Men accused of being approached by Russian contact to attack Starmer-linked assets

LONDON (AP) — A British court was told Wednesday that a Russian-speaking online contact offered to pay three Ukrainian and Romanian men to burn down two houses and a car linked to Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

Prosecutor Duncan Atkinson told the court the men – Ukrainians Roman Lavrynovych, 22, Petro Pochynok, 35, and Romanian Stanislav Carpiuc – were involved in starting the fires between May 8 and 12, 2025.

They are charged with conspiracy to commit arson, but Lavrynovych, Atkinson said, was identified by police as the man behind all the fires. He is also accused of damaging two properties by fire with intent to endanger life or being reckless as to whether life was endangered.

The men deny the accusations against them. The court was not informed of the amount offered or whether anyone was injured in the house fire.

“Three fires in the same area in five days would be quite unusual. However, three fires all involving property linked to the same person is not a coincidence,” Atkinson said.

Atkinson said a Toyota car was deliberately set on fire in the early hours of May 8 in the Kentish Town area of ​​north London, followed by a house on May 11 and a second house on May 12.

The fires at the properties were started with similar materials and “were started in the dead of night, when the occupants of the addresses were inevitably asleep”, he said, arguing that the men who started the fires must have intended to endanger the lives of those inside.

“Why else would you set the front door on fire, thereby blocking the escape of the residents? » asked Atkinson.

The car, he said, had once belonged to Starmer, the first house in Ellington Road was managed by a company of which the Prime Minister had been a director and shareholder, and the second house in Countess Road was occupied by his sister-in-law and still belonged to Starmer.

The attacks on the car and houses were “planned and directed, with those involved promising to pay for their participation”, Atkinson told the court. Lavrynovych was offered payment to start the fire on the messaging app Telegram by a contact using the name El Money, Atkinson said.

Atkinson told the jury they did not need to decide what motivated the defendants to carry out the alleged attacks and that “it does not matter whether they knew the property they were targeting was linked to the Prime Minister or whether that was part of their motivation”.

The court heard how more than 320 messages dating back to September 2024 were recovered between Lavrynovych and El Money, but Atkinson told the jury they should not worry about who El Money was and why they decided to recruit people for attacks.