How our reporting – and your support – changed 2025 for the better

It’s been a wild year.

For the first time in British history, a direct-action group was branded as a terrorist organisation.

Meanwhile, the Gaza genocide passed the two-year mark, and UK-made fighter jet components that could end up in Israeli warplanes continued to flow.

We kept exposing Britain’s support for Israel’s far-right government, as well as prompting action and inquiries from east Africa to Slovakia.

As we approach the new year, it’s a great moment to take stock of the tangible impact our public service journalism has had this year:

Stopped the British army firing white phosphorus in Kenya

Three years after we revealed that the British army was routinely firing white phosphorus in Kenya, the British army disclosed that it had paused the practice.

Kenyan politicians launched an inquiry based, in part, on our reporting which found that British troops used the highly controversial munition 15 times between 2017 and 2022.

They fired it around Archer’s Post, a vast area of communal land in Kenya where Samburu nomads graze cattle.

But in October, the army quietly told the Kenyan inquiry that munitions containing phosphorus had not been used in Kenya since 2022.

Slowed the flow of drone engines to Israel

In April, we reported that a British firm, RCV Engines, was supplying engines used to propel Israel’s newest generation of drones.

Images published by an Israeli state-owned company revealed that the engine for its new “revolutionary long-endurance” drone was supplied by RCV Engines.

The revelation offered further evidence that UK-made drone components were being exported to Israel, amid the genocide in Gaza.

Weeks after our exposé, RCV Engines told journalists that it would “not be supplying engines for any operational drones to Israel” and had given notice of a termination of supply to an unnamed Israeli customer.

Helped secure £2.9 million for Kenyan fire victims

In 2021, a fire started by the British army during a military exercise burnt 12,000 acres in a prized Kenyan wildlife reserve, killing a man and destroying the livelihoods of over 7,000 people.

Our subsequent reporting established that the British army failed to investigate five bush fires soldiers had sparked in Kenya in the weeks before the inferno.

This August, the UK army agreed to pay £2.9m pounds in compensation to those affected. A lawyer for the claimants told us that our reporting was a “very key finding” that he relied on “heavily”.

UK suspends training for Israeli soldiers

After months of stonewalling from ministers and officials, we broke the story that Israeli army officers had been allowed to study at the prestigious Royal College of Defence Studies throughout the Gaza genocide.

One of the officers included a colonel who completed the course in July 2024 and then led the Israeli army’s “Bang” division in its invasion of Lebanon.

Within weeks of our report, the UK government confirmed that it had banned Israeli students from attending the RCDS in future.

Sparked calls for inquest into Kenyan man’s death

In 2007, Robert Swara Seurei, 28, died after igniting an explosive he found while clearing debris on his first day on the job working for the British army in Kenya.

Internal military documents we uncovered showed that Seurei, whose first language was not English, had been trained by a Gurkha from Nepal whose first language was also not English.

“It is therefore likely Mr Robert Swara Seurei did not understand the dangers of removing the explosives from the range, nor was he able to identify them from the briefing he was given,” one British army investigator found.

Seurei had taken the explosive home, mistaking it for a candle, and lit it.

Nearly 20 years later, Kenyan MPs called this month for an inquest into his death to be held within three months. The call came in a report that draws heavily on Declassified’s reporting.

Sparked dock protests

We reported in April on cargo data which showed that Danish shipping giant A.P. Moller-Maersk was quietly transporting fighter jet equipment to Israel.

The story triggered global protests at several ports in the US and Morocco, along the route that one of the Maersk ships was set to sail.

At Tangier, the ship was unable to dock for hours with trade unions refusing to work on it.

Stirred controversy in Slovakia

A three-year investigation, published in July, revealed that the UK government was secretly paying foreign YouTube stars to publish propaganda videos.

The influencers signed non-disclosure agreements leaving anyone watching their videos unaware that they had been funded and signed-off by government officials.

The programme, worth nearly £10m in public money, was coordinated by a London-based media agency, Zinc Network Ltd, on behalf of the Foreign Office.

The work included a campaign to mobilise young voters in the 2023 Slovakian elections which were ultimately won by Robert Rico’s Smer party, which is seen as being pro-Russian and has been dependent on older voters.

After our report was published, Fico, currently Slovakia’s prime minister, accused the UK of tampering in his country’s elections and summoned the UK ambassador.

MPs found in breach of parliamentary rules

In July, we reported that three Labour MPs – Cat Eccles, Kevin McKenna and Peter Prinsley – had failed to declare all-expenses-paid trips to Israel, funded by the Labour Friends of Israel.

During the visit, the delegation met with various Israeli officials, with MPs posing for photos with President Isaac Herzog whose genocidal comments were cited in the International Court of Justice report.

After our report, the Parliament’s standards commissioner found that Eccles and Prinsley violated parliamentary rules.

Shut down a parliamentary group

The All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Defence Technology was shut down in September after we reported that it had taken money from an Israeli defence giant.

Parliamentary rules say that APPGs should not “accept the services of a secretariat funded directly or indirectly by a foreign government”.

RUK Advanced Systems Ltd, which gave at least £1,499 to the APPG, claimed to be a UK manufacturer with products made in the UK.

But when we turned up at various addresses associated with RUK in the country, we found no evidence that the company had any manufacturing facilities.

We did, however, establish that the firm was a UK subsidiary of Israel’s state-owned arms company Rafael.

Our findings also triggered an inquiry by the parliament’s Standards Committee into Conservative MP Neil Shastri-Hurst, the APPG’s co-chair.

Earlier this month, the committee concluded their inquiry, finding that the “failure to conduct adequate due diligence” had “resulted in a foreign government temporarily part-funding” the APPG.

. . . And maybe also led a company to shut down

After our investigation into the APPG on Defence Technology, the UK subsidiary at the centre of the controversy also announced it was shutting down.

Within 12 hours of being contacted by Declassified for our initial investigation, the website for RUK Advance Systems Ltd was taken down.

Then in November, the firm filed a so-called “First Gazette” notice to Companies House, which initiates the process of closing a company down.

A source claimed the closure is not linked to our work, but no official reason has been given.

Forced the RAF museum to review its event policies

We revealed that the Royal Air Force museum in London was the venue for an event in support of Israeli soldiers who have fought in Gaza.

“The future of Israel’s air force”, featuring an Israeli pilot who is also the military attaché at the embassy in London, was held a day after a UN commission found that Israel was committing genocide in the enclave.

Technion UK, the charity behind the event, raises funds in the UK for Israeli technology institute Technion, which works closely with Israeli arms corporations and financially supports Israeli military reservists.

Attendees had been told to keep the event venue secret. After our report, the RAF Museum said it was reviewing its booking checks and “remain aligned with UK calls for peace in Gaza”.