In the early hours of 13 May 2025, British police officers burst into the south London flat where a young Ukrainian construction worker was sleeping and arrested him on suspicion of committing arson.
The three fires started by Roman Lavrynovych, 22, had a particular target — property linked to Sir Keir Starmer. At the trial where he was convicted, prosecutors said that the fires were commissioned by an unidentified Russian-speaking account on Telegram, which promised payment in cryptocurrency.
British investigators have not linked the plot directly to the Russian state, but Russian intelligence agents have previously commissioned arson attacks in Britain using similar methods of online recruitment and payments through anonymous accounts. Ukrainian nationals have been used as Russia’s proxies for sabotage missions in several European countries.
Shorts
The person behind the Telegram account that instructed Lavrynovych has been identified by the BBC as Evgeny Lyukshin, a 23-year-old Russian diplomat who studied information warfare at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations.
