by Joe Mulhall and Nick Lowles
As the trial of the three Ukrainian-born men accused of conspiring to set fire to two houses and a car linked to British Prime Minister Keir Starmer reached its conclusion last week, Stephen Lennon (better known as Tommy Robinson) was in the Shalyapin Bar of the Hotel Metropol in Moscow with Errol Musk, Elon’s father.
The purpose of his trip to Russia remains unknown, but the timing turned out to be rather ironic as it coincided with a joint investigation into the Russian-backed attacks on Starmer by HOPE not hate and the BBC, in which Lennon’s name came up several times.
It is now abundantly clear that the Putin regime, and proxies working on its behalf, have been actively promoting Lennon – and he appears to be a willing accomplice.
When news of the arrests of the three Ukrainians broke, a rumour soon began to spread online that the alleged perpetrators were, in fact, Ukrainian male sex workers employed by Starmer and that the arson attack was revenge for unpaid bills. Perhaps unsurprisingly, one of the most influential online figures involved in spreading this ‘Rent Boys’ conspiracy theory was Stephen Lennon.
In the aftermath of the arrests of the three Ukrainians, Lennon used his account on X to repeat the false claim, thereby increasing its visibility and circulation across social media platforms.
One particularly prominent post alleged that Starmer had secured a super injunction to prevent information about the supposed rent boy connection from becoming public. The post was accompanied by an AI-generated image depicting Starmer alongside the three men accused of carrying out the attacks. It attracted significant engagement, receiving approximately 117,000 views.
Lennon continued to promote similar claims in subsequent posts. Another, advancing the same narrative, received more than 371,000 views, demonstrating the breadth of circulation that Lennon can achieve. While Lennon was not alone in spreading these falsehoods, his posts were seen by many more people because of his social media reach. By these means, Lennon helped to sustain public attention on a narrative that was a complete fabrication. This particular falsehood is now widely believed among many of Lennon’s supporters.
Our investigations into Direct Action, the Russian-linked influence operation which had instigated the attempted arson attacks revealed that the network had not only actively and regularly amplified Lennon’s posts but had also generated its own content to support his activities and campaigns.
Direct Action’s YouTube channel also produced a series of professionally-edited propaganda videos promoting Lennon’s planned demonstration in October 2025. These videos were designed to whip up participation in the event and reinforce Lennon’s narratives.
One such video overlaid footage of public disorder and rioting with the slogan: “Join Us – October 26th, Downing Street. Let’s Make England Clean Again.” The video then displayed an image of Prime Minister Keir Starmer accompanied by the text: “Let your feelings out. No Limits. Stop The Traitors.” This was by no means an isolated example of their promotional content, all with the same aim of encouraging mayhem.
At around the same time, Direct Action was busy publishing material which portrayed Lennon as a political prisoner, claiming that he was being unfairly targeted by the authorities because of his political views. Lennon’s actual criminal convictions were not mentioned! One post urged supporters to “Stop Starmer’s betrayal”.
The news that Lennon’s content and messaging have been amplified by a Russian-linked network should come as no surprise. A report by the Centre for Research and Evidence on Security Threats (CREST) in December 2017 was conclusive: “The level of influence and interference by Russian-linked social media accounts trying to engineer social division in the UK is considerably more extensive than has been reported to date.”
CREST’s report, in collaboration with academics at Cardiff University, identified the systematic use of fake social media accounts, linked to Russia, which amplified the response to four terrorist attacks that had taken place in the UK in the preceding summer.
It said: “The evidence is that at least 47 different accounts were used to influence and interfere with public debate following all four attacks. Of these, 8 accounts were especially active, posting at least 475 Twitter messages across the 4 attacks, which were reposted in excess of 153,000 times.”
The report found that many Russian troll accounts positioned themselves as “breaking news” sites, presumably so that they could help shape the narrative immediately after a terrorist attack, in order to “try and sow seeds of antagonism and anxiety”.
The CREST report also noted that these false accounts were directing messages at “thought communities” that were aligned with their own agenda. “There are multiple instances of them ‘@-ing’ Tommy [Stephen Lennon], former leader of the English Defence League and Nigel Farage. The purpose being to try and stir and amplify the emotions of these groups and those who follow them, who are already ideologically ‘primed’ for such messages to resonate.”
HOPE not hate researchers found that one of these Russia accounts belonged to a “David Jones”, using the Twitter handle @DavidJo52951945. Claiming to be from “Southampton/Isle of Wight”, his pro-Brexit and anti-Muslim Twitter account amassed over 100,000 followers during its four-year existence, and he tweeted 137,000 times. This account also had dozens of interactions with Stephen Lennon on Twitter during 2017, on issues ranging from “Muslim rape gangs” to the dangers of Islam. The vast majority were retweets, but there were some original tweets as well, similarly tagging Lennon.
In 2018 the Alliance for Securing Democracy (ASD) found that a significant number of the 600 Twitter accounts it analysed (all of which were either directly tied to the Russian government or endorsed its propaganda), had “tweeted prolifically in Robinson’s defence”.
Speaking to The Guardian, Bret Schafer, a social media analyst at ASD, said: “The clustered focus on the Tommy Robinson case in late May suggests that Russian-linked accounts saw his arrest as a clear opportunity to amplify political divisions both in the UK and abroad.”
However, this is merely the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Lennon’s extensive links to Russia, Putin, and online influence campaigns.
Lennon has received sustained support and promotion from Russian state-linked media, political figures, and influence networks for many years. In 2019, the Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs published a statement in the newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda defending Robinson and accusing British authorities of persecuting him for his political views. The statement was subsequently shared on Telegram by both Lennon and the Russian journalist Edvard Chesnokov.
Lennon has also appeared repeatedly on Russian media platforms, particularly RT. In 2018, he was interviewed by the RT reporter Zoie O’Brien, when he argued that he had been unfairly targeted for exercising his right to free speech. Two years later, he appeared on RT again with Oksana Boyko to discuss Islam and his claims about Muslim grooming gangs in the UK.
In February 2020, Lennon finally travelled to Moscow and St Petersburg for a series of meetings, interviews, and public appearances. His arrival was announced by Chesnokov, who appears to have acted as a guide or facilitator during the trip.
When Lennon arrived in Moscow on 21 February, he was greeted by Alexander Malkevich, a journalist and head of The Foundation for National Values Protection, a Russian not-for-profit NGO that reported on and attempted to influence public opinion at home and abroad. They met at the headquarters of the newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda where a press conference had been arranged with the theme: “What’s going on with free speech in Europe?” Lennon was introduced as a ‘politician and journalist’, rather more elevated than his early career as a football hooligan and tanning shop owner.
Malkevich had previously been head of a propaganda outlet called USA Really. In 2018 he was sanctioned by the US for election interference by means of running a troll factory in Russia that disseminated misinformation during the 2016 US presidential election. He was arrested as he entered the US ahead of the mid-term elections in 2018.
USA Really was linked to the Russian oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin, the once-close associate of Putin, whose companies have spearheaded high-profile influence operations around the world. It was Prigozhin who funded Malkevich’s Internet Research Agency troll factory – the same organisation that sought to sow division among US voters in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election and which was believed to have been behind numerous Twitter accounts which amplified several far right and anti-Muslim figures, including Stephen Lennon.
Since then, Malkevich has continued to operate as a key pro-Putin propagandist. In recent years he has become increasingly involved in African politics (which coincided with an increase in Russian interest and influence in the region), in Afghanistan and, more recently, in the Ukraine. The US State Department has offered a reward for more information on Malkevich.
Malkevich’s slippery background certainly did not cause Lennon a moment’s concern. Standing alongside him in Moscow, the former EDL leader parroted key pro-Putin lines. “I truthfully believe the Assad chemical attack was total propaganda for a war in Syria, to get the public support to go to war,” he said.
He also said: “Russians see Putin as the defender of their country. He is a strong politician. The West doesn’t have enough strong men. Western politicians are emasculated.”
Lennon also gave an interview to the Russian news website Vechernyaya Moskva, which later published an article titled: “British Politician Robinson: Let’s Break Up the European Union Together.” During the interview, Lennon denied Russian involvement in the Skripal poisoning, claiming: “If Russia needed to remove him, they would do it quietly, without unnecessary noise, without the use of Russian chemical weapons. It was stupid.”
When asked if he would like to meet Putin, he replied:
“Of course, I’d like to meet. I would say: ‘Let’s drink a glass of beer, Vladimir.’ He is the strongest man in the West. I would ask Putin to fight against the censorship and propaganda that is being used against his country as well.”
Lennon’s own YouTube channel later published a 17-minute video documenting the trip. In it, he spoke positively about Russia, encouraging viewers to visit and describing the country as clean and beautiful. Near the end of the video, an off-camera voice identified as his Russian handler can be heard prompting him to mention the hospitality of the Russian people, but let no one claim that he’s a Russian stooge.
Beyond direct contacts, Lennon has also benefited from extensive Russian media exposure. Russian state-owned video agency Ruptly, has 78 Lennon-related videos on their platform. Ruptly’s support has not gone unacknowledged, with Lennon once saying, rather incoherently: “Even Ruptly, if we want a fair broadcast of ourselves, we have to look to Russian news.”
One of Lennon’s more unusual links to Russia was his public endorsement of the political party Za Pravda (“For Truth”), founded by Russian nationalist politician Zakhar Prilepin, a veteran of the conflict in eastern Ukraine. In a scripted video message released in 2022, Lennon welcomed the party, spoke of shared values, and said he looked forward to working with it to defend family values, borders, and freedoms. Prilepin later praised Lennon’s protest outside the Ukrainian Embassy in London.
As Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine on 24 February 2022, Stephen Lennon was quick to react. Like many on the US and European further right, he was (and always had been) highly critical of Ukraine. He strongly opposed Western support and even voiced pro-Russian sentiment.
On Telegram, he insinuated that while “Western powers and Russia are equally to blame for this mess”, the war was actually part of a wider conspiracy to distract from the supposed ongoing erosion of our rights during the pandemic. “Ask yourselves this question…. Why wasn’t this mess avoided???? Who’s forgotten about or got totally distracted from the CHY-NA virus medical apartheid our own governments enforced???”
Digging only slightly deeper into Lennon’s statements, a clear pro-Russian pattern emerged.
He portrayed the UK’s widespread support for Ukraine as a function of media disinformation, and compared it with the “propaganda” that he opined had been used to indoctrinate the public in favour of vaccines and lockdowns. He amplified Russian claims about US biological experiments in Ukraine, simplified the position of the West as “supporting former IDF [Israeli Defence Force] soldiers, Neo Nazi’s [sic] and Islamists fighting for Ukraine,” and published pro-Russian news reports by Fox News host Tucker Carlson.
He also promoted videos of pro-Russian demonstrations from numerous countries and even went so far as posting blatant lies from the Russian state-owned outlet Sputnik News, which claimed that Ukraine was purposely bombing its own civilians and blaming Russia.
Lennon went further by supporting Putin’s efforts to shut down Twitter, the BBC and Facebook in Russia, saying: “The world would be a better place if everyone followed suit.” With characteristic hypocrisy, he then defended the rights of Russia’s state-controlled TV network RT to continue broadcasting in the UK: “That’s ‘freedom of the press’ for you.”
There have been long-standing rumours that Lennon has received funding from Russia, or Russian-linked sources, for pushing his pro-Putin line, but no concrete evidence has ever been provided. It would indeed be surprising if this were not the case. What is, however, undoubtedly clear is that Lennon has clearly benefited from Russian support and has willingly echoed their hype. It is no coincidence that his parroting of the Kremlin’s agenda and his praise of Putin, have run in parallel with the support he has gained from Russian-linked operations, inevitably begging the question: if he is not being paid, is he simply Putin’s useful idiot? Or maybe both?
The men who tried to set fire to Keir Starmer’s house were taking orders from Russia. Add your name today and call on the government to launch a full public inquiry into Russian interference in British politics.
Prefer to listen? Click the play button to hear the audio version. Harry Shukman Reform UK is staffed by oddballs and enigmas, but none odder…
