Russia has called “absurd” British claims that Moscow was involved in a suspected arson at a Ukrainian aid center in London.
British suspect Dylan Earl, 20, was charged last month with working for a Russian intelligence agency after he was accused of setting the aid center on fire.
He became the first person to be charged under the new National Security Act introduced last year, which targeted those secretly working for hostile states in Britain, while he was also charged with aggravated arson and endangering others.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Wednesday that the accusation that her country was involved was part of an information war against Moscow amid Vladimir Putin’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine.
Zakharova said Russia viewed such accusations as provocative and never carried out sabotage attacks against civilian targets, leading Russia to distance itself from the accusations.
Russia has called British claims that Moscow was involved in a suspected arson at a Ukrainian aid center in London (pictured as firefighters worked at the scene) ‘absurd’.
The fire on the industrial estate broke out just before midnight on March 20. Eight fire engines and about sixty firefighters spent more than four hours fighting the fire.
But the case was shrouded in secrecy at the time because ‘operational activities’ were carried out by Met officers.
Details of the alleged plot were only revealed in April after reporting restrictions were lifted by a judge following a series of arrests by Britain’s counter-terrorism police.
It emerged that the industrial units in Leyton, east London, were owned by a Ukrainian businessman, and the site is advertised on charity websites as a collection center for relief supplies for Ukrainians.
It was also revealed that the fire was being treated as a suspected Russian attack on British territory to attack Ukrainian supplies and that Earl, from Leicestershire, was believed to be at the center of the suspected plot.
He is also accused of recruiting others to carry out an arson attack on the aid collection center in east London.
Details of the alleged plot were revealed in April after reporting restrictions were lifted by a judge following a series of arrests by Britain’s counter-terrorism police.
Earl was charged last month with a series of crimes, including assisting a foreign intelligence service that officials described as working for Russia.
Paul Adrian English, 60, from Roehampton and Nii Kojo Mensah, 21, from Croydon were also later charged with aggravated arson.
They are said to be unaware that Earl was allegedly working for the Russian group, which became a banned terror group in Britain last year.
British police are said to have arrested a total of eight people for suspected arson, five of whom have been charged.
Following a preliminary hearing, Earl and other suspects have been ordered to appear at the Old Bailey on May 10.
The major investigation is being led by officers from the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command and supported by officers from East Midlands, Leicestershire Police, Kent Police and South East Counter Terrorism Police.
Commander Dominic Murphy, head of the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command, which is leading the investigation, said at the time: ‘This is a very important moment and investigation for us.
“Not only are the charges authorized by the CPS extremely serious, but it is also the first time we have arrested and charged anyone using the powers and legislation introduced under the National Security Act.
“We have spoken publicly in recent times about various national security threats we face, and the increase in operational activity required in Counter Terrorism Policing to address them.
“While these are very serious allegations, I would like to reassure the public that we do not believe there is a wider threat to them in connection with this case.”
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova (pictured in January) said on Wednesday that the accusation that her country was involved in the aid center fire was part of an information war against Moscow amid Vladimir’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine Putin.
Although Russia has repeatedly denied carrying out attacks on foreign territory, Moscow has long been suspected of this waging a shadow war across Europe.
In late April, a Czech investigation, carried out with British help, concluded that the same Russian spy unit behind the 2018 Salisbury poisonings was also behind two deadly explosions at ammunition depots in the Czech Republic.
Explosions near the eastern Czech village of Vrbetice in 2014 killed two workers and caused extensive damage – four years before an assassination attempt on former Russian agent Sergei Skripal in the English town.
While Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia survived the deadly Novichok nerve agent attack, it later claimed the life of a British woman Dawn Sturgess and left a man, Charlie Rowley, and police officer Nick Bailey seriously ill.
The Czech National Central Office against Organized Crime (NCOZ) said in its report that “the police authority considers it proven that the explosions (…) were carried out by members of the Russian Military Intelligence Service, the Main Administration of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation (also known as the GRU).’
Czech police said the explosions in Vrbetice were “part of long-term diversion operations of Russian military intelligence on the territory of the EU and Ukraine.”
Czech intelligence services and media said the agents were the same ones suspected of poisoning former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury, England, in 2018: Alexander Mishkin and Anatoliy Chepiga.
The pair used the same false names they later used in Britain in the attack on the Skripals: Ruslan Boshirov (Chepiga) and Alexander Petrov (Miskin).
The Russian agents belonged to the infamous GRU unit 29155.
Although the report did not name Chepiga and Mishkin, their identities were released as being the suspects and reported by Russian independent news channel The Insider.
The same publication – together with partners 60 Minutes and Der Spiegel – also determined that the unit is likely the cause of Havana Syndrome, the name given to a series of debilitating medical conditions that afflict US intelligence officers and diplomats around the world. camps that otherwise remain unexplained.
Although Russia regularly denies having carried out attacks on foreign territory, Moscow has long been suspected of waging a shadow war across Europe. Pictured: Two Russian GRU agents Alexander Mishkin and Anatoliy Chepiga – who allegedly carried out a poisoning attack in Salisbury, UK in 2018 – are seen on CCTV footage of the city
There have been further suspected Russian attacks on foreign soil, including in Britain, since Vladimir Putin first came to power in 2000.
In 2006, Russian defector Alexander Litvinenko, a former agent of the KGB and its post-Soviet successor, the FSB, fell seriously ill in London after drinking tea laced with radioactive polonium-210. He died three weeks later.
Litvinenko had investigated the shooting of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya and the Russian intelligence service’s alleged ties to organized crime.
Before he died, Litvinenko told journalists that the FSB was still operating a Soviet-era poison laboratory.
A British investigation found that Russian agents had killed Litvinenko, probably with Putin’s approval, but the Kremlin denied any involvement.
Furthermore, in Germany in 2019, Zelimkhan Khangoshvili – a Georgian citizen who fought against Russia during the Chechen War in the early 2000s – was shot twice in the head at close range in a park in central Berlin.
Alleged FSB agent Vadim Krasikov was sentenced to life in prison by a German judge for what the judge called a “meticulously planned” hitman.
They said Russian security services gave Krasikov a false identity, a fake passport and the means to carry out the murder.
Krasikov is the only suspected FSB agent captured and convicted of murder abroad, and Moscow has repeatedly tried to include him in a prisoner swap with the West.