Russia was behind arson attacks targeting PM

Nice pic of Evgeny Lyukshin in that image, @TopPocketFind – the man in the middle, standing slightly behind someone.

According to the BBC article linked in the OP, the guy in front of Lyushkin is Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko and the picture was taken at a Diplomats' Day event in Moscow in February, where Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov gave a speech. It was posted by Russia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Lyushkin is 23, and his father was a counsellor at the Russian embassy in Denmark.

From same article:
This means Lyukshin's father was in Europe, potentially with access to and knowledge of sensitive documents. This accords with the Telegram post by EL which stated he had access to Nato and CIA documents because his father had been in Europe.

Lyukshin has been training at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO), a diplomatic academy controlled by the foreign ministry, where Rybar has a "media school".

In a Telegram group of MGIMO students, which Lyukshin was the administrator of, the BBC has found discussion about "conducting pro-Russian propaganda" as part of the course.

Among the public Telegram groups shared between students was Lyukshin's own "The Lost Britain" group, where he had posted in English calling for taxpayer money to be "diverted" to the NHS instead of being spent on "support for Ukraine".

Plenty of people fell for this

https://www.dailymail.com/news/article-15902423/Russian-spy-orchestrated-arson-attacks-PM-started-wild-conspiracy-theory-revenge-two-Ukrainian-rent-boys.html

Yes I believe it. Why wouldn't I? Are you saying its fake news @MyJustCat?

All of the most extreme tweets of both the left and the right (e.g. certain extreme Black Lives Matters takes, some Bernie Sanders support and then some of the original far right support around Trump etc) in 2014-2016 have all been proven to come from the Russia Bot Farm in St Petersberg.

Disinformation is their best weapon against the west - and look how wonderfully it is working.

So a few petrol bombs or whatever, ofcourse I can believe it!

Why wouldn't I believe it?

It's well known that Russia tries to destabilise other countries.

Thanks for the link to another thread mentioning the BBC & FT investigation, @PomplaMouse . I wouldn't have known from the thread title.

It is astonishing that MN is not alight with threads about a Russian entity violently attacking the family of a serving UK prime minister.

Even this thread has only 27 replies.

Where are all the ragey 1000-post threads?

It's like the shouty posters filling the threads about Belfast or Henry Nowak or anything to do with foreigners in the UK are absolutely not interested in this foreign attack on our democratically elected head of government.

Putin trying to intimidate with activities in UK, former MI6 chief says
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cgjx5qw75v8o

[Sir Richard Moore] claimed Putin was under pressure over the war in Ukraine which meant he was "quite keen to expand the battlefield a bit" by using sabotage, cyber attacks and arson in the hope it would be "disruptive, distracting and intimidating to those of us who are supporting Ukraine".
[...]
Sir Richard, who left MI6 last year, said the UK should address the concern by "doubling down" on its support of Ukraine, improving cyber security and investing in "good intelligence" to disrupt Russia's activity.

"There is a criminal justice element" to tackling the threat, he added, saying "thugs" who were recruited online must "go down for a very long stretch" if found to have acted as proxies for hostile states.

OP can you give your reasons why you don't believe it?

I know you said it's strange they targeted the PMs previous homes/car rather than no 10, is that your main reason for doubting it? Can you think of any reasons why they might target several low security items rather than the highly protected no10?

You realise there were people incl a child asleep in the house when the fire was started.

Why would the FT lie about it?

Do you not understand what security there is at Downing Street?

Weird.

SYL aka tommy robinson was meeting with Musk's father in Moscow

Coincidence 🤔

Euphemism for rent boy, prostitute, escort, .... No? Preying on hard up, down on their luck useful idiots to do their dirty work.

Entirely, pre social media Russia would have needed to use spies on the ground and blatant propaganda. Now they just troll, shit post and spread lies and conspiracy theories on X, Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok pretending to be 'Bob the Patriot' and shove a few England Flags in the bio. Jobs a good un.

TR and Farage are not men of the people as they like to portray.
They both talk out their arse,Reform in particular just spout what they would do to immigrants and not much else.

The comments on Daily Mail section on this are something to behold..conspiracy theories abound.
It's probably easier now to set up fake organisations online than what had to be physical presence years ago whether that was extreme far right or jihad.

OP if you don't believe this then you're doing Putin's work for him. This is exactly what the Russians want, for a sizeable segment of the British population to swallow their propaganda. We really need to get back into a Cold War mindset so that people can be taught to see what foreign misinformation and propaganda campaigns for what they actually are. If people were taught to think critically, and could see the foreign malign influence on social media perhaps Brexit and the current mess we're in wouldn't have happened. Tommy Robinson is a Russian asset, members of Reform are Russian assets. They're sowing division to destroy this country. Russia would love to see us tear ourselves apart.

Not the most secret of operatives are they 😂 shouldn't laugh

This. They're massively meddling in this country. This has been clear since Brexit, and Tommy Robinson is clearly a Russian asset. The fact that the media aren't connecting the dots and shouting this from the rooftops is staggering to me. The Cold War never ended.

Yes, a very strange choice of words for someone posting with no agenda at all.

Oh dahling you're so right the scrawny yob look is so over

Why would anyone not believe it?

Russia is heavily involved in asymetic warfare against the west, particularly European nations. From warehouse fires in East London, to train derailments in Poland. Remember that they have, blatantly, deployed a chemical weapon (Novichok) in the UK.

Its what they do and there is plenty of information in the public domain (and a lot more that isn't).

Keir, not Kier.

Russia is just such a failed state. They do nothing but cheat, kill and destroy. They no longer have any industry but oil, gas and war. There is no longer and culture. When you think of the music and literature they once produced. Now nothing.

No athlete is trusted, the system only encourages cheating - it’s incredible when you think about it. Now all those lives lost because Putin decided to invade Ukraine. After what happened in Salisbury nothing would surprise me. They are involved in so much of the tommy robinson lot.

Have to say, after looking at their photos, I'm finding the OP's "male model" story a bit difficult to swallow...

There's another thread on this, on the front page:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5542960-if-you-support-reform-restore-greens-and-similar-far-rightleft-parties

On iPlayer:

Panorama - The Starmer Fires: The Russian Connection
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002wfvv/panorama-the-starmer-fires-the-russian-connection