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Daily Mail
15-07-2025
- Politics
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE Pictured: The unmarked planes full of Afghans landing at Stansted's private hangers before migrant families are bussed to their new life in British hotels and military bases
Setting foot in the UK for the first time, Afghan families are welcomed by a British soldier. They have just stepped off an unmarked plane which landed at Stansted Airport. It is part of the Government's clandestine immigration scheme. Today after 23 months of being gagged by a 'superinjunction', the Mail can reveal the scheme to bring in thousands of Afghans, and how Parliament has been deliberately kept oblivious – or 'misled' as a judge heard. The government's secret migration scheme – codenamed Operation Rubific - was launched after a disastrous data-leak blunder by the UK military which put 100,000 people 'at risk of death' from the Taliban – mainly Afghans but British officers including Special Forces were also named. Every couple of weeks or so, without fanfare, plain white charter planes have been landing at Stansted. The Daily Mail is the only media organisation to have discovered and witnessed what is happening. A family prepares to get on to a coach to start a new life in the UK Packed with hundreds of Afghans, the planes taxi to one of the Essex airport's private hangers – away from any prying eyes in the usual passenger terminal familiar to millions of British holidaymakers. There, out of sight, Home Office staff process the men, women and children into the UK. Then they are quietly bussed to military bases and hotels around Britain. It is nearly two years since the Mail found out the British military had disastrously lost a database, imperilling 100,000 Afghans, many of whom were owed sanctuary in the UK as a reward for their loyalty to British troops. The government's hush-hush response was secretive Operation Rubific – to rescue thousands of people. The airlifts have been going on 'under the radar', to quote a High Court judge, because a superinjunction prevented anyone from revealing them. But even if we could not publicise them, the injunction did not prevent the Mail's journalists from chronicling them. At Stansted Airport, from dawn to dusk the Mail has regularly witnessed the planes coming in. Other flights have also been coming into RAF Brize Norton, we can reveal, but this is the military's biggest airfield and there is not a public viewing gallery inside the Oxfordshire airbase. Having been plucked to safety by a British-led task force in Afghanistan, the Afghans are spirited to neighbouring Pakistan. The Mail knows operational details of how they cross the border but is not revealing them. Once in the Pakistan capital Islamabad, the men and their families are subjected to health and security checks, before being loaded onto British government planes bound for the UK. During the nine-hour flight, many of these Afghans will be wondering what lies in store ahead. For many of them, it is the first time they can truly believe they have managed to flee the murderous Taliban. But few if any of them have ever been to Britain before, where their new lives await. In February last year, the Mail witnessed a 250-seater Boeing 767 touching down in the drizzle just after the sun set. Minutes later a second plane arrived from the same destination. Between them, more than 420 Afghan men and their wives and children had arrived at Stansted. They will not have minded the drizzle, for this was the moment they were finally free. The Mail knows the identities of many of those on board the flights. Some of them were military interpreters who had displayed great bravery and loyalty to the British, and are owed a debt of gratitude by this country. It is not possible to say whether all of the passengers that day had earned their ride to the UK in the same way. And it unknown precisely what proportion of the Afghans who are coming here are ones whose names were leaked when the British government lost their data and put 100,000 people 'at risk of death' from a vengeful Taliban. What we know for certain is that, after the data breach, the Operation Rubific rescue flights have been coming in thick and fast, carrying an average of about a hundred people a week. The unmarked planes, sometimes a Boeing, other times a 247-seater Airbus 300, often land just before or after Ryanair holiday flights, but they do not follow those jets to the Stansted passenger terminal. Instead they trundle to a special secure zone of the airport. Once disembarked in a special hanger, the new arrivals are processed by Border Force officials before being driven in a convoy of coaches to military bases where they are billeted in lodgings usually housing the families of British servicemen, or town centre hotels. Originally, the flights were organised by British officials but now it is handled in Islamabad by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) paid for by the UK government.
Telegraph
01-07-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
British soldier killed operating drones on Ukraine front line
A former British Army soldier has been killed while serving as a drone operator in Ukraine. Ben Leo Burgess, from Portsmouth, Hampshire, volunteered to join the Ukrainian fight against Russia in 2022 and saw action in some of the most brutal battles of the war. The 33-year-old, who went by the call sign 'Budgie', served at the front for three years until he was killed in the village of Andriivka in Ukraine's Sumy region on June 20, according to local reports. Mr Burgess, from the 78th Air Assault Regiment, was first deployed to the Zaporizhzhia region in south-east Ukraine with the artillery, before moving on to medical evacuations further east in Donetsk. He later specialised in flying first-person-view drones. His friend and fellow British volunteer, identified only by the call sign 'Azrael', told the Kyiv Post: 'He was among the best pilots we had. He came to Ukraine because he truly believed in its freedom. And he died fighting for that.' 'He fought well, fought bravely,' he added. 'We were the last two foreign fighters in our regiment.' 'He was my family here. I've lost many friends in this war – he's my biggest loss.' 'Thank you for protecting' A funeral was held for Mr Burgess in Kyiv on Monday, which was attended by 40 friends, family and soldiers from his regiment. The Ukrainian national anthem was played and both the Ukrainian and British flags were draped over his coffin. Mourners then went to the city's Maidan Square to plant a flag for him at a memorial for fallen soldiers. Handwritten messages on the flag read: 'Thank you for protecting', 'Love you brother, until we meet again', and 'Forever in my mind, heart, and soul'. A Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office spokesman said: 'We are supporting the family of a British man who has died in Ukraine and are in contact with the local authorities.'
