We need to talk about hybrid warfare & plausible deniability

Two Ukrainian nationals have been arrested after a targeted arson spree on the Prime Minister. They tried to burn down a property owned by him in Kentish Town, North London, which he used to live in and is currently rented out to his sister-in-law. They also attacked an apartment block entrance in Islington which was also a former residence of Starmer. In addition, they targeted A Toyota RAV4 vehicle, previously owned by Starmer, parked on the same street as his current family home.

When houses and cars with links to Sir Keir Starmer are torched in the dead of night, with no warning and no group taking credit, then either we’ve stumbled into a subplot from Line of Duty, or we’re witnessing a message. The kind you don’t send with a tweet.

So let’s say the quiet part out loud. What if this wasn’t random? What if this wasn’t just some local arsonist? What if this wasn't wasn’t a pissed off constituent?

Not with a passport-stamping GRU hit team or a polonium umbrella this time, but through the greasy smoke of asymmetric warfare. Dirty tricks, deniable violence, and message-sending in the name of destabilising what’s left of the democratic West. Because this is what hybrid war looks like.

Firstly, let’s put one thing to bed. These people weren’t just locals with a grudge against Starmer or a Labour policy. Yes, he’s not well liked, but this just doesn’t fit. So we need to shut down the lazy narrative: the ‘random nutters who hate Labour’ story doesn’t add up. Keir Starmer has been Prime Minister for almost a year. He’s got official protection, police presence, and all the resources of the state at his disposal. And yet, someone tried to burn down his house, a former residence and a car that was previously registered to him. This was researched. There was clear coordination. That’s not protest. That’s not graffiti and slogans.

They didn’t go for Number 10. They couldn’t, it's too well protected. So they went for his private residence. The place where had it not been rented out since he became PM would have been the place where his partner and kids sleep. A location that’s supposed to be protected by layers of anonymity and security. This was personal. Whoever did this didn’t stumble on the address. They had it. Which means:

In any event, we are not talking about some half-mad conspiracy theorist with a petrol can and a grudge about trans rights or his granny’s winter fuel allowance. We’re talking about someone who understood where to hit, how to hit and how to walk away unseen. That’s asymmetric warfare. That’s tradecraft.

And the silence: no slogans, no manifesto, no claim of responsibility just makes it louder. This was about intimidation, not attention.

Arson is a primitive act. It’s basic, but don’t underestimate it. It’s effective. It bypasses digital security. It requires no hack, no password, no email trail. Just a can of petrol and someone with dead eyes and a job to do. If Putin wanted to remind Starmer, or the UK establishment more broadly, that he has reach, this is how you’d do it.

Starmer is no friend of the Kremlin. He’s pro-Ukraine, pro-NATO, a man who wouldn’t so much as cough near a peace conference if it risked being seen as ‘soft’ on Moscow. He’s the continuity man for the Atlantic alliance. From Putin’s point of view, unlike Trump, he is someone he can’t control. Safe, steady, deadly. This isn’t about Starmer the man. It’s about what he represents: a reunified centre of European liberal order that Moscow’s been trying to dismantle for a decade.

Of course, if it was the Russians this wouldn’t be the first time Russia has mixed physical intimidation with information warfare. And it wouldn’t be the first time they’ve weaponised Ukrainians across Europe. Russia’s hybrid warfare strategy has long relied on the exploitation of Ukrainians themselves, whether collaborators, coerced civilians, or re-educated young people stolen and relocated to Russia during the war to carry out operations that serve Moscow’s interests while maintaining plausible deniability. By turning Ukrainians against each other, Russia manufactures internal division and projects an image of Ukraine as unstable and fractured. These tactics range from false flag attacks and disinformation campaigns to the recruitment of locals in occupied territories for sabotage or surveillance. The aim is clear: blur the lines between enemy and ally, making it harder for Ukrainian authorities to respond effectively and for foreign observers to discern the truth. The psychological and propagandistic benefits for the Kremlin are significant. When Ukrainians are seen to act in Russia’s interest, state-controlled media can frame the conflict not as an invasion, but as a civil war. A narrative designed to confuse international audiences and demoralise Ukraine’s population. Inside occupied regions, Russia uses a mix of coercion, economic pressure, and indoctrination, especially among young people, to create future operatives or sympathetic civilians. This insidious use of Ukrainian nationals in hybrid operations reflects a broader Russian doctrine that values destabilisation over open confrontation, and disinformation over direct accountability.

These incursions were either Kremlin-funded bloggers or known Russian expats posing as Ukrainian dissidents. Classic maskirovka: the old Soviet art of deception. And the two men arrested, aged just 21 and 26, fit the pattern perfectly.

So fast forward to North London in the middle of the night. The UK has been wide open to this for years. Russian oligarchs embedded in London’s property markets. Kremlin cronies laundering influence through football clubs, private schools, and political donations. A Tory Party absolutely swimming in Russian-linked cash. We haven’t just been infiltrated, we’ve been bought. Add to that a Home Office was so desperate to score tabloid points on ‘illegal migrants’ that it let through shady characters with forged Ukrainian papers while threatening to deport actual asylum seekers to Rwanda.

The perfect storm for hybrid warfare: a security state focused on the wrong threats, and a political class too compromised to call it out.

Remember when the left so much as coughed in the direction of Russia, the press went nuclear. Remember ‘Corbyn’s a traitor’ and a ‘Czech asset’? Diane Abbott reads Pravda and Newsnight photo-shopping Corbyn in front of the Kremlin with a Russian hat on? Well now we’ve got a whole Kremlin-adjacent disinformation ecosystem in plain sight: from Reform UK bots to GB News blowhards to QAnon Telegram cults. This time the establishment doesn’t have to lift a finger. Because it’s not their fear being weaponised. As in all things the left gets purged and the right gets platformed.

As for Putin and the Moscow disinformation machine. Russia doesn’t prefer left or right. It prefers chaos. It prefers division, disruption, delusion. Starmer’s Labour, moribund, despised, stripped of movement energy and dependent on a submissive press that quite frankly isn’t on its side, isn’t built to resist this. It’ll carry on appeasing Murdoch, deporting refugees, waving flags, and hoping that the flames don’t spread. However, if those fires were the Kremlin’s work, if they were part of the same low-level war already being waged across Europe, then the warning has been issued:

A final thought. This is all hypothetical, but it’s far from a conspiracy theory. So far, the Police are keeping tight lipped about this. The one thing they have put out there is they are using anti-terrorist laws. If this is how it’s playing out, then this is exactly how we would expect the police and the security services to react.

That leads us to a second question: what if it wasn’t Russia? Then who else is making political statements through fire? Because that question is just as terrifying.

Either it’s a hostile state actor, or the country’s social fabric is fraying so badly that someone who gained access to classified information on Starmer’s property portfolio and DVLA records thought they could torch the Prime Minister’s street and get away with it.

The world has gone mad. If you enjoyed reading this, please feel free to look at the rest of the blogs on www.TetleysTLDR.com. They're free to view, there's no paywall, they aren't monetised and I won't ask you to buy me a coffee. Also please free to share anything you find of interest, we only get the message out if people are aware of it. Just a leftie, standing in front of another leftie, asking to be read. All the best, Tetley