Bloomberg The US hasn’t changed its policy on sending Navy vessels through the Taiwan Strait, the Pentagon said, describing a decline in the number of transits last year as nothing out of the ordinary. “Many factors affect the planning and execution of these operations including ship and aircraft availability, other military operations and exercises both in the Indo-Pacific and …

  Bloomberg Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese used a historic address in Papua New Guinea to call for a “swift conclusion” to negotiations over a bilateral security agreement, in the latest move by Canberra to counter Chinese influence in the Pacific. In an address to Papua New Guinea’s Parliament on Thursday, Albanese praised the close historic ties between Australia and …

  Bloomberg Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu changed the military leadership in Ukraine, appointing Valery Gerasimov, the chief of the General Staff, as head of the nation’s combined forces. General Sergei Surovikin, who had held the post since October, will become one of Gerasimov’s deputies, the Defense Ministry said in a statement Wednesday. Oleg Salyukov, chief of the land forces, …