A portrait of Sir Winston Churchill hung on the walls of the famed Fairmont Chateau Laurier in Ottawa, Canada, for years — but in 2022 it was discovered the iconic photo had been replaced with a copy. 

More than two years later, Ottawa Police have found the photograph in Italy and said the buyer is planning to hand it back over to Canada during a ceremony in Rome.

A hotel worker discovered something was amiss with the portrait, named “The Roaring Lion,” in August 2022. He noticed the frame of the print did not match the others, the Smithsonian reported, so the hotel called photographer Yousuf Karsh’s manager. The manager said he took one look at the signature on the replacement photo and knew it was a copy. 

“We are deeply saddened by this brazen act,” Geneviève Dumas, the Chateau Laurier’s general manager, said in a news release at the time. “The hotel is incredibly proud to house this stunning Karsh collection, which was securely installed in 1998.”

Karsh, one of the world’s most celebrated portrait photographers, took Winston’s photo in 1941 after he took the prime minister’s cigar while he was smoking. Churchill’s resulting scowl made the photo so famous that it eventually made it to the front of England’s five-pound note. 

Both Karsh and Winston had stayed at the hotel. Ottawa’s CTV television reported Karsh and his wife lived in the hotel for two decades and even operated his studio in the hotel from 1972 to 1992.

A subsequent police investigation found the portrait had been taken between December 25, 2021, and January 6, 2022. Police found the portrait was sold through an auction house in London to a buyer in Italy. Both were unaware the portrait was stolen. 

Ottawa police said they used “public tips, forensic analysis, and international cooperation,” to track down the thief. A man from Ottawa — whose name the police won’t release due to a publication ban — was arrested on April 25, 2024.

The 43-year-old was charged with theft and trafficking, police said. The portrait’s buyer, who is from Genoa, has been working with Italian police to hand over the photo and “arrangements have been made with the citizen to ceremoniously hand over the portrait to the Ottawa Police Service in Rome later this month,” police said. 

“Once in Ottawa Police custody, the portrait will be ready for the last step of its journey home to the Fairmont Château Laurier, where it will once again be displayed as a notable historic portrait,” police said.  

NATO’s defense technology accelerator announced Tuesday it picked 10 companies to transition to the second phase of competition, which not only brings additional funding but tailored support as they look to break into the national security sector.

The firms are part of the Defense Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic’s inaugural cohort, which NATO announced last year. The organization, known as DIANA, chose 44 companies for Phase I, selecting firms whose technology could address needs in both defense and commercial markets.

The companies participated in a competition series last fall that took place across five cities: Tallinn, Estonia; Turin, Italy; Copenhagen, Denmark; Boston; and Seattle. During the events, companies used emerging technology to solve real-world defense challenges.

“To move into Phase II, innovators had to demonstrate progress in their commercial and defense market potential, the technical viability and novelty of their solutions, and their investment readiness,” NATO said in a statement. “Review panels comprised technical, defense and innovation experts.”

The 10 companies that will transition to the next phase of DIANA’s challenge series are:

· Aquark Technologies, a quantum firm based in the United Kingdom

· Astrolight, a laser communications company in Lithuania

· Dolphin Labs, an ocean-observation company in the U.S.

· Ephos, a computing firm based in Italy

· Goldilock, a UK-based privacy firm

· IONATE, a U.K. firm specializing in smart energy platforms

· Lobster Robotics, a mapping company based in the Netherlands

· Phantom Photonics, a Canadian quantum sensing company

· Revobeam, a polish antenna firm

· Secqai, a computing company in the U.K.

The selected firms will receive up to €300,000 ($330,000).

DIANA is jointly funded, which means NATO doesn’t draw from the common fund that allies are required to contribute toward. Instead, member nations choose whether to pay into DIANA. The U.S. Defense Department last year appointed Jeffrey Singleton, U.S. principal member and head of the delegation to the NATO Science and Technology Board, as the U.S. representative to DIANA’s board of directors.

The accelerator has more than 100 affiliated test centers across nearly every country that partners with NATO. That includes 28 “deep-tech” accelerators, two of which are located in North America.

MILAN — The Ukrainian military has begun utilizing first-person-view drones with a thermite spray capability over forested areas where Russian troops and equipment are hiding, a tactic that experts say can be a legitimate weapon of war, but only under strict circumstances.

On Sept. 2, footage emerged online showing what appeared to be a Ukrainian low-cost first-person-view drone, or FPV, carrying an incendiary burning mixture that it sprayed along a dense line of trees where Russian troops were suspected.

It was later reported by Ukrainian media outlet Militarnyi that the Ukrainian Mountain Infantry had received thermite munitions – which include a powdered mix of aluminum and iron oxide capable of burning at temperatures exceeding 2,200 degrees Celsius – that were mounted on drones and dropped on Russian positions.

Experts believe that the use of such weapons is two-fold, acting as both a cheap way to expose enemy locations and to cause fear among the invading troops.

“The primary use of these thermite FPV drones is as a defoliant to remove the tree and foliage cover that Russian troops and vehicles are using for concealment in tree lines; and secondarily likely intended as a psychological weapon due to the nature of the effects thermite would produce in contact with skin,” Justin Bronk, senior research fellow at the London-based Royal United Services Institute, said.

In addition, the high-temperatures of the blend can damage or destroy caches of equipment and ammunition in a single sortie, Federico Borsari, resident fellow at the U.S. Center for European Policy Analysis, noted.

“They can be employed for specific purposes for which explosive effects are not ideal, and be useful to burn abandoned vehicles, for instance, saving explosive warheads for missions requiring kinetic effects,” he said.

The two experts said FPVs are suitable drone variants to deliver the burning mixture at slow speed because of their low cost and precise maneuverability.

As incendiary weapons have become more common in the war, analysts have been flagging concerns over harm to civilians. For example, in 2023, Russia reportedly used thermite bombs in eastern Ukraine over residential neighborhoods, according to a video on social media that was picked up by the Youtube channel of The Telegraph newspaper.

Dangers in using thermite include the possibility of causing out-of-control fires that risk burning down civilian infrastructure and non-military targets.

The use of thermite munitions is not banned per say, but neither is it straightforward, experts say.

“It would be legitimate and legal to use them as defoliants to remove cover, and this holds unless they would a) hit civilians or b) there was a significant risk the subsequent fire would endanger civilians – contrast this with Russian use of thermite last year in an indiscriminate manner,” Matthew Savill, director of military science at RUSI, wrote in an email to Defense News.

Under the Geneva Conventions, deliberately targeting civilian areas with incendiary weapons constitutes a war crime, yet Moscow has paid little consideration to adhering to international norms during the course of the war.

Russian forces have used other fire-inducing weapons such as the 9M22S incendiary cluster rocket, used for the 122mm caliber Grad rocket artillery system, Bronk said.

Savill notes that throughout the war, Ukraine has largely been able to contrast its adherence to international conflict laws against Russian behavior, an important appearance he presumes Kyiv will strive to maintain.

“I would expect that however they choose to use thermite, they would want to keep that distinction,” he said.