Early on the morning of May 12 at house in a northwestern district of London, firefighters responded to a report of a fire at the entrance to the property. The blaze was small, causing minor damage to the front door, and was unremarkable except for one thing.
The house, in the Kentish Town neighborhood, belonged to the British prime minister, Keir Starmer, who rented it out after moving into Downing Street. It was one of three acts of arson that targeted property linked to Starmer in May, police said.
The mystery deepened three days later when police announced charges against a Ukrainian man, Roman Lavrynovych. Three other men have since been arrested, including another Ukrainian and a Romanian who previously lived in Ukraine.
Lavrynovych, 21, and two others were scheduled to appear in London's Central Criminal Court, known commonly as Old Bailey, on June 6.
Adding to the mystery: British security officials are now investigating whether Russia may be involved, according to The Financial Times.
Aside from Lavrynovych, British police and prosecutors have identified the two other men as Stanislav Carpiuc, 26, and Petro Pochynok 34. A fourth man, who was arrested June 2, has not been identified.
Neither Crown Prosecution Service nor Metropolitan Police would comment when contacted by RFE/RL.
Oleksandr Shapovalov, a spokesman for Ukraine's National Police, said the agency was cooperating with British and other European law enforcement entities and was trying to determine if there was a connection to "foreign intelligence services or other terrorist groups."
It's unclear exactly how the men are linked to the alleged crimes.
'I'll Consider Any Options'
One clue to Lavrynovych's whereabouts and activities comes from job recruitment chat groups in the messenger app Telegram discovered by Schemes, the investigative unit of RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service.
Since 2022, Lavrynovych, who has been living in Britain for an undetermined amount of time, had been an active member of several groups targeting Russian and Ukrainian speakers looking for work.
Lavrynovych left his last message in one of these groups on May 3, five days before a car that had been previously registered to Starmer was set ablaze. In the group London Robota (London Work) he wrote: "Hello, I'm looking for a job, I have all the documents. I can be a handyman or a foreman's assistant."
On May 2, Lavrynovych posted a message in another job search group called London UA -- UA refers to Ukraine -- where he wrote in Ukrainian: "Hello, I'm looking for a job, I'll consider any options."
Two hours later, a user named Yurii replied: "Write to me in a private chat."
It's unclear if Lavrynovych responded. On May 30, RFE/RL reporters contacted Yurii for comment; he denied he had offered Lavrynovych or anyone a job at all. When shown his exchange from May 2, Yurii said he recalled it was about "an offer to work as an assistant for a Polish acquaintance."
Yurii told RFE/RL that Lavrynovych never responded.
RFE/RL tried to contact relatives of Lavrynovych and the other men. Pochynok's sister, Anna, said she had not been in touch with her brother in some time, and as far as she knew he had been living in Romania.
'Disposable Agents'
On June 2, the same day the fourth unidentified man was arrested, Ukraine's military intelligence agency issued an unusual public warning.
"Russian special services have intensified attempts to recruit Ukrainian citizens in order to involve them in illegal activities on the territory of the European Union," said the agency, known as HUR.
"Potential perpetrators are offered monetary rewards for participating in illegal activities, monitoring critical infrastructure facilities, and performing other tasks for the benefit of the aggressor state," it said. "These are mainly Ukrainians from temporarily occupied territories who found themselves in a difficult situation."
Viktor Yagun, a former deputy director with Ukraine's main security agency, the SBU, said Telegram channels are one tool Russian intelligence agencies use to identify and hire people, some unsuspecting.
They "are a modern method of attracting people who are in a difficult situation and are trying to somehow find themselves in life," Yagun told RFE/RL. "In addition, the same Ukrainians are not looking for work on Polish or British sites but often on Russian-language ones."
This includes cultural and sports centers, where former military personnel or representatives of the Russian special services could be working as trainers, Yagun said.
Frank Umbach, a security consultant at the University of Bonn, described people recruited unwittingly by foreign intelligence agencies as "disposable agents."
"They are approached by criminal elements. Often people are recruited through the Darknet or through Telegram and other platforms. Often these are people who just want to make money," he told RFE/RL.
Another tool used for intelligence service recruitment is the Orthodox Church, said Fyodor Venislavskiy, a lawmaker who sits on the security, defense, and intelligence committee of Ukraine's parliament.
The Orthodox Church in Ukraine splintered in the years leading up to the Russian invasion in February 2022, with one branch seen as dependent on the Russian Orthodox Church in Moscow.
Venislavskiy said the branch seen as dependent on the Moscow church has opened dozens of parishes around Europe in recent years.
"Given that it is not very difficult to learn that a person is from Ukraine, they can become objects of appropriate influence, and not necessarily from the side of priests," he said.
A press spokesman for the Moscow-affiliated church told RFE/RL it was unaware of Ukrainians being recruited by Russian intelligence services in church parishes.
Russia has a goal to discredit Ukraine's image in the eyes of Western partners, Yagun said.
"They are interested in showing that Ukrainians are potential terrorists, Ukrainians are potential saboteurs, Ukrainians are potential criminals," he said. "They do this for only one purpose: to reduce the amount of support for Ukrainians abroad."
In October 2024, Schemes uncovered an online campaign by Russian intelligence agencies who recruited Ukrainian teenagers to set fire to vehicles used by military personnel and military recruiters.
Days after the publication of the report, hundreds of Ukrainian state institutions, including embassies and schools, received threatening e-mails that mentioned the names of the RFE/RL reporters responsible for the investigation.
