Flight tracking data shows extensive movement of US military aircraft towards the Middle East in recent days, including via the UK.

Fifty-two US military planes were spotted flying over the eastern Mediterranean towards the Middle East between Monday and Thursday.

That includes at least 25 that passed through Chania airport, on the Greek island of Crete – an eight-fold increase in the rate of arrivals compared to the first half of June.

The movement of military equipment comes as the US considers whether to assist Israel in its conflict with Iran.

Of the 52 planes spotted over the eastern Mediterranean, 32 are used for transporting troops or cargo, 18 are used for mid-air refuelling and two are reconnaissance planes.

Forbes McKenzie, founder of McKenzie Intelligence, says that this indicates “the build-up of warfighting capability, which was not [in the region] before”.

Sky’s data does not include fighter jets, which typically fly without publicly revealing their location.

An air traffic control recording from Wednesday suggests that F-22 Raptors are among the planes being sent across the Atlantic, while 12 F-35 fighter jets were photographed travelling from the UK to the Middle East on Wednesday.

Many US military planes are passing through UK

A growing number of US Air Force planes have been passing through the UK in recent days.

Analysis of flight tracking data at three key air bases in the UK shows 63 US military flights landing between 16 and 19 June – more than double the rate of arrivals earlier in June.

On Thursday, Sky News filmed three US military C-17A Globemaster III transport aircraft and a C-130 Hercules military cargo plane arriving at Glasgow’s Prestwick Airport.

Flight tracking data shows that one of the planes arrived from an air base in Jordan, having earlier travelled there from Germany.

What does Israel need from US?

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on 15 March that his country’s aim is to remove “two existential threats – the nuclear threat and the ballistic missile threat”.

Israel says that Iran is attempting to develop a nuclear bomb, though Iran says its nuclear facilities are only for civilian energy purposes.

A US intelligence assessment in March concluded that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon. President Trump dismissed the assessment on Tuesday, saying: “I think they were very close to having one.”

Forbes McKenzie says the Americans have a “very similar inventory of weapons systems” to the Israelis, “but of course, they also have the much-talked-about GBU-57”.

The GBU-57 is a 30,000lb bomb – the largest non-nuclear bomb in existence. Mr McKenzie explains that it is “specifically designed to destroy targets which are very deep underground”.

Experts say it is the only weapon with any chance of destroying Iran’s main enrichment site, which is located underneath a mountain at Fordow.

Air-to-air refuelling could allow Israel to carry larger bombs

Among the dozens of US aircraft that Sky News tracked over the eastern Mediterranean in recent days, more than a third (18 planes) were designed for air-to-air refuelling.

“These are crucial because Israel is the best part of a thousand miles away from Iran,” says Sky News military analyst Sean Bell.

“Most military fighter jets would struggle to do those 2,000-mile round trips and have enough combat fuel.”

The ability to refuel mid-flight would also allow Israeli planes to carry heavier munitions, including bunker-buster bombs necessary to destroy the tunnels and silos where Iran stores many of its missiles.

Satellite imagery captured on 15 June shows the aftermath of Israeli strikes on a missile facility near the western city of Kermanshah, which destroyed at least 12 buildings at the site.

At least four tunnel entrances were also damaged in the strikes, two of which can be seen in the image below.

Writing for Jane’s Defence Weekly, military analyst Jeremy Binnie says it looked like the tunnels were “targeted using guided munitions coming in at angles, not destroyed from above using penetrator bombs, raising the possibility that the damage can be cleared, enabling any [missile launchers] trapped inside to deploy”.

“This might reflect the limited payloads that Israeli aircraft can carry to Iran,” he adds.

Penetrator bombs, also known as bunker-busters, are much heavier than other types of munitions and as a result require more fuel to transport.

Israel does not have the latest generation of refuelling aircraft, Mr Binnie says, meaning it is likely to struggle to deploy a significant number of penetrator bombs.

Israel has struck most of Iran’s western missile bases

Even without direct US assistance, the Israeli air force has managed to inflict significant damage on Iran’s missile launch capacity.

Sky News has confirmed Israeli strikes on at least five of Iran’s six known missile bases in the west of the country.

On Monday, the IDF said that its strategy of targeting western launch sites had forced Iran to rely on its bases in the centre of the country, such as Isfahan – around 1,500km (930 miles) from Israel.

Among Iran’s most advanced weapons are three types of solid-fuelled rockets fitted with highly manoeuvrable warheads: Fattah-1, Kheibar Shekan and Haj Qassam.

The use of solid fuel makes these missiles easy to transport and fast to launch, while their manoeuvrable warheads make them better at evading Israeli air defences. However, none of them are capable of striking Israel from such a distance.

Iran is known to possess five types of missile capable of travelling more than 1,500km, but only one of these uses solid fuel – the Sijjil-1.

On 18 June, Iran claimed to have used this missile against Israel for the first time.

Iran’s missiles have caused significant damage

Iran’s missile attacks have killed at least 24 people in Israel and wounded hundreds, according to the Israeli foreign ministry.

The number of air raid alerts in Israel has topped 1,000 every day since the start of hostilities, reaching a peak of 3,024 on 15 June.

Iran has managed to strike some government buildings, including one in the city of Haifa on Friday.

And on 13 June, in Iran’s most notable targeting success so far, an Iranian missile impacted on or near the headquarters of Israel’s defence ministry in Tel Aviv.

Most of the Iranian strikes verified by Sky News, however, have hit civilian targets. These include residential buildings, a school and a university.

On Thursday, one missile hit the Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba, southern Israel’s main hospital. More than 70 people were injured, according to Israel’s health ministry.

Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi said that Iran had struck a nearby technology park containing an IDF cyber defence training centre, and that the “blast wave caused superficial damage to a small section” of the hospital.

However, the technology park is in fact 1.2km away from where the missile struck.

Photos of the hospital show evidence of a direct hit, with a large section of one building’s roof completely destroyed.

Iran successfully struck the technology park on Friday, though its missile fell in an open area, causing damage to a nearby residential building but no casualties.

Israel has killed much of Iran’s military leadership

It’s not clear exactly how many people Israel’s strikes in Iran have killed, or how many are civilians. Estimates by human rights groups of the total number of fatalities exceed 600.

What is clear is that among the military personnel killed are many key figures in the Iranian armed forces, including the military’s chief of staff, deputy head of intelligence and deputy head of operations.

Key figures in the powerful Revolutionary Guard have also been killed, including the militia’s commander-in-chief, its aerospace force commander and its air defences commander.

On Thursday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that US assistance was not necessary for Israel to win the war.

“We will achieve all our objectives and hit all of their nuclear facilities,” he said. “We have the capability to do that.”

Forbes McKenzie says that while Israel has secured significant victories in the war so far, “they only have so much fuel, they only have so many munitions”.

“The Americans have an ability to keep up the pace of operations that the Israelis have started, and they’re able to do it for an indefinite period of time.”

Additional reporting by data journalist Joely Santa Cruz and OSINT producers Freya Gibson, Lina-Sirine Zitout and Sam Doak.

The Data and Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open source information. Through multimedia storytelling we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.

He may have been speaking at an economic forum, but that didn’t stop Vladimir Putin from issuing his most hawkish comments on Ukraine in a very long time.

During a Q&A at Russia’s flagship investment event in St Petersburg, the Kremlin leader was asked what his end game was in the conflict.

He replied: “I have said many times that I consider the Russian and Ukrainian people to be one nation. In this sense, all of Ukraine is ours.”

The answer received rapturous applause from an auditorium full of fawning politicians and business figures.

And there was more.

“There is an old rule,” he said. “‘Where a Russian soldier sets foot, that is ours’.”

In short, he was saying that he wants the whole lot.

The comments came as a surprise because they are in sharp contrast to the Kremlin’s recent rhetoric.

Ever since Donald Trump began his push for a peace deal, Moscow has adopted a softer tone, more conciliatory – in an apparent attempt to show Washington that it is interested in a settlement.

But there was none of that kind of language here. Quite the opposite.

The Russian president even, for the first time in months, threatened a nuclear strike on Ukraine.

Asked how Moscow would respond if Kyiv used a dirty bomb against Russian forces, he promised “catastrophic” consequences for his enemy.

“This would be a colossal mistake on the part of those whom we call neo-Nazis on the territory of today’s Ukraine,” he said. “It could be their last mistake.

“We always respond and respond in kind. Therefore, our response will be very tough.”

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The Kremlin’s nuclear sabre-rattling was an almost weekly feature during the last days of the Biden administration, but the sabres stilled when Mr Trump came to power.

But now, all of a sudden, he’s returned to it.

It felt like a very deliberate message from Vladimir Putin that, despite peace talks, Russia has no intention of backing down, neither on the battlefield nor at the negotiating table.

I think it shows that Moscow is not too worried about upsetting Donald Trump.

The American leader appears to have distanced himself from trying to mediate the conflict, but still seems to be pursuing warmer ties with Moscow.

So I think these comments also show how confident Putin is that things are going his way.

Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations has vowed “we will not stop” attacks on Iran until the “nuclear threat is dismantled” and “its war machine is disarmed”.

The two countries traded angry accusations at the United Nations Security Council, as its secretary-general Antonio Guterres warned that expansion of the Israel-Iran conflict could “ignite a fire no one can control”.

Israel’s UN ambassador Danny Danon vowed: “We will not stop. Not until Iran’s nuclear threat is dismantled, not until its war machine is disarmed.”

Israel-Iran latest: UK warns of perilous moment

His Iranian counterpart Amir Saeid Iravani said Iran would continue to respond to Israeli airstrikes targeting nuclear sites that Israel sees as part of a weapons programme.

Donald Trump is seeking advice about whether to support Israel’s military involvement and is expected make a decision in the next two weeks.

But he told reporters in New Jersey on Friday that his director of national intelligence (DNI), Tulsi Gabbard, was wrong in suggesting there is no evidence Iran is building a nuclear weapon.

Talks between Iranian and European ministers took place on Friday, but the US president was dismissive of the discussions.

“Iran doesn’t want to speak to Europe. They want to speak to us. Europe is not going to be able to help in this one”.

But he added that he might support a ceasefire between Iran and Israel “depending on the circumstances”.

Lammy on ‘perilous moment’

UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy warned “this is a perilous moment, and it is hugely important that we don’t see regional escalation of this conflict”, after he and his German, French and EU counterparts met Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi in Geneva.

He also referred to the role of the US in potential negotiations: “There is a… short window to find a diplomatic solution for the Iranians to… end their nuclear programme.

“We’re urging diplomacy. It’s important they get back into serious talks with the United States.”

Iran says attacks are ‘grave war crimes’

But the first face-to-face meeting between Western and Iranian officials since the start of the conflict, did not reveal any indication of an immediate breakthrough.

Mr Araghchi described the talks as “a very serious but respectful discussion” but condemned what he called Israel’s “atrocities”, adding that “Iran will continue exercising its legitimate right of self-defence against the regime”.

“Iran is ready to consider diplomacy once again… once aggression is stopped and the aggressor is held accountable for the crimes committed. In this regard, I made it clear that Iran’s defence capabilities are not negotiable,” he added.

Earlier, he called Israel’s attacks on nuclear facilities “grave war crimes”.

Read more:
Iran’s secretive ‘nuclear mountain’
Analysis: Talks flawed from start
Iran will continue to reject US talks

On Friday, the Foreign Office announced that UK staff had also been evacuated from Iran, with the embassy continuing to operate remotely.

Meanwhile, the UK government has announced it will use charter flights to evacuate Britons stranded in Israel once the country’s airspace reopens.

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Iran wants ‘endless negotiations’

Jason Brodsky, policy director at the US-based pressure group United Against Nuclear Iran, told Sky News the talks in Geneva would not satisfy the US president.

He said: “It seems that the maximum that the Islamic Republic is prepared to give still does not meet the minimum that President Trump is able to accept.

“I think the Islamic Republic wants to lure the United States back into an endless negotiating process. They think they can dominate this process and manipulate President Trump.

“President Trump has made it very clear that a deadline means a deadline. And he has red lines as well. And his red lines is zero enrichment in Iran.”

Protests over Israeli strikes

On Friday, thousands of people protested in Iran’s capital Tehran after a week of Israeli strikes which have killed at least 657 people and wounded 2,037 others, according to the Washington-based group Human Rights Activists.

Israel’s military says 25 fighter jets carried out airstrikes on Friday morning targeting “missile storage and launch infrastructure components” in western Iran.

In the Israeli city of Haifa, at least 19 people were wounded by an Iranian missile barrage.

UN issues nuclear warning

Addressing an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) warned against attacks on Iran’s nuclear reactors.

“A direct hit would result in a very high release of radioactivity,” said Rafael Grossi, chief of the UN nuclear watchdog.

Israel has not targeted Iran’s nuclear reactors, instead focusing its strikes on the country’s uranium enrichment sites.

Iran has long insisted its nuclear programme is peaceful, although it enriches uranium up to 60%, well beyond the level required for an atomic power station and a step away from weapons-grade levels of 90%, according to the IAEA.