In July 2020, Keir Starmer stepped before the cameras for the first time as leader of the opposition Labour Party, standing beside his wife outside their red-brick Victorian terrace in the north London suburb of Kentish Town. Almost five years later, just before his first anniversary as British prime minister, a 21-year-old Ukrainian set the entrance to their Kentish Town home on fire, lighting a rolled newspaper with liquid accelerant and matches and placing it against the entrance.

By then, the Starmers had moved to Downing Street. But the flat was occupied by his sister-in-law, whose daughter was asleep directly above the entrance. No one was injured and the damage was limited. Yet the fires still served a purpose: to send a message.

On June 19, 2026, that Ukrainian, Roman Lavrynovych, and his accomplice Stanislav Carpiuc, a now 27-year-old Ukrainian-Romanian hotel employee, were sentenced to seven and two years respectively for their roles in attacks on two London properties linked to Starmer, as well as a Toyota RAV4 he had previously owned. 

Convicted of conspiracy to commit arson, neither man had devised the operation. They were executors of a plan likely developed thousands of miles away.

As became clear during the seven-week Old Bailey trial, the pair had been recruited by a figure known only by the pseudonym “El Money.” The identity of this Russian-speaking handler was never established in court, though subsequent BBC reporting linked the alias to a low-level Putin-adoring Russian diplomat who was also a pro-Kremlin propagandist. 

What the trial did reveal, however, is that while many aspects of how the men were recruited mirror patterns seen in Russian sabotage activity across Europe, the mechanics of Russia’s covert campaign are evolving subtly.

Europe’s Anti-Russian Sabotage Plans Miss the Real Problem

Since 2022, Europe has witnessed a steady rise in sabotage incidents, with arson emerging as the preferred method. Most targets have been closely linked to Ukraine’s war effort, including warehouses storing civilian or military equipment, defense manufacturers and transport infrastructure supporting deliveries eastward.

A case in point was the 2024 arson attack on a Ukrainian-owned warehouse in East London containing humanitarian aid and Starlink equipment destined for the country. Orchestrated through proxies acting on behalf of Russia, the operation echoed similar incidents documented elsewhere in Europe.

Yet the target set has not been confined to........

© The Moscow Times