Russia slams British claims it was involved in London 'arson attack'
- British suspect Dylan Earl, 20, was last month charged with working for a Russian intelligence service after being accused of torching the aid centre
Russia has called British claims Moscow was involved in a suspected arson attack on a Ukrainian aid centre in London ‘absurd’.
British suspect Dylan Earl, 20, was last month charged with working for a Russian intelligence service after being accused of torching the aid centre.
He became the first person to be charged under the new National Security Act brought in last year to target those working secretly for hostile states within the UK, while also being charged with aggravated arson and putting others in danger.
Speaking on Wednesday, Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the accusation that her country was involved was part of an information war against Moscow amid Vladimir Putin’s continuing invasion of Ukraine.
Zakharova said Russia considered such allegations provocative and never carried out sabotage attacks against civilian targets – distancing Russia from the charges.
Russia has called British claims Moscow was involved in a suspected arson attack on a Ukrainian aid centre in London (pictured as firefighters worked the scene) ‘absurd’
The fire at the industrial estate broke out just before midnight on March 20. Eight fire engines and around 60 firefighters spent more than four hours tackling the blaze.
But the case was shrouded in secrecy at the time due to ‘operational activity’ being 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 British counter terrorism police.
It emerged that the industrial units in Leyton, East London were owned by a Ukrainian businessman, and that the site is advertised on charity websites as an aid collection centre for Ukrainians.
It was also revealed that the blaze was being treated as a suspected Russian attack on British soil to target Ukrainian supplies and that Earl, from Leicestershire, is alleged to be at the centre of the suspected plot.
He is also accused of recruiting others to carry out an arson attack on the aid collection centre 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 British counter terrorism police
Earl was charged last month with a raft of offences including assisting a foreign intelligence service, named by officials as working for Russia.
Paul Adrian English, 60, from Roehampton and Nii Kojo Mensah, 21, from Croydon were later also charged with aggravated arson.
They are said to be unaware that Earl was allegedly working for the Russian group, which became a proscribed terror group in the UK last year.
UK Police are understood to have arrested a total of eight people over the suspected arson plot, five of whom have been charged.
After 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 has been supported by officers from East Midlands, Leicestershire Police, Kent Police and counter terrorism policing South East.
Speaking at the time, Commander Dominic Murphy, Head of the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command, which is leading the investigation, said: ‘This is a highly significant moment and investigation for us.
‘Not only are the charges that have been authorised by the CPS extremely serious, but it is also the first time that we have arrested, and now charged anyone using the powers and legislation brought in under the National Security Act.
‘We have spoken publicly in recent times about various threats linked to national security that we have been facing, and the increase in operational activity required across Counter Terrorism Policing to meet these.
‘While these are very serious allegations, I want to reassure the public that we do not believe there to be any wider threat to them in connection with this matter.’
Speaking on Wednesday, Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova (pictured in January) said the accusation that her country was involved in the fire at the aid centre was part of an information war against Moscow amid Vladimir Putin ‘s continuing invasion of Ukraine
Although Russia has regularly denied carrying out attacks on foreign soil, Moscow has long been suspected of waging a shadow war across Europe.
At the end of April, a Czech investigation carried out with British assistance concluded that the same Russian spy unit behind the 2018 Salisbury poisonings was also behind two deadly ammunition depot blasts in the Czech Republic.
The explosions near the eastern Czech village of Vrbetice in 2014 killed two workers and caused extensive damage – four years before an assassination attempt was made against 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 Organised 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, the Main Administration of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation (aka the GRU).’
Czech police said the Vrbetice blasts were ‘a part of long-term diversionary operations by the Russian military intelligence on the territory of the EU and Ukraine’.
Czech intelligence 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 fake names they later used in the UK in the attack on the Skripals – Ruslan Boshirov [Chepiga] and Alexander Petrov [Miskin].
The Russian operatives belonged to notorious GRU Unit 29155.
While the report did not name Chepiga and Mishkin, their identities were released as being the suspects and reported on by Russian independent news outlet The Insider.
The same publication – along with partners 60 Minutes and Der Spiegel – also found that the unit is likely the cause of Havana Syndrome, the name given to a series of debilitating medical ailments afflicting American intelligence officers and diplomats around the globe that are otherwise unexplained.
Although Russia has regularly denied carrying out attacks on foreign soil, Moscow has long been suspected of waging a shadow war across Europe. Pictured: Two Russian GRU agents Alexander Mishkin and Anatoliy Chepiga – said to have carried out a poisoning attack in Salisbury, UK in 2018 – are seen in CCTV footage from the town
There have been further suspected Russian attacks on foreign soil too, including in Britain, since Vladimir Putin first took power in 2000.
In 2006, Russian defector Alexander Litvinenko, a former agent for the KGB and its post-Soviet successor agency, the FSB, became violently ill in London after drinking tea laced with radioactive polonium-210. He died three weeks later.
Litvinenko had been investigating the shooting death of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya and the Russian intelligence service’s alleged links to organised crime.
Before dying, Litvinenko told journalists the FSB was still operating a poisons laboratory dating from the Soviet era.
A British inquiry found that Russian agents had killed Litvinenko, probably with Putin’s approval, but the Kremlin denied any involvement.
What’s more, 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 jailed for life by a German judge, for what the judge called a ‘painstakingly planned’ hit job.
They said Russian security services had provided Krasikov with a false identity, a fake passport and the means to carry out the assassination.
Krasikov is the only suspected FSB agent to have been caught and convicted abroad for murder, and Moscow has attempted to include him in a prisoner exchange with the West on numerous occasions.
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