Ukrainian Man Found Guilty of Arson Attacks on Properties Linked to Starmer

A Ukrainian man was found guilty on June 15 of carrying out arson attacks on properties connected to British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, on behalf of someone he knew only as “EL Money.”

Over a five-day period in May 2025, police were called to three separate fires, all in the Kentish Town area of the north London borough of Camden. One was at a ‌building managed by a company of which the prime minister had once been a director and shareholder, another was at a nearby house where he previously resided and where his sister-in-law was living, and another blaze involved a Toyota car that used to belong to Starmer.

Roman Lavrynovych, 22, was found guilty in London’s Old Bailey Court of two counts of committing arson and being reckless as to whether life was ​endangered. Nobody was injured in the incidents, but people were inside the properties when they were set on fire.

Lavrynovych and Ukrainian-born Romanian national Stanislav Carpiuc, 27, were found guilty of conspiracy to commit arson. Another Ukrainian man, Petro Pochynok, ​35, was acquitted of the same charge, while Lavrynovych was found not guilty of committing arson with intent to risk life.

Lavrynovych denied knowing who Starmer was, saying he accepted the job because he needed money to help his father receive treatment for health problems.

Motive ‘No Part’ of Jury’s Consideration

The jury was told by the prosecution not to concern themselves with any possible motive for the crimes, as it was not relevant to the accused’s guilt or innocence.

Prosecutors said Lavrynovych had been offered payment to commit arson by ​an account on Telegram, which used the name “EL Money.”

“It is no part of your considerations to decide who ‘EL Money’ is and what reason he might have had to coordinate the actions of these defendants against these properties and this car associated with the prime minister,” prosecutor Duncan Atkinson told the jury at the start of the trial.

EL Money contacted Lavrynovych in both Russian and Ukrainian, the court was told. Atkinson said Carpiuc’s role consisted of planning and receiving payment.

Prosecutors did not state who or what entity was believed ​to be behind the Telegram account. The BBC reported after the verdict that its investigation found EL Money to be a 23-year-old Russian diplomat with links to the Kremlin. This claim has not been verified by The Epoch Times.

The Russian Embassy in London told the BBC this week that it rejected “any attempt to associate Russia or its foreign ministry with unlawful activities.”

Russia poses “no threat to the United Kingdom or its people and harbours no aggressive intentions towards Britain,” the embassy added.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was last year asked about other media allegations of Russian involvement in the attacks.

“London is prone to suspect Russia in all the bad things happening in the UK,” Peskov said on May 26, 2025, according to Russia’s state-owned Tass news agency. “All these suspicions usually turn out to be groundless, unsubstantiated and often ridiculous.”

‘No Evidence’ of Moscow’s Hand

Helen Flanagan, head of ​counterterrorism policing in London, said ahead of the verdict that there was no evidence Moscow was behind the attacks.

“Obviously, it was a Russian-speaking entity that created ​those taskings, but we have seen no evidence to link this back to any Russian-backed tasking,” she said. “At the moment, we’ve got no evidence to suggest that this was a ‌state-backed threat ⁠and target on the prime minister.”

During his defense, Lavrynovych told the court he thought EL Money was more than one person and that one of the account’s users was a woman.

“I didn’t know where he contacted me from,” he said of EL Money.

The prosecution said evidence recovered from his devices showed that Lavrynovych’s first jobs for EL Money entailed putting up posters or distributing flyers, before the tasks he was asked to do escalated to arson.

The court was shown messages in which EL Money told Lavrynovych he needed ​to get out of Britain after carrying out the ​arson attacks.

“Look you attacked the home ⁠of a very high-ranking individual in Britain, I will send you money, you need to leave the city,” one message read.

Code Word ‘Geranium’

Lavrynovych was told that if detained by police, he should send a message with the code word “geranium,” and EL Money would send a ​lawyer to help him, another message showed.

When asked by his lawyer during the trial if he had ever used the code ​word, he replied: “No, I ⁠didn’t try to. I had no time for that.”

Frank Ferguson, head of the Crown Prosecution Service’s Special Crime and Counter Terrorism Division, said after the verdict that such offenses “go beyond damage to property, they are intended to intimidate and ​undermine public confidence, and that will not be tolerated.”

Starmer, who in his legal career was head of the Crown Prosecution Service for five years before entering politics, has not commented publicly on the case.

Lavrynovych and ⁠Carpiuc will be sentenced on June 19.

Reuters contributed to this report.