The Starmer arson plot: Russian interference on a grand scale in the UK

As the trial for the three men charged with arson attacks on Keir Starmer’s properties concludes, HOPE not hate can exclusively reveal the dark Russian network attempting to incite violence and chaos in the UK.

For the past six weeks, three men have faced trial at the Old Bailey for a spree of arson attacks on properties linked to Prime Minister Keir Starmer. Two of the three men, Roman Lavryonvych and Stanislav Carpiuc, were today found guilty.

The evidence presented in this remarkable case has revealed that the two were paid to carry out the attacks by an anonymous online user of an online messaging app, who used the initials “EL” and communicated with the men exclusively via the Telegram messaging app in both Russian and Ukrainian.

The jury was instructed to ignore EL’s motives because they were deemed immaterial to the case. It was alleged that the accused had carried out the acts for monetary gain, and that the only relevant decision was whether or not the crimes had been committed. 

Now that the trial has ended, HOPE not hate can reveal new details of the network behind “EL” and its intention to sow terror and chaos in the UK.

Working with the BBC, we have mapped the extensive network of Telegram channels and accounts belonging to the person or persons behind the “EL” pseudonym, and the wider milieu of Russian propaganda networks targeting the UK:

Working with the BBC, we have mapped out the extensive network of Telegram channels and accounts belonging to the person or persons behind the “EL” pseudonym, and the wider network of Russian propaganda networks targeting the UK:

• We found that the arson attacks were just part of much broader effort to sow violence and hatred in the UK, one which involved simultaneously seeking to fund Jihadi terrorism among Islamic extremists and Islamophobic hate crimes among the British far right.
• We also found that the people behind the effort had made similar efforts to fund sabotage against military installations in Ukraine.
• We also discovered a previously unreported network of propaganda channels targeting British social media networks, run by the sanctioned Rybar network.
  

The Direct Action network

The court heard that Roman Lavrynovych was originally recruited in September 2024 via a Telegram group that had been set up to help Ukrainians find jobs in the UK. The court also heard that, prior to the arson attacks, Lavrynovych was paid to stick up posters for the “Direct Action” network and send photos of the posters to EL. 

These included branded Direct Action posters, with a link to the group’s TikTok account, but also an unbranded poster with a fake Hindu origin. EL instructed the Ukrainians to post the latter on a road in Southall.

The Direct Action network was a disparate cluster of Telegram channels and chats, created in late August 2024 shortly after the UK riots. The network first drew attention in January 2025 when it instigated a wave of graffiti on mosques and Islamic cultural centres in East and South London, with slogans like “Remigration or die” and “Stop immigration”

While Direct Action purported to be a domestic far-right group, it was immediately apparent that it was anything but – the stilted, ungrammatical language was clear evidence that posts had not been written by a native English speaker.

In February, HOPE not hate revealed that the channel was almost certainly run from Russia. One of the channel’s posts in mid-January included a screenshot from X that revealed that the original had been written in Russian and that the account was set to GMT+3, a timezone only used in Russia, Belarus and some nations in the Middle East and Africa.

The Direct Action network’s intent to instigate far-right violence was clear from the outset. As we reported in January 2025, the earliest message we had encountered was a graphic posted far-right chat groups offering £4,000 to anyone willing to burn a police car.  

The network would later provide an astonishingly large library of terrorist training documents, including manuals on how to create explosives and 3D-printed firearms, and direct its members to violently attack non-white Brits and mosques.

Boots on the ground

While HOPE not hate was able to establish that Direct Action was being coordinated from Russia, the posters and graffiti attacks proved that the network also had boots on the ground in London. However, the identity of these activists remained unknown until the arson trial this May.

When questioned, Roman Lavrynovych described how EL had recruited him. He had frequently used Telegram throughout this period to look for work, posting that he was seeking “a job, any job”. At around the same time, EL was advertising a generous offer in the same chats, and Lavryonvych was understandably enticed:

“We pay £500💷 for posting and printing 40 leaflets. 

We work all over the UK🇬🇧

Contact in private messages”

Telegram message posted by EL [Translated from Ukrainian]

These included branded “Direct Action” posters, with a link to the group’s TikTok, but also an unbranded poster that was disguised to look as though it was created by Hindus. EL instructed Lavrynovych to stick up the latter in Southall, an area of London with a large Hindu, Sikh and Muslim communities.

The purpose of the latter poster was twofold; while EL might have hoped that it could incite discord between Muslims and Hindus in Southall itself, he also used the photos to stoke tension online. 

HOPE not hate can reveal that, using a Facebook account under the pseudonym “Al Saddam”, EL shared images and videos of the poster into British Muslim Facebook groups, attempting to manufacture an entirely artificial backlash. The video contained multiple images of the posters and what appears to an AI generated narration that said the posters had “hurt my heart”

EL’s attempts to reach and inflame British Muslims had, however, begun earlier and on an even more sinister note. Using the bogus name ‘Takbir Foundation’ (whose logo was also included in the ‘Al Saddam’ Facebook profile) we found a message from EL in August 2024 that explicitly offered to fund Jihadi violence in the UK:

“The Takbir Foundation is dedicated to supporting Jihad financially all across England. O Mujahidun, be brave, and be a helping hand towards the coming Caliphate.”

Posted to Telegram by EL [Translated from the original Arabic]

Over the months that followed, the EL accounts were used repeatedly to try to incite jihadi violence. Subscribers of various Telegram channels were invited to join a small chat group that used militaristic imagery and articulated the merits of jihad.

The ‘Takbir Foundation’ name was also used in an apparent attempt to create a provocative Islamic graffiti campaign, with the aim of enlisting British Muslims and professional graffiti artists to do “Sacred Graffiti” in London and Bristol. 

The professional graffiti artists contacted by the network via Facebook and Telegram all pulled out when they recognised the unusual nature of the project, one of which involved spraying a verse of the Qur’an on a specified location, which turned out to be the side wall of a Conservative Party club. 

This is a familiar pattern  For example, Russian influencer networks targeted both white supremacists and Black Lives Matter groups in the USA. It seems clear that those controlling these accounts were not motivated by ideological sympathy with the British far right, but saw the far right as a useful tool with which to undermine societal cohesion in the UK. 

The EL network was also engaged in similar activity far closer to their home. While grooming Ukrainian recruits in London for the arson attacks on properties linked to Keir Starmer, EL was making similar offers to their compatriots back in Ukraine itself. 

In April 2025, as the Direct Action plot unfolded in the UK, EL was making similar cash-for-sabotage offers in a Russian language Telegram chat. Seeking to exploit friction around the conscription of Ukrainian men for military service, he made a financial offer to anyone willing to attack the offices of the Territorial Center of Recruitment and Social Support [TCK], the body responsible for recruitment:

“Burn the TCK. 1,000 greenbacks in your hands, gentlemen, with the opportunity to leave this decaying Khohol-land [slur for Ukraine] and get Russian citizenship or a pass to Europe”

Far-reaching tentacles 

The Direct Action network was clearly committed to inciting violence from the outset. However, it was also part of a wider environs of inauthentic Russian online activity that aimed to shape narratives and promote divisive rhetoric in countries perceived to be enemies of the Russian state. 

While investigating the Direct Action network, we came across a further network comprising seven propaganda channels set up in 2024. We were able to establish that they were the work of Rybar, a Russian pro-government media outlet that was funded by the notorious Wagner Group and which has been sanctioned in the USA and the UK because of election interference. 

Six of the seven channels, which had names like “Two-Tier Keir”, “Radio Southport” and “CALM NO MORE”, were set up on 6 August 2024, a week into the country-wide riots that followed the appalling murder of children in Southport. These chennels amplified the far-right spin: that the UK is a failed state, and “natives” are discriminated against by a “two-tier justice” system that favours ethnic minorities.

An earlier branch of the network, named “A Mad Tea Party” (an unintended intimation of its surreal inception?), had been established in March 2024. It was via this earlier channel that we were able to identify its origin. A user known as “Gregory” had promoted the Mad Tea Party channel, offering to pay the more-established channels to promote its posts.

We found that this “Gregory” had also promoted another channel called “TEXASvsUSA”, which targeted American audiences. It had been set up in January 2024 to exploit the standoff between President Joe Biden and the Texas governor Greg Abbott over border security.

TEXASvsUSA was subsequently identified by the US Justice Department as a Rybar subsidiary, and a $10 million dollar bounty was offered for information on the Rybar employees who were behind the channel. 

This network of channels reached a combined audience of almost 40,000 subscribers before they simultaneously stopped posting content in mid-November for unknown reasons.

The Diplomat

While there are no provable links between the Rybar channels and the Direct Action network, the two overlapped in online spaces. The Direct Action network promoted its channels in the comments sections of Rybar channels, and there are some similarities in style and modus operandi. For example, the Rybar channel @TEXASvsUSA had originally attempted to create propaganda imagery by offering a cash prize to local residents who put up its stickers, just as the Direct Action network began with a poster campaign and later held a paid competition for graffiti vandalism on mosques. Both channels directed their subscribers to submit photographs to an automated channel, or “bot”, in order to enter. 

At the same time, one particularly intriguing individual came to our attention. Known as ‘Kaizeir’ on Telegram, he had interacted with the Rybar channels and the Direct Action network. Kaizeir had been particularly active on the Direct Action channel, posting into the chat multiple times from yet another propaganda channel. He had also engaged with Radio Southport, one of the Rybar channels.

HOPE not hate has identified the man behind the ‘Kaizeir’ pseudonym as Evgenyy Lyukshin, who appears to hold a post at the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. While we were unable to determine his official position, we found a photo from March 2026 showing Lyukshin standing behind the Deputy Foreign Minister of Russia at a commemorative event in front of the MFA headquarters in Moscow.

Evgenyy Lyukshin [circled] stands behind Dep. Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko, February 2026

23-year old Lyukshin appears to have been groomed for a role in the Russian state from a tender age. His father, Alexander Lyushkin, has worked at the Russian Embassies in Switzerland and Denmark and now serves as Senior Counsel to the embassy in Thailand; Lyukshin Jr attended an elite military boarding school in Moscow followed by two courses at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations [MGIMO].

It appears to have been at MGIMO where Lyukshin first became interested in the art of Telegram propaganda. The co-founder of Rybar proudly announced that the organisation would be teaching a course in the ‘Fundamentals of Information Influence’ in September 2024 and, in December that year, posted a photo showing the graduating class with Lyukshin identifiable in the front row:

While the exact identity of the person/s running the “EL” account may never be revealed, it is clear that the arson attacks against properties linked to Prime Minister Starmer formed only one part of a far wider effort to provoke violence in the UK and, more broadly, to disseminate hostile propaganda in any country perceived to be an enemy of the Russian state. This is a threat to Britain’s autonomy and our democracy.