7 hours ago
Last Updated:May 25, 2025, 10:36 IST
UK spy agencies are investigating possible Russian involvement in arson attacks on Keir Starmer's properties. Three men have been charged, with MI5 probing potential Kremlin links.
File photos Vladimir Putin (L)/Keir Starmer (R) (Source: AP)
Days after a series of arson attacks on UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s property, spy agencies in the United Kingdom are probing whether Russia was behind the attacks.
According to a report with The Mail, a conspiracy was setup between two Ukrainians and a Romanian, who had earlier been charged over the incident. The other persons likely involved in the conspiracy were “unknown", the report claimed.
The report also quoted sources with senior officials and stated that MI5 was examining potential links between the three men and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s regime.
The report also quoted multiple Whitehall sources and stated the police and MI5 were probing the possibility that the Kremlin may have ordered the attacks in response to Britain’s support for Ukraine in its war against Russia.
Intelligence experts say Russia recruits foreigners to launch attacks as Kremlin spies have been expelled from Europe, it claimed.
Security sources cautioned that investigators have not ‘connected the dots’ that conclusively link these attacks back to the Kremlin, according to the report.
The sources added that officials were also probing whether other elements in Russia, from militia organisations to criminal gangs, may have recruited the trio.
The three men, Petro Pochynok (34), Stanislav Carpiuc (26), and Roman Lavrynovych (21), were charged with conspiring to damage a house currently rented out by Starmer in Kentish Town, north London, another in nearby Islington where he previously lived, and a car he sold to a neighbour last year.
Lavrynovych and Carpiuc appeared in court earlier. All three suspects have been ordered detained until a joint hearing at London’s Central Criminal Court on June 6.
No injuries were reported from the fires in north London, which occurred on three nights between May 8 and May 12.
Reuters quoted the police and stated that the first fire involved a Toyota Rav4 car that Starmer used to own.
Days later, there was a blaze at a property where Starmer once resided, and the following day, there was an attack on a house in north London that he still owns.
Starmer, who has lived at his official 10 Downing Street residence in central London since becoming the Prime Minister last July, has called the incidents “an attack on all of us, on our democracy and the values we stand for".
The Kremlin has ramped up attacks in Britain and across Europe in the past 18 months as Putin’s war in Ukraine rages on.
Earlier this month, six Bulgarians were found guilty of spying for Russia in trying to obtain information on UK-based journalists, and last year, MI6 chief Richard Moore warned that Russia’s intelligence services have ‘gone a bit feral’ across Europe.
Location : First Published:News world UK Probes Potential Putin Link To Arson Attacks On UK PM Keir Starmer's Properties: Report
