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A group of six individuals from Britain working on behalf of Russia’s Wagner group have been handed jail terms for igniting a London-based warehouse that was holding relief supplies destined for Ukraine.

Sentencing and Roles

Sentencing the men, the presiding judge at the central criminal court remarked that they had planned a “campaign of terrorism and sabotage” in the interests of the Russian state.

The individual named Dylan Earl received a 17-year prison sentence with an extra six-year period on extended licence due to his “primary involvement”. Another defendant, Jake Reeves, from Croydon in south London, was given twelve years in jail with an additional year on supervised release. The offences they admitted resulted in them being the first individuals to be found guilty under the 2023 National Security Act.

Jakeem Rose, aged 23, also from Croydon, was jailed for eight years and 10 months. Nii Mensah, a Thornton Heath, South London local, was sentenced to nine years and Ugnius Asmena, who was homeless, was handed seven years. The trio were each found guilty of serious fire-setting and given a additional year on extended licence by the judge.

Ashton Evans, a 20-year-old drug dealer from Newport in Gwent, was jailed for nine years imprisonment plus a further year on supervised release after being found guilty of withholding details regarding terrorist acts relating to another plot in the Mayfair area.

Details of the Attack

The deliberate fire on a warehouse in Leyton, east London endangered sixty fire service personnel and caused £1m in damage in March last year.

The proceedings revealed that the 21-year-old Earl and Reeves, 24 remained in their residences while coordinating the incident for the Wagner group, acting on behalf of the Russian Federation.

The individuals involved targeted the storage facility because it was being utilized for providing emergency relief and satellite communication gear to Ukraine.

When the same Ukrainian company was hit by an arson attack 10 days later in Madrid, detectives from the Met’s counter-terrorism command assumed control of the probe.

Proof and Additional Schemes

When Earl was taken into custody, law enforcement examination of his mobile phone revealed he had videos of the storage facility blaze being started and was in contact with the Wagner organization on Telegram, via an user profile with the usernames ‘Privet Bot’ and ‘Lucky Strike alias’.

Some of the communications showed that preliminary surveillance for further “missions”, involving arson attacks at a restaurant and wine store in Mayfair district owned by the Russian dissident Evgeny Chichvarkin had already been carried out. The employment of explosive devices to damage buildings was also deliberated.

Investigators discovered that the defendant Earl was also considering the possibility of kidnapping Chichvarkin and “exiling him back to Russia to confront imprisonment”.

The drug dealer from Elmesthorpe in Leicestershire had discussed an additional planned incident in the Czech Republic.

In a search of his home, police found a Russian flag, over twenty thousand pounds in currency and cocaine hydrochloride with a market value of about £34,000.

Motivations and Judicial Remarks

The court heard he was a member of numerous channels promoting Russian propaganda and was motivated by “simple and ugly greed”.

“This legal matter concerns the efforts of the Russian Federation to gain pernicious global influence using online platforms to enlist saboteurs vast distances from Moscow.”

She found the arson attack had a “link to terrorism” irrespective of if the perpetrators were aware of it. The Wagner group is banned by the UK government as a terrorist group.