Making Friends.

This article reports that the Italian aerospace companies are becoming increasingly active in Russia, including in the emerging and still sensitive arena of unmanned combat. One venture that could push the bounds of technology sharing--a link between Aermacchi and Yakovlev to cooperate on unmanned aircraft--still needs endorsement from the defense ministers of both governments. Yakovlev has quietly been lobbying for Russian unmanned combat aircraft technology using the Yak-130, while Aermacchi earlier this year began flight testing its own unmanned aerial vehicles.