Russian agents are behind a series of arson attacks targeting the British Prime Minister.

Between 2025 and 2026, the Old Bailey, London's Central Criminal Court, held a trial related to a series of arson attacks on British Prime Minister Keir Starmer's property. Two defendants—Ukrainian Roman Lavrynovych and Ukrainian-born Romanian citizen Stanislav Karpyuk—were found guilty of conspiracy to commit arson on June 15. A third defendant, Petro Pochynok, was acquitted of this charge, writes Air force.

In 2025, unknown assailants set fire to a Toyota previously owned by Starmer in north London, as well as to the entrance to his former apartment and to a house he rented to a relative. The charges centered on financial motive: the perpetrator received money from an anonymous handler (EL Money / EL).

The court focused only on the perpetrators' actions and the financial aspects, deliberately avoiding discussion of the client's identity and connections. However, a BBC investigation revealed that a Russian operation was behind the attacks.

On the subject: Russia is organizing information operations and provocations in Europe.

"Work for the glory of the nation"

The trial was unusual because the true organizer was never identified.

The identity, connections, and goals of the curator who offered money for the attacks were deliberately not revealed.

In court, he was referred to as "EL Money"—that's what he was listed as on Lavrynovych's phone—but on Telegram, he used only the initials EL. It was through this messaging app that he found Lavrynovych, in a group for Ukrainians in London looking for work.

At first, the tasks were relatively simple: putting up posters, then graffiti, then arson. Lavrynovych knew he was breaking the law, but he continued to do it for the money.

Only a limited number of EL messages addressed to Lavrynovych and Karpyuk were heard in court. He wrote in Russian and had a significantly poorer command of Ukrainian. However, using open sources, the BBC was able to track his activities.

In various Telegram channels, EL praised Putin and Russia, insulted Ukrainians, and spread Russian narratives.

"It's obvious that Putin is the leader of the white race," he wrote in one chat.

EL posted ads in Ukrainian groups offering work as "graffiti artists" in London, and used offensive language towards Ukrainians in other chats.

He called for attacks on recruitment centers in Ukraine and wrote that supporters of the "white Slavic race" should join the "Third Rome" – the idea that Russia is the heir to the Roman Empire.

 

Посмотреть эту публикацию в Instagram

 

Posted by ITV Politics (@itvpolitics)

"Work for the glory of the nation, to annoy the enemies," he wrote, offering $1000 and Russian citizenship for arson.

EL hinted that he had access to NATO and CIA documents through his father, who was in Europe.

"This is war"

The exact advertising campaign of the posters Lavrynovych posted on EL's orders was not discussed in court. The posters allegedly targeted the British far-right group Direct Action UK.

This group attempted to appear as a local movement. However, BBC journalists established that it was created by Russian participants in the operation with the aim of sowing discord in British society.

Messages in the group had Moscow timestamps, used Cyrillic, and included pound signs after numbers, as is customary in Russian.

The accounts that operated Direct Action simultaneously promoted Russian political goals and communicated with each other in Russian.

Direct Action emerged online in the fall of 2024 following the riots that followed the Southport murders, and actively used images of those events in its propaganda. (The Southport murders occurred on July 29, 2024. Seventeen-year-old Axel Rudakubana attended a children's dance workshop and went on a rampage with a large kitchen knife. Three little girls, aged six, seven, and nine, were killed. Eight more children and two adults were seriously injured. This massacre became one of the main causes of the riots in the UK in the fall of 2024. – Approx. Ed.)

The group offered money for attacks on police, distributed videos calling Starmer a traitor, incited hatred against Muslims, and offered rewards for arson and acts of violence, including attacks on mosques and police. It also praised Tommy Robinson (a British right-wing activist, journalist, and publicist best known for his harsh criticism of radical Islam, mass immigration, and multiculturalism in the UK). Approx. Ed.)

"This is war," the group declared.

Despite Direct Action being a sham, its activities led to real crimes. In London, six mosques and an Islamic school were vandalized after the group offered payment for Islamophobic graffiti.

Graffiti such as "remigration" and "Stop Islam" appeared on the walls of mosques from Croydon to Leyton. Videos of these acts of vandalism were turned into violent videos and shared on social media, fueling fear and hatred.

The morning after one of these attacks in Leyton, EL posted an ad in a Ukrainian group: "Part-time job today. Leyton area. Need to photograph two buildings." He needed photos of the aftermath to use for further propaganda.

Even the apparent "support" for Direct Action on the ground was fictitious—people were simply hired for money. When Lavrynovych himself carried out missions, he acted solely for the money, not out of ideological conviction.

The anti-racism organization Hope Not Hate investigated Direct Action's activities and, back in February, several months before the arson attacks, submitted its findings to counterterrorism police. The organization concluded that Russians were behind the group.

She warned that participants could be planning "a terrorist attack on a mosque or other Muslim site in the UK."

There was no response, says the organization's head, Nick Lowles.

Tell Mama, a group that monitors anti-Muslim activity, also reported evidence to the police and reached a similar conclusion. However, no further action was taken.

Tell Mama head Iman Atta said such actions are underestimated by law enforcement, and this is causing concern among Muslim communities.

"It starts online, but it translates directly into crime and violence on our streets," she said.

London police told the BBC they are investigating seven incidents as anti-Muslim hate crimes. No arrests have been made so far, and police are not ruling out the possibility that the incidents may be connected.

Hate leaflets

Before founding far-right groups, EL was involved in launching the fake Islamic organization Takbir Foundation.

We determined this because his Telegram account's previous username matched the name of this organization.

The Takbir Foundation attempted to recruit Muslims to paint "sacred graffiti" in the UK. But its true goal was clear: to provoke the far right.

Accounts posing as religious Muslims later easily switched to aggressive anti-Islamic rhetoric within Direct Action.

In a Telegram chat for Muslims, another account, El, wrote: "The Takbir Foundation is dedicated to financially supporting jihad throughout England. O mujahideen, be brave and reach out to the coming caliphate."

The organisation offered up to £150 for graffiti in one location and claimed: "This is halal money for spreading the word of Allah."

However, as with Direct Action, the money was offered to people unaffiliated with the stated ideology. The Takbir Foundation hired non-Muslims to paint Islamic graffiti.

BBC journalists found two artists from Bristol who responded to a Facebook advert from the Michael John account for "paid work with a good budget" without mentioning Islam.

They were asked to paint the shahada—the Islamic declaration of faith—on the abandoned Debenhams building in the city center. One of them was also asked to inscribe a verse from the Koran about the "work of the devil" on the building of a Conservative club.

They were sent images of buildings with precise directions on where to apply graffiti. EL used the same approach when sending photographs of mosques with marked locations for Islamophobic graffiti.

Both artists, considering the assignments illegal, refused.

Another connection between EL and the Takbir Foundation shows how the curator and his fake structures provoked conflict.

EL handed Lavrynovych an anti-Muslim poster disguised as a Hindu statement. It referenced the 1992 destruction of a mosque in India. "Every closed mosque = 100 fewer crimes," the poster read.

Lavrinovich was instructed to place it on a specific street in Southall, west London, home to the large Southall Central Masjid.

It's unclear whether he carried out this mission. However, BBC journalists discovered that the Takbir Foundation's Facebook account posted a photo of the same poster, allegedly posted in Southall, with the caption, "Hate leaflets found near Southall Central Masjid."

The attack on the Prime Minister's property was also used for propaganda.

One of the common theories, promoted by Russia-linked accounts, claimed that the three defendants were sex workers, and that the arson attacks were allegedly related to a personal scandal. This is untrue: the defendants did not know the prime minister and were not engaged in sex work.

However, this lie was picked up by Tommy Robinson, whose work had previously been promoted by Direct Action.

Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, wrote on X that Starmer allegedly "slept" with Ukrainian male sex workers and posted a fake image. One of his posts was reposted by Kirill Dmitriev, the Russian president's special envoy.

"Encourage hatred and violence"

The attacks fit into a broader pattern of Russian sabotage campaign against Ukraine and its allies in Europe over the past five years, ranging from bombings of railways to setting fire to planes bound for the UK.

Russia recruits perpetrators as intermediaries, offering payments for violence, sabotage, and espionage. It often uses multiple layers of intermediaries.

Ukrainians are often targets of such recruitment. The National Police of Ukraine reported that in one of the exposed networks, operating in 11 countries, a third of the participants were Ukrainian.

According to investigator Vitaly Sova, this is beneficial to Russia because it undermines Ukraine's reputation.

However, age, not nationality, is often the deciding factor. Young people are found through social media, offered "easy money" for simple tasks, and then blackmailed.

Similar operations have also been documented in the US. For example, the media organization Rybar was accused of attempting to "sow division, exacerbate social conflict, and encourage hatred and violence."

Rybar was behind the online campaign TEXASvsUSA, which was framed as a real citizen movement ahead of the 2024 elections and used the theme of illegal immigration.

BBC journalists have established that the account that created TEXASvsUSA ran several channels dedicated to the UK, including Radio Southport, which appeared after the riots in the summer of 2024.

All of these channels promoted a grim picture of what was happening in the country and spread racist statements about migrants and Muslims – following the same pattern as Direct Action.

Elite-connected chat member

In the Direct Action Telegram chat, journalists discovered a person associated with the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs: Evgeny Lyukshin. His initials match those of EL.

They also found him in a closed Radio Southport chat and in a group that glorified the Wagner PMC.

In a photograph published by the Russian Foreign Ministry, he stands behind Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko at an event in Moscow.

Other photos show him in the Foreign Ministry parking lot and with a Russian embassy pass. In one, he poses in military uniform.

Lyukshin, 23, is the son of a high-ranking diplomat who previously served as an adviser at the embassy in Denmark.

This means his father was in Europe and could have had access to classified information – which is consistent with EL's claims of access to NATO and CIA documents.

Lyukshin studied at MGIMO, the diplomatic academy under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where the Rybar media school operates.

In a Telegram group for MGIMO students, where Lyukshin was the administrator, there was a discussion of "conducting pro-Russian propaganda" as part of their studies.

Among the shared groups was his own channel, The Lost Britain, where he wrote in English calling for taxpayer money to be directed toward healthcare instead of supporting Ukraine.

We also found an image published by Rybar showing Lyukshin among "future diplomats." In the photo, he stands next to Rybar director Mikhail Zvinchuk, who is under UK sanctions and wanted in the US.

Zvinchuk is closely associated with Vladimir Putin and participates in working groups on the war in Ukraine.

The program in which Lyukshin studied is part of a course on “information warfare” created at the behest of the Kremlin.

It is supervised by the Russian presidential administration and Andrei Sushentsov, who is under EU sanctions.

The faculty includes intelligence officers and figures close to Putin, including Andrei Bezrukov, who worked undercover in the West for many years, and Sergei Nalobin, who is also believed to be an intelligence officer.

Lyukshin previously studied at the First Moscow Cadet Corps. Photos of him in military uniform have been published online, including one allegedly taken in the Kremlin.

We cannot say with complete certainty that Evgeny Lyukshin is EL.

However, he was a member of fake groups, his data matches EL data, he was trained in information warfare and is surrounded by people close to the Russian government.

Former UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said the evidence showed "a very deliberate and clear escalation by Russia".

According to him, attacks on facilities associated with the prime minister could not have been the initiative of a low-level person – such decisions are made at the very top.

You may be interested in: top New York news, stories of our immigrants, and helpful tips about life in the Big Apple - read it all on ForumDaily New York

Helen Flanagan, head of London's counter-terrorism police, stated that the attacks were intended to "create a climate of fear around the Prime Minister and strike a blow to the UK." However, she added that police had no evidence to identify EL.

However, sources said that British and Ukrainian authorities had privately concluded that Russia was behind the arson attacks.

A few hours after we contacted Lukshin and mentioned his involvement with Radio Southport, the channel disappeared.

Along with it, four other channels created by Rybar to incite hatred in the UK disappeared, and a photo of Lyukshin with the Deputy Foreign Minister was also removed.

Read also on ForumDaily:

Russia is building barracks and fortifications on its borders with NATO countries.

Nikol Pashinyan won the Armenian elections: Russia is losing influence in the country.

Zelensky wrote an open letter to Putin, inviting him to meet and discuss peace.

Do you want more important and interesting news about life in the USA and immigration to America? — support us donate! Also subscribe to our page Facebook. Select the “Priority in display” option and read us first. Also, don't forget to subscribe to our РєР ° РЅР ° Р »РІ Telegram  and Instagram- there is a lot of interesting things there. And join thousands of readers ForumDaily New York — there you will find a lot of interesting and positive information about life in the metropolis.