Russia was behind arson attacks on UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s properties, the BBC reported. Two men were convicted Monday, and the BBC’s investigation found evidence that a young Russian diplomat had recruited the pair.
Moscow regularly recruits young men of various nationalities — the Starmer arsonists were Ukrainian-born — as proxies in its shadowy hybrid warfare campaigns, Reuters reported.
More than 1,100 Ukrainians, a fifth of them minors, have been accused of committing arson, terrorism, or sabotage, apparently Russian-backed, since 2022.
In Britain, the tactic is partly a response to necessity, because the government expelled 600 Russian operatives, including 400 suspected spies, after the 2018 poisoning of a former Russian double-agent. Moscow also backs cyber-warfare campaigns and sabotage of undersea cables.