources, will be fired in deep space for the first time in history,” said Kacır.

More than 80% domestic content

The spacecraft was produced with a domestic content rate of more than 80%, drawing on capabilities developed through Türkiye’s previous satellite programs, including the Imece earth observation satellite and Türksat 6A.

These capabilities include flight computers, communications, power systems, thermal control and orbital operations.

“The production, assembly and integration work on our spacecraft, which is the product of the knowledge accumulated over the years in satellite technologies, has been completed,” Kacır said.

The upcoming testing campaign will assess the spacecraft’s ability to withstand the conditions it will encounter during launch and in space. Thermal vacuum tests will simulate the space environment, structural tests will assess its resilience to launch conditions, and electromagnetic compatibility tests will verify that its systems can operate safely and compatibly with one another, Kacır said.

Once the tests are completed, the spacecraft will be transferred to a new clean room and integration facility under construction at the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Türkiye (TÜBITAK) Space’s Middle East Technical University (METU) campus in Ankara.

Following final checks, it will be sent to Kennedy Space Center in the United States for launch, said Kacır.

Kacır said the Moon Research Program had reached a completion rate of 77% since its launch in early 2022. TÜBITAK UZAY, DeltaV firm and other domestic technology companies and startups have contributed to the spacecraft’s development and production.

Space ambitions

Kacır said Türkiye was seeking to turn space technologies into a driver of national development as the sector becomes increasingly important not only for scientific exploration but also for technological competitiveness, economic growth and strategic independence.

The government has also begun work on the Türksat 7A satellite, which is expected to provide high-speed data transmission and flexible coverage, including capabilities for disaster communications, public services and secure communications.

Türkiye is also developing the Imece-2 and Imece-3 next-generation satellite constellation to enable wider-area imaging and more frequent data collection over the same locations.

Kacır said Türkiye was continuing efforts to establish a space technology development zone in Ankara in cooperation with the Turkish Space Agency (TUA), TÜBITAK and the Middle East Technical University, with the aim of building an ecosystem in space similar to the one developed in the defense industry.

He also pointed to the spaceport under construction in Somalia, saying it would help provide Türkiye with independent access to space while allowing the country to capture a larger share of the growing global space economy.

Türkiye joined the Artemis Accords on Aug. 31, committing to international cooperation on peaceful and sustainable civil space activities involving the Moon and other celestial bodies.

The country is also preparing to host the 77th International Astronautical Congress in Antalya in early October, which Kacır said is expected to bring nearly 10,000 participants from around the world.

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The ten-year U.S. Treasury yield soared to hit 5% on Monday as oil prices climbed further amid a Middle East war that has exacerbated the inflation outlook.

Near 2.30 p.m. GMT, the yield stood at 5.01%, its highest level since October 2023.

The move in the bond market came as oil prices advanced about 4% after Saudi Arabia shut its East-West pipeline – a key export route with Iran’s effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz – following drone attacks by Yemen’s Houthis.

The rise in oil prices, which means both major crude contracts now stand above $100 a barrel, has contributed to expectations that the Federal Reserve (Fed) will lift interest rates on Wednesday to counter inflation.

The yield on the 30-year U.S. Treasury bond is currently at its highest level in nearly 20 years.

Besides higher oil prices, analysts have pointed to the U.S. budget deficit and the artificial intelligence boom as factors that have flooded the bond market, pushing rates higher.

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Latvia’s national carrier airBaltic voluntarily filed for ​protection under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code in New York, it announced on Monday, saying it was looking to restructure its debt pile and survive a deepening sector crisis brought on by the U.S.-Iran war.

AirBaltic said in a statement ⁠it had secured a commitment for 350 million euros ($405 million) in financing from lenders including Strategic ⁠Value Partners, Barclays, Hayfin Capital Management, Morgan Stanley and Oaktree Capital Management to support its operations during the restructuring.

The funding, at an interest rate of about 12%, is subject to approval by the court, AirBaltic CEO Erno Hilden told a press conference.

“In the coming months, we will engage with all our stakeholders ​to agree on sustainable terms,” he said, adding that the company is looking at 44 million-euros profit improvement annually.

AirBaltic will use ​its ⁠bankruptcy to cancel or defer outstanding deliveries on a $3.5 billion order for 40 additional planes from Airbus and $106.7 million worth of additional aircraft engines from Pratt & Whitney, a court filing showed.

It said it had already engaged with the planemaker to defer additional deliveries after this year.

Pratt & Whitney owner RTX declined to comment. Airbus did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

AirBaltic said flights would operate as scheduled during the court-supervised process, which it expects to finish by June next year.

The U.S. war with Iran has caused jet fuel prices to double, sparking the air travel sector’s worst crisis since the COVID-19 pandemic. Investors and executives have warned that carriers with stretched balance sheets risked collapse.

“AirBaltic has been experiencing acute financial stress due to a combination of financial and geopolitical factors,” the airline’s board wrote in a filing with the bankruptcy court.

AirBaltic has about $583 million in funded debt and finance lease liabilities, and it owes some 106 million euros in payroll taxes and airline taxes and fees, it wrote in the filing.

Its 2025 revenue was around 779 million euros.

Airline plans to cut 3,000-strong workforce

In an interview with Reuters, Hilden said AirBaltic was in talks with labor unions about “an adjustment in the workforce,” which he said would be a natural ⁠conclusion ⁠to the existing capacity reduction plans.

The carrier has been growing its global workforce for a decade and now employs more than 3,000 people.

“I do think that the underlying business for AirBaltic is a very healthy one. So after we really execute on our new business plan, I do see a bright future for the company,” he said.

Hilden said that the biggest changes in terms of the company’s operations during the Chapter 11 restructuring would involve the downsizing of its wet lease business, which loans out planes and crews to other airlines for a fee.

‘One of the best options’ to keep AirBaltic going

AirBaltic, which has a fleet of some 50 Airbus A220-300 planes, is majority-owned by the Latvian government, with Germany’s Lufthansa holding a 10% minority stake.

Before the filing, AirBaltic’s bondholders had been due to vote on the company’s plan to raise up to 257 million euros through new super-senior debt due in February 2027, at a rate of 25%.

Latvian Prime Minister Andris Kulbergs said the Chapter 11 proceedings ⁠were initiated after bondholders with over 70% of the value of the debt decided to opt for liquidation instead.

“I view this solution as one of the best options for ensuring AirBaltic’s viability, as it provides the necessary tools and time to implement the restructuring plan,” Kulbergs said in a statement.

The government is continuing to look for a strategic investor as AirBaltic reduces its fleet and reorganizes obligations, he added.

AirBaltic ​is the second airline casualty linked to the Iran war after Spirit Airlines collapsed in May.

The U.S. discount carrier, which filed for bankruptcy months before the conflict began in ​late February, had failed to secure creditor support for a government bailout plan.

Other airlines like AirAsia, Southeast Asia’s largest budget carrier, are seeking fresh capital.

AirBaltic to follow Hilden-led SAS Chapter 11 model

Hilden, who led Scandinavian airline SAS through its Chapter 11 proceedings from 2022 to 2024, said AirBaltic is “targeting (the) same process.”

“This ⁠gives them a protective ‌framework to put ‌their house in order … I don’t see why AirBaltic wouldn’t do the same as SAS,” said John Strickland, an analyst.

Yves Schwyter, ⁠founder of aviation capital risk intelligence firm Vectus Intelligence, said the Chapter 11 route was a “probably more ‌sustainable capital structure than what was on the table a week ago.”

The airline had aimed to grow its fleet to 100 planes, and, according to aviation analyst Simonas Bartkus, was expecting to develop transit traffic from Russia, ​Belarus and Ukraine through Riga.

“This is no longer available, and ⁠the company became too large for its market … The rise in fuel costs made the situation acute, they had no time ⁠to find a solution,” he said.

Prime Minister Kulbergs said in a video on X that by April, AirBaltic had “burned through” 380 million euros raised via bonds issued in 2024.

A 30-⁠million-euro emergency government loan ran out in June, ​he added, and the airline had tried to lease out its excess aircraft.

“Serving Baltic and Latvian routes requires only 30 aircraft, not 100,” he said.

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