London court convicts Ukrainian in arson plot tied to Starmer, while BBC points to Russia

A London court on Monday convicted Ukrainian national Roman Lavrinovych in a May 2024 arson campaign targeting properties linked to British Prime Minister Keir Starmer. The case involves a house where Starmer lived before moving to Downing Street in July 2024, another property owned by a company where he was a director and shareholder, and a Toyota he had previously owned. No one was hurt, but investigators said the attacks were meant to frighten Britain’s leadership and spread alarm. Sentencing for Lavrinovych and co-defendant Stanislav Karpyuk is set for Friday, while a third suspect, Petro Pocinoch, was acquitted.

Prosecutors told the court that Lavrinovych was paid, or promised payment, through a Telegram account called EL Money, which contacted him in Russian and Ukrainian. Lavrinovych said he believed more than one person operated the account, that one of them was a woman, and that he did not know who Starmer was. He said he agreed to the job because he needed money to help his father, who had health problems, and police said he never received the promised payment. In messages shown in court, EL Money told him to flee Britain after the fires, saying, “You attacked the home of a very high-ranking person in Britain. I will send you money, you need to leave the city.” The account also told him to use the code word “Geranium” if arrested and promised a lawyer.

During the trial, Lavrinovych said EL Money also threatened him and asked him to paint racist graffiti on a Muslim community center and distribute anti-Muslim leaflets for pay. Counterterrorism commander Helen Flanagan told the court that the attackers had no ideological motive and did not know they were targeting the prime minister or his related properties, but that the operator’s aim was to create fear and disorder. She said police had no evidence linking the operation to Russia.

Hours after the verdict, the BBC published an investigation claiming Moscow was behind the arsons and that British investigators had also reached that conclusion privately. The BBC identified EL Money as a young Russian diplomat, Yevgeny Lyukshin, the son of a senior Russian diplomat and a former adviser at the Russian embassy in Denmark. It said he had been trained in information warfare, posted pro-Putin and anti-Ukrainian messages, and recruited Lavrinovych through a Telegram group for Ukrainians in London seeking work. The report said he pushed a fake far-right group, Direct Action UK, to inflame tensions between Muslims and non-Muslims, offering money for arson, mosque attacks and assaults on police stations. Russia denied the allegations.