Boris Epshteyn was born in 1982 in Moscow when it was part of the Soviet Union. He comes from a Russian Jewish family. In 1993, he moved to the United States with his family as a refugee. They settled in Plainsboro Township, New Jersey. He finished high school in New Jersey in 2000. He earned a bachelor’s degree in 2004. Later, he studied law at Georgetown University Law Center and completed his law degree in 2007.
After Senator Frank R Lautenberg died in 2013, Epshteyn publicly thanked him for supporting a law that helped religious minorities, including Russian Jews like his own family, move to the US. Earlier in his career, in 2008, he briefly worked as a communications aide for John McCain’s presidential campaign. In the 2012 elections, he sometimes appeared on TV as a Republican political commentator.
He got in touch with Trump mainly due to his friendship with his son, Eric Trump. They both studied at Georgetown University. After Trump left office in 2021, Epshteyn helped plan and guide Trump’s legal strategy when Trump faced multiple criminal and civil cases, especially after the January 6 Capitol attack and the investigations related to the 2020 election. Epshteyn was charged in Arizona in connection with allegations that allies of Trump tried to overturn the 2020 US presidential election results. He has denied the allegations and has pleaded not guilty.
Some reports allege that Epshteyn asked some people connected to Trump for money in exchange for supporting them for government jobs. One example mentioned is Scott Bessent, who was Trump’s nominee for Treasury Secretary, according to PBS News. Bessent reportedly tried for months to get the job, but Epshteyn allegedly opposed him because he did not agree to pay Epshteyn a large fee or “retainer”.
A longtime Trump loyalist has become one of the president’s most influential advisers, combining legal strategy, political access and personal reassurance.
Boris Epshteyn has emerged as one of the most powerful figures around Donald Trump, operating largely away from public view while maintaining unusually close access to the president.
According to Axios, Epshteyn has become such a constant presence in Trump’s White House that he is sometimes involved in Oval Office discussions without everyone in the room realising he is on the line. Trump is said to frequently place him on speakerphone during meetings, underlining the extent to which the lawyer has become embedded in the president’s daily routine.
His influence rests not only on what he hears, but on the fact that Trump listens to him. The president has reportedly joked that Epshteyn is “like my psychiatrist”, a reference to the frequency of their conversations and the encouragement he provides. One adviser quoted by Axios offered a less flattering assessment, describing him as someone who mainly acts as a cheerleader for Trump.
As Trump’s senior personal lawyer, Epshteyn has helped drive an unusually aggressive legal strategy against media organisations and technology companies. Axios reports that Trump has secured settlements or victories involving companies including ABC, CBS, Meta, Google and X, while other cases against major outlets and organisations remain active.
Epshteyn’s role expanded sharply during the 2024 election campaign, when Trump was facing several criminal and civil cases. He helped assemble the legal team and shape a high-risk approach built on constant challenges, pressure on multiple fronts and a refusal to concede ground in court or in the political arena.
Steve Bannon, the former Trump White House strategist and prominent MAGA figure, told Axios that Epshteyn “delivered” at a moment when Trump’s future appeared to be balanced between a return to power and the possibility of prison. Another regular White House visitor described him as the person who “solves problems” for the president.
His reach now extends beyond Trump’s legal battles. In April, Epshteyn was named chair of Trump Media, while people close to the president believe he also has influence inside the Justice Department through his relationship with Todd Blanche.
Axios says Epshteyn visits the Oval Office about once a week and remains in constant phone contact with Trump. Although some within the president’s orbit are wary of his role, his position appears secure, largely because of his loyalty and his direct line to Trump.
His connection to Trump began around a decade ago, when the then-presidential candidate noticed him defending him on television. After Trump’s break with Michael Cohen, Epshteyn gradually moved into the space left behind in the president’s close legal and political circle.
Today, Axios portrays him as one of the people with the greatest access to Trump: part lawyer, part political fixer and part personal confidant, whose power comes from staying close to the president when many others are kept at a distance.
Back in 2024:
Trump lawyer no longer representing ex-president’s aide after clients became ‘adversarial’
A key member of Donald Trump’s legal defense team has reportedly dropped one of the former president’s associates, Boris Epshteyn, as a client as it became clear that the two were considered adversarial to each other due to a recent Arizona criminal indictment.
Hugo Lowell, political investigations reporter for The Guardian, reported after Epshteyn was indicted in Arizona that “Trump lawyer Todd Blanche may soon have to choose whether loyalty is [with] Trump or Boris Epshteyn — clients who are now likely adversarial to each other.”
Lowell noted that, while “Trump is charged [with] 2020 election subversion in DC and Georgia,” Epshteyn has been “charged [with] 2020 election subversion in Arizona
French model recruiter with close ties to Jeffrey Epstein found dead
Story by Al Jazeera Staff and AFP
• 1h
Daniel Siad’s name appeared nearly 2,000 times in the Epstein files released by the US Department of Justice [File: Cristobal Herrara-Ulashkevich/EPA]
A French model scout who introduced women to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein has died at his home near Paris, according to French prosecutors.
Siad was himself under investigation in France over allegations of rape and human trafficking, which he denied.
Daniel Siad is from Algeria, having been born there on October 28, 1957, before immigrating to Sweden in 1980.
Source: Wikipedia
Daniel Siad
Recent photo:
allegations, saying he wanted to be heard and give his version of events.
“An investigation to determine the cause of death was opened on Monday evening following the discovery,” the Nanterre prosecutor’s office said.
An autopsy will be carried out as part of the probe.
Targeted by several complaints, including allegations of rape, Siad was the subject of an investigation conducted by the office specialising in combating human trafficking.
The 28-year-old was struck by a tractor-trailer as he fled federal agents in St. Augustine, marking the third ICE-related fatality in under a week and adding to scrutiny around the safety of immigration enforcement operations.
Coronilla Duran was initially named as the victim by local news operation Action News Jax, citing the Mexican consulate, on July 15. Jacksonville Immigrant Rights Alliance also named him as the victim, News4Jax reported the following day.
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In a further update on July 20, Colectivo Árbol, an Orlando-based nonprofit working with the family, told the Miami Herald that Coronilla Duran had been in the U.S. on a tourist visa for a few weeks and had only been in Florida for a couple of days before he was struck by the vehicle.
His wife only found out about her husband’s death while watching television, the Herald reported. She was said to be working on getting a flight to the U.S. to take her husband’s body back home to San Luis de La Paz.
Vitaly Churkin, Russia’s permanent representative to the United Nations since 2006, died suddenly in New York City on Monday, a day shy of his 65th birthday.
The New York Post reported that Churkin was taken ill “with heart problems,” quoting sources. He was pronounced dead at 10:55am local time, the same sources added.
He died shortly after his connections with Epstein were revealed:
Russian Ambassador to the UN (2006-2017). Died suddenly in February 2017. iMessage thread with Epstein includes “Good work on Syria” and brokering meetings with Ehud Barak. Lunch with Peter Thiel arranged by Epstein (Oct 2016). Deceased.
Key Findings
EFTA01619434: Epstein-Churkin iMessage thread: Feb 12, 2016, Epstein to Churkin: “Good work on Syria, markets will continue bad”
EFTA01619434: Nov 21, 2015, Epstein to Churkin: “You appear to have done good work. Congrats” (day after UN Security Council Resolution 2249 on Syria, Nov 20, 2015)
EFTA01619434: Jan 2016, Epstein to Churkin: “Oil now at the 36$ level I suggested” – Epstein advising Russian UN Ambassador on oil markets
EFTA00285348: Jan 10, 2017, Lunch with Churkin and Tom Pritzker at Epstein’s (same day: breakfast with Ehud Barak and Pritzker), six weeks before Churkin’s death
EFTA00285334: Feb 15, 2017, “Tea w/Churkin” at 3pm, followed by Leon Black appointment, five days before Churkin died suddenly at the Russian Consulate in New York (Feb 20, 2017)
Melania was brought to the US by Paulo Zampolli, and he remains her closest friend. Zampolli was also a close friend of Vitaly Churkin.
7 days ago Nev Shalev, in an interview with Zampolli’s ex-wife, Amanda Ungaro, revealed on his Substack, the massive connections with Russia, linked to the UN, of Zampolli via Churkin:
BOMBSHELL CONNECTION: Melania Trump’s best friend Paolo Zampolli was closely connected to the former Russian Ambassador to the UN, Vitaly Churkin, who also helped recruit Donald Trump in 1987 as a KGB asset, and was very close to Jeffrey Epstein.
See Narativ for more details:
Read alongside the Epstein files, they describe something there is no polite word for: a foreign-cultivated fixer, embedded in the First Family, for decades.
The record, plainly:
Churkin. Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations, Vitaly Churkin, attended Zampolli’s birthday party and toasted him on camera. Zampolli wrote to Churkin’s private Gmail — and six days after Russia annexed Crimea, his entire message was one word: “FANTASTIC.”
The same channel as Trump and Epstein. Churkin is the diplomat who, according to Luke Harding’s reporting, helped arrange Trump’s first trip to Moscow in 1987 — and the man Jeffrey Epstein, in his own files, boasted he had “coached” on how to handle Donald Trump. Three men, one Kremlin conduit.
Lavrov. Zampolli wrote directly to Vladimir Voronkov, the Russian who runs U.N. counter-terrorism, in intimate Russian. And Epstein named Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov as the man who could reconnect him to Vladimir Putin after Churkin died.
The women. Zampolli placed Russian models into United Nations roles — women with documented ties to Moscow, including one who has claimed Putin fathered her child.
The Russia-backed man in the room. Also toasting Zampolli at that party: Vuk Jeremic, the Russia-backed president of the U.N. General Assembly.
The passports. Zampolli represented a Caribbean island, Dominica — though he is Italian — and was known, Ungaro says, for peddling fraudulent diplomatic passports at $250,000 each.
The immunity. Those credentials carried diplomatic immunity. Today he holds a United States government title — Special Envoy for Global Partnerships — that skipped the FBI background check and Senate confirmation entirely.
Amanda Ungaro has a copy of an email where Zampolli is congratulating ‘the Supreme Leader’ for invading and occupying Crimea in 5 days’ (a note he sent to himself).
Just been alerted to threats I was previously totally unaware of:
Volt Typhoon Energy Grid Cyberattack Exposes US Infrastructure Vulnerabilities
The Volt Typhoon advanced persistent threat (APT) group maintained access to a Massachusetts power utility’s OT network for almost a year, highlighting critical infrastructure vulnerabilities.
Home – Security Spotlight – Volt Typhoon Energy Grid Cyberattack Exposes US Infrastructure Vulnerabilities
An Energy Grid Cyberattack on US has exposed vulnerabilities within the US power grid. Security researchers at Dragos uncovered a prolonged cyber intrusion by the Volt Typhoon advanced persistent threat (APT) group, a threat actor linked to China.
The intrusion targeted Littleton Electric Light and Water Departments (LELWD), a small public power utility in Massachusetts. Volt Typhoon maintained unauthorized access to LELWD’s operational technology (OT) network for nearly a year, from February to November 2024.
“One of the biggest challenges with cybersecurity in critical infrastructure is the long lifespan of the devices. Something that was designed and tested to the best practices available when it was released can easily become vulnerable to attacks using more sophisticated attacks later in its lifecycle.”Tim Mackey, head of software supply chain risk strategy at Black Duck, warned
Nathaniel Jones, vice president of threat research at Darktrace, added that the impact on Critical National Infrastructure (CNI) is a “continued and growing concern with the applications of AI-based capabilities for both offensive and defensive teams.”
The targeting of CNI entities suggests a strategic goal beyond simple data theft. Donovan Tindill, director of OT cybersecurity at DeNexus, noted that exfiltrating OT data allows attackers to gain geopolitical leverage:
Social engineering is a manipulation technique that exploits human psychology rather than software vulnerabilities to gain unauthorized access to data or systems.
Phishing is the most common social engineering technique, but pretexting, baiting, vishing, and tailgating are also widely used.
The human element is a factor in about 60% of data breaches, according to the Verizon 2025 Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR).
Generative AI has made social engineering attacks faster to produce and harder to detect, particularly through AI-generated phishing emails and deepfake voice or video impersonation.
No single technical control stops social engineering. Effective defense combines employee training, verification protocols, and data-level controls that limit what an attacker can do even after a successful manipulation.
The U.S. Department of Justice announced coordinated nationwide law enforcement actions on June 30, 2025, targeting North Korean remote information technology workers’ illicit revenue generation schemes that have defrauded American companies and funded the DPRK’s weapons programs.
Summary 1. The U.S. DOJ conducted coordinated enforcement across 16 states on June 30, 2025, targeting North Korean remote IT workers funding DPRK weapons programs. 2. Operation resulted in 29 financial account seizures, 21 website takedowns, 200 computer seizures, and searches at 29 "laptop farms." 3. North Korean operatives infiltrated 100+ U.S. companies, generating $5+ million illicitly while causing $3+ million in damages. 4. Schemes involved stealing classified defense data under ITAR regulations and $900,000+ in cryptocurrency theft from blockchain companies.
The comprehensive enforcement action spanned 16 states, resulting in two federal indictments, one arrest, and the seizure of 29 financial accounts containing tens of thousands of dollars, 21 fraudulent websites, and approximately 200 computers.
This is an extract from a piece by a researcher in The Conversation:
Most plans for orbital data centres depend on the future success of SpaceX’s heavy-lift Starship. But every Starship launch burns over 1,000 tonnes of liquid methane, releasing around 80,000 tonnes of CO₂ (about the same as what 20,000 cars emit in a year). The warming associated with soot emissions in the upper atmosphere is 500 times more intense than the same emissions at ground level. We know soot from rockets reduces stratospheric ozone – the stuff shielding us from harmful UV rays. In the lower atmosphere, most soot falls back to Earth in weeks. In the stratosphere, soot stays there for up to four years, prolonging its damaging effects.
While it is always sunny in space, solar panels degrade much quicker there. Microchips are also easily damaged, falling prey to a phenomenon known as “bit flipping” – when high-energy particles rewrite memory hardware randomly changing data from 1 to 0. Retrieving busted hardware from space is not financially viable. SpaceX satellites have a five-year shelf life before being incinerated as they fall back to Earth. The environmental impacts of things burning up in the atmosphere are not well known. Musk’s AI satellites would be connected by lasers. Should any one of the million or so satellites become untethered and collide with another, it would create further debris, creating more risk of collisions, more debris, and so on. Scientists call this the Kesler Syndrome and worry that orbital debris fields could hinder human activities in space for a very long time.
Orbital data centres would have a huge water footprint too. To catch toxic dust and protect their concrete launch pad from heat damage, a typical spaceport uses a deluge system releasing around 2 million litres of water with every launch. SpaceX has repeatedly broken environmental laws with its deluge system, allowing contaminated run-off from Starship launches to enter protected waters off the coast of Texas.
Some suggest these sci-fi schemes are designed to prop up SpaceX’s teetering stock price, rather than humanity’s computing needs. Others see orbital data centres as just one of many ambitious visions to tackle the environmental costs of AI. Either way, my research suggests this quest to off-world the industry’s headaches will have profound implications that are not well understood.
Here is an extract from the moving, honest book ‘Israel – what went wrong?’by Omer Bartov
When the first intifada, or uprising, broke out, in late 1987, I was teaching at Tel Aviv University. I was appalled by Minister of Defense Yitzhak Rabin’s instruction to the IDF to “break the arms and legs” of Palestinian youths who were throwing rocks at heavily armed troops. I wrote a letter to him warning that, based on my research on the indoctrination of the armed forces of Nazi Germany, I feared that under his leadership the IDF was heading down a similarly slippery slope. As my research had shown, young German men, even before their conscription, had internalized core elements of Nazi ideology, especially the view that the “subhuman” Slav masses, led by insidious Bolshevik Jews, were threatening Germany and the rest of the civilized world with destruction, and that therefore Germany had the right and duty to create for itself a “living space” in the East and to decimate or enslave that region’s population. This worldview was then further inculcated into the troops, so that by the time they marched into the Soviet Union, they perceived their enemies through that prism. The fierce resistance put up by the Red Army only confirmed the need to utterly destroy Soviet soldiers and civilians alike, most especially the Jews, who were seen as the main instigators of Bolshevism. The more destruction the German troops wrought, the more fearful they became of the revenge they could expect if their enemies prevailed. The result was the killing of up to twenty-seven million Soviet soldiers and citizens.
To my astonishment, a few days after writing to Rabin, I received a one-line response from him, chiding me for daring to compare the IDF to the German military. This gave me the opportunity to write him a more detailed letter, explaining my research and my anxiety about using the IDF as a tool of oppression against unarmed occupied civilians. Rabin responded again, with the same statement: “How dare you compare the IDF to the Wehrmacht.” In retrospect, I believe this exchange reveals something about his subsequent intellectual journey. For as we know from his later engagement in the Oslo peace process, however flawed, he did eventually recognize that in the long run Israel could not sustain the military, political, and moral price of the occupation.
And as Spain wins the World Cup, it is an opportunity to praise Spain for proving it is not expressing antisemitism when it speaks out against the genocide in Gaza:
The actor told Mehdi that it was important to be able to speak out against what he called the “genocide” in Gaza and the “war criminal” Benjamin Netanyahu without being accused of, or engaging in, antisemitism. In fact, the conversation touched on everything from the “crazy impunity” enjoyed by Israel to the way in which Donald Trump and Javier Milei don’t represent their people to the ridiculously high ticket price at World Cup games in 2026.
support for Israel has often been framed within the context of shared democratic values and mutual interests in combating terrorism and promoting stability in the region.
Over the decades, the UK has maintained a complex relationship with Israel, balancing its support for Israel’s right to defend itself with the need to address Palestinian rights and aspirations. This balancing act has often placed the UK in a challenging position on the international stage, especially with regards to its relationships with Arab nations and its commitment to the peace process.
At a time when the American public is expressing unprecedented levels of distrust in the Israeli government, Congress just proposed tying the U.S. to the Israeli military more than ever before.
Buried in the House’s version of the 2027 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) released on Tuesday, is section 224, entitled “United States-Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative.” The provision would arguably do more to intertwine the U.S. military with the Israeli military than the more than $200 billion (inflation adjusted) in military assistance Israel has received from the U.S. since its founding in 1948
Jewish voters who were already concerned about Zohran Mamdani’s attitude toward Israel have heightened anxiety after it was recently revealed that he said, “When the boot of the NYPD is on your neck, it’s been laced by the IDF.” The statement has also renewed questions about the Israeli military’s relationship with police departments across the U.S.
Doctors’ lives were put at risk during the covid pandemic because of shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE) and a lack of adequate planning, the UK Covid-19 Inquiry has concluded.
The inquiry chair, Heather Hallett, also criticised the “vast” waste of taxpayers’ money. Of the £14.9bn spent on PPE by the UK government and devolved administrations during the pandemic, nearly two thirds—almost £10bn—went unused.
“These figures demand a fundamental change in how the UK prepares for emergency procurement,” said Hallett.1 Her scathing report, focusing on procurement, found that the plans in place to respond to a pandemic were inadequate, and those that did exist had not been properly stress tested.
The existing stockpile of PPE and other equipment for the UK was “inadequate to meet demand,” and the UK government and devolved administrations were “wholly unprepared” to rapidly increase the scale and speed of procurement and distribution operations, said Hallett.
The lack of plans and infrastructure meant that officials had been unable to respond with sufficient speed and efficiency to problems such as which and how much equipment to buy, at what prices, and how it should be distributed. This had resulted in overbuying and the purchase of substandard equipment that had to be destroyed, said the report.
“The technology and data systems for emergency procurement and distribution were outdated. These were systemic failures that could have been avoided,” said Hallett.
One of Hallett’s main recommendations (box) is for the UK to diversify its international supplier base for PPE and healthcare equipment, which is mainly sourced from manufacturers in China, and to increase its own domestic industrial resilience. The UK should also invest in high quality information systems and modern technology when buying and distributing PPE, she concluded.
3 yrs ago, The Guardian reported where more dubious tax payers funds left the UK to the US:
US banker paid £73m dividend in 2021 after firm won millions in UK Covid contracts
This article is more than 3 years old
Banks Bourne, sole owner of Tanner Pharma in North Carolina, took sum from Tanner’s UK arm, records show
Sam Bright
Thu 25 May 2023 15.00 BSTShare
An American banker was paid a £73m dividend in 2021 after his firm won hundreds of millions in Covid contracts, figures show.
Banks Bourne, the sole owner of the medical company Tanner Pharma, took the sum from Tanner’s UK division, Companies House records show.
While Tanner Pharma registered profits of £1.4m in 2019, this figure hit £38.8m in 2020 and £64m in 2021. According to the company’s latest accounts, released in March, this financial growth was driven largely by a Covid windfall, with the firm paid huge sums by the UK government.
Turnover increased from £192m in 2020 to £468.5m in 2021, or by 144%, the latest accounts state. They say “this increase was largely the result of higher-volume contracts” with the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) as the company “supported the UK government’s urgent response to Sars-CoV-2 pandemic”.
Tanner Pharma’s profit margin therefore was 19.8% in 2020 and 13.7% in 2021.
Government records show that in 2020 and 2021 Tanner Pharma was awarded contracts worth £865m from the UKHSA and the DHSC for the provision of lateral flow tests. The largest contract during this period was valued at up to £243m – more than 84 times the firm’s total turnover of £2.9m in 2019.
The company’s accounts show that it earned 98.3% of its turnover in 2021 and 93.7% in 2020 from the UK government.
Tanner Pharma continued to be awarded UK Covid contracts in 2022, with its largest single contract coming in February 2022, worth up to £595m for the provision of lateral flow tests to the UKHSA. In total, the firm was awarded UK Covid contracts worth just shy of £1.5bn – the fourth largest total of any firm.
The £8.5 million flat purchased by financier Tim Horlick in London has been frozen as part of a criminal investigation linked to a controversial personal protective equipment (PPE) deal. Horlick, 64, is the founder of Ayanda Capital, the company awarded a significant government contract to supply PPE during the pandemic. This deal, valued at £255 million, has come under scrutiny due to allegations regarding the quality of the masks supplied.
UK shameful waste of tax payers funds in defense spending:
Example 2022:
The MOD’s £300bn waste of public money
The British public is facing a new round of austerity while the Ministry of Defence squanders vast sums of money on weapons that are unusable in any foreseeable conflict.
To take one current example: the ministry has spent more than £3bn of the public’s money, with the prospect of having to pay out £2bn more, on an armoured car called Ajax. The vehicle, tests show, deafens and injures the occupants, it cannot reverse over obstacles more than 20 centimetres high, and is too unwieldy to fit in the RAF’s transport aircraft.
The project was conceived in 2010 and due to be completed in 2017. By December 2021 the MoD had paid £3.2bn for just 26 Ajax vehicles, none of which it can use.
Defence minister Alec Shelbrooke said recently he “cannot determine a realistic timetable” about when the Ajax would be operational. Some defence industry commentators say it never will be.
The company pocketing billions from the Ajax is the UK subsidiary of the American company, General Dynamics. The company’s manager of the project is Carew Wilks, a former army general in charge of the MoD’s “land equipment” department. General Sir Peter Wall, a former head of the army, was appointed a non-executive director of the company.
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One of Britain’s two aircraft carriers is currently being repaired. (Photo: MOD)
The allure of notionally prestigious weapons systems has seduced Labour as much as the Conservatives. Gordon Brown enthusiastically backed Blair’s agreement to build two aircraft carriers, the largest warships built for the Royal Navy, in Rosyth, close to Brown’s Scottish constituency.
Their combined cost, initially estimated at less than £4bn, rose to more than £6bn.
They are designed to carry the short take-off and vertical landing (STOVL) version of US F35 Lightning II jets. This version of Lockheed Martin’s F35s has a shorter range and smaller payload than the alternative catapult and arrester gear (“cats and traps”) version that was abandoned on grounds of cost.
The MoD’s plan to buy 48 jets for the two carriers – the Queen Elizabeth and the Prince of Wales – is estimated to cost £18.8bn over 30 years.
The carriers are extremely vulnerable to long range missiles being developed notably by China, making a mockery of the “show of strength” hailed by the MoD when the Queen Elizabeth was deployed to the Pacific in 2021.
Lord Richards, the former chief of the defence staff, described the carriers to me as “behemoths…unaffordable vulnerable metal cans”.
And at precisely the moment we are at greatest risk of war with Russia, one of the carriers is marooned in Rosyth, being repaired for a leaking propeller – a problem that has persistently plagued the vessel.
The government says the Prince of Wales carrier has spent 267 days at sea and 193 days undergoing repairs since it was commissioned in December 2019.
Watchkeeper is a large unarmed drone operated by the British Army rather than the RAF. It is assigned to the Royal Artillery and its primary purpose is to aid the targeting of artillery and rocket strikes.
Watchkeeper was built jointly by Thales UK and the Israeli company Elbit Systems and is based on the Elbit’s Hermes 450 drone. Fifty-four Watchkeepers were built under a £1 billion contract and were originally due to be in service in 2011. Much delayed, a small number of Watchkeepers were deployed to Afghanistan in the final weeks of UK operations there in late 2014.
Eight Watchkeeper drones have crashed in the UK during testing or training exercises since 2014.
Watchkeepers were deployed to help spot refugees attempting to cross the Channel in September 2020, but the operation was quietly ended the following month.
In September 2022, Ministers stated that £1.31 billion had been spent on Watchkeeper to date and in April 2024, the Watchkeeper was branded ‘an unmitigated disaster’ by former MoD Minister Marc Francois and member of the Defence Select Committee.
In November 2024, the Defence Secretary John Healey announced in the House of Commons that the UK was scrapping the entire Watchkeeper fleet in order to save funds. While it was initially suggested the drones could be withdrawn by the end of 2024, a new contract announcement indicated the drones would continue to be in service until March 2027.
![Daniel Siad's name appeared nearly 2,000 times in the Epstein files released by the US Department of Justice [File: Cristobal Herrara-Ulashkevich/EPA]](https://img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/AA1X2KBa.img?w=768&h=512&m=6&x=330&y=181&s=322&d=322 "Daniel Siad's name appeared nearly 2,000 times in the Epstein files released by the US Department of Justice [File: Cristobal Herrara-Ulashkevich/EPA]")
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