Ramstein Air Base squadron celebrates Women History Month with all women crews amid a flurry of C-130 flights, reports Stars and Stripes. The C-130s out of Ramstein are working overtime to support the rapid movement of tens of thousands of troops and help transport thousands of tons of supplies to central and Eastern Europe. All three of the planes on Friday’s mission earned an unusual distinction: they flew the first training formation with all-women crew members in the squadron’s history, which goes back to World War II. CAPT Tiffany Haines, who led the group of 17 women with CAPT Megan Kraynak as her co-pilot, said flying with another female pilot isn’t uncommon. “But as far as a whole airplane full of women … especially a full-blown formation full of women, that’s extremely rare,” she said, “and also very rewarding.”

US defense contracting stocks led by Lockheed Martin (NYSE:LMT +3.3%) are in rally mode as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine shows no signs of easing, reports Seeking Alpha. Other notable gainers in Monday trading here. Cowen analyst Cai von Rumohr raised his Lockheed Martin price target to $435 from $390, saying the conflict is producing support for higher defense spending in the US and Europe, with greater focus on traditional ground warfare systems such as vehicles, missiles, and helicopters, which account for ~60% of Lockheed’s sales.

Dredgers get to work digging out Ever Forward, reports gCaptain. Dredging around the stuck Ever Forward kicked off over the weekend with two dredges clearing mud from the around the ship’s hull. Donjon-Smit is the appointed salvor and Cashman Dredging & Marine Construction, said Port of Baltimore Executive Director William Doyle. Two dredges on the scene are Donjon’s Oyster Bay and Cashman’s Dale Pyatt. Doyle said Dale Pyatt is the largest “clam shell dredge” in the Western Hemisphere, equipped with a 28-cubic-yard bucket. Donjon Marine Co.’s Oyster Bay is equipped with clam shell bucket that is 15 cubic yards.

Lockheed Martin plans to launch to orbit later this year a new satellite bus the company designed for both the commercial and government markets, reports Space News. At about 1,700 kilograms including payload, the bus would compete in the mid-size satellite market which is the “sweet spot for us,” said Robert Lightfoot, Lockheed Martin’s executive vice president.

DoD overhauls its body composition and fitness policy, reports Military Times.  The changes open the door for each military branch to revamp its own policies if they so choose, a move that the services have been consistently working toward in recent years. The latest update to DoD instruction 1308.03, which comes on the heels of ongoing studies from the Marine Corps and the Army, eliminated much of the department’s restrictive language originally featured in the program.

In a sign of the decline of COVID-19, DoD skips publishing weekly COVID-19 numbers, reports Military.com. The data, published since July 2021, had already reduced from three times a week to a weekly report, which last Wednesday did not publish.

Total fraud levels in pandemic relief programs are upward of $100 billion, reports FCW, but getting a clear estimate is made difficult by data gaps and ongoing fraud recovery efforts, oversight officials told lawmakers on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz and chair of the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee said an exact figure of fraud was not yet available for the $5 trillion-plus pandemic relief spending but estimated that the final tally will be upward of $100 billion.

Military officials are asking if “pornified” culture is preventing military efforts to combat sex crimes, reports Military Times.

Soldiers integrate air defense for the first time in a major Alaska exercise, reports Army Times. The recent biennial, large-scale arctic warfighting exercise in Alaska that puts soldiers, airmen, and a mix of the other services to the test defending the far north saw its own first — air defense integration.

US President Joe Biden says Russian President Vladimir Putin is weighing use of chemical weapons in Ukraine, reports Reuters. Russia’s false accusations that Kyiv has biological and chemical weapons illustrate Putin is considering using them himself Biden said on Monday, without citing evidence. Putin’s “back is against the wall and now he’s talking about new false flags he’s setting up including, asserting that we in America have biological as well as chemical weapons in Europe, simply not true,” Biden said at a Business Roundtable event where he called Putin a “war criminal,” a “thug,” and a “murderous dictator.”

Russia on Monday said it had provided a “note of protest” to the US ambassador over President Biden‘s criticisms of Russia’s war on Ukraine and warned that that relations between Moscow and the US could be completely severed because of Biden’s remarks and punitive actions against Russia. An English translation of the statement said  “such statements by the American President, unworthy of a statesman of such a high rank, put Russian-American relations on the verge of breaking,” reports The Hill.

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Tuesday that Biden and US allies would announce new sanctions on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine when the president travels to Brussels later this week, reports The Hill.

The Biden administration flagged a shift in Russia’s cyber posture Monday, stressing the private sector’s responsibility for defending US critical infrastructure against a cyberattack in the wake of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, reports NextGov. Deputy National Security Advisor for Cyber and Emerging Tech Anne Neuberger said a classified briefing with entities officials believe might be specifically targeted was held, but did not release any specifics about sectors or companies briefed. While there is still no evidence to suggest a specific cyberattack is forthcoming, she said officials have observed “preparatory activity” on the part of the Russians.

Borys Romanchenko, a 96-year-old who survived four Nazi concentration camps during World War II, was killed late last week in a Russian shelling of his home in the besieged southwestern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, reports UPI. The Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora Memorials Foundation, which preserves sites of Nazi war crimes, said in a statement that Romanchenko was killed Friday when a Russian missile hit his apartment building as Kremlin forces continued its onslaught of the city.

Federal policymakers aim for increased recycling to retrieve the rare-earth metals in discarded computers, batteries, and other types of waste that are needed to build a carbon-neutral economy and achieve net-zero emissions, reports UPI. The majority of these rare-earth elements are sourced largely from overseas. The Biden administration and many policymakers want to develop a domestic supply of rare-earth metals to meet growing demand and ease supply chain problems.