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British security officials are investigating whether Russia may be involved in three arson attacks on properties connected to Sir Keir Starmer, according to senior Whitehall figures. The attacks on the UK prime minister’s family home in Kentish Town, north London, along with a car and a residential property that the prime minister previously owned, took place earlier this month.
Two Ukrainian men and a Romanian national have been charged with conspiracy to commit arson with intent to endanger life in connection with the fires. Police have said the trio conspired with “others unknown.”
The senior Whitehall figures said UK officials are investigating whether actors in Russia may have recruited the trio accused of starting the fires. They said discussions are being held on how best to respond if that is the case.
Prosecutor Sarah Przybylska has said in court that the alleged conspiracy is currently “unexplained”. Counterterrorism police leading the investigation are keeping an open mind about motive.
Starmer has said the fires were “an attack on all of us, on democracy, and the values that we stand for”.
Russia has ramped up a campaign of sabotage and violence across Europe over the past 18 months as Moscow’s war against Ukraine has raged on and western nations have squeezed the Russian economy with sanctions.
The UK has been one of the strongest supporters of Ukraine under successive Conservative and Labour administrations.
Even if British officials concluded the arson attacks originated in Russia, that would not necessarily mean they were ordered by the Kremlin or that the suspects were aware of any Russian involvement.
London’s Metropolitan Police declined to comment. While the Met’s counterterrorism command is leading the investigation, the three suspects have been charged with criminal rather than national security offences.
One government official cautioned that many different versions of the events were still under investigation and nothing had been ruled out at this stage.
Downing Street declined to comment. Dmitry Peskov, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesperson, did not respond to a request for comment.
Western intelligence agencies have said in recent months that they have uncovered Russian plots to bomb airplanes, burn down public buildings, sever transport links and assassinate high-profile figures who support Ukraine in its defense against Putin’s full-scale invasion.
Russia’s intelligence agencies have “gone a bit feral”, Richard Moore, chief of the UK’s Secret Intelligence Service, widely known as MI6, warned last October.
Attacks on senior international politicians have already been part of the campaign.
Estonia’s domestic security agency, ISS, said Russian intelligence operatives hired proxies to smash the car windows of the country’s interior minister last February.
Russia’s intention is to sow chaos, generate headlines and tie up European security agencies rather than necessarily cause serious harm to individuals, an intelligence official said.
Starmer’s family home in Kentish Town has been rented out since he moved to Downing Street after winning power last July.
Arson attacks were worryingly reckless, the official added, because it could suggest that Russian actors, if found to be involved, were risking events spiraling out of control.
None of the suspects who have been charged appear to have shown any ideological affinity with Russia, and one of them posted celebratory images of Ukrainian soldiers.
The three men — Ukrainians Roman Lavrynovych and Petro Pochynok and Stanislav Carpiuc of Romania — are currently in custody and are due to next appear in court on June 6.
Additional reporting by Max Seddon
