Arabic version: أوكراني يقرّ بالذنب في تخريب مساجد بشرق لندن

According to BBC News, Ukrainian national Illia Bilyk, 21, has pleaded guilty to five counts of racially and religiously aggravated criminal damage after abusive graffiti was sprayed on mosques and Islamic sites in east London.

Bilyk admitted targeting the Stratford Islamic Association, Al-Birr Mosque and Leyton Jamia Masjid on 23 January 2025. Two days later, Noor Ul Islam Primary School and the Islamic Shariah Council were also targeted. He told police that a Russian speaker who approached him on Telegram recruited him, directed him to locations and paid him afterwards.

The case is linked to a Russian state network identified by a BBC and Hope not Hate investigation as being behind Islamophobic vandalism in London and arson attacks on a property and a car connected to Sir Keir Starmer. Two Ukrainians, Roman Lavrynovych and Stanislav Carpiuc, were jailed in June for conspiring to carry out the arson attacks.

The investigation found that a Russian operative known as EL remotely organised sabotage and provocation through social media and Telegram, including a fake far-right group called Direct Action UK. Images of the east London graffiti attacks were shared in a Direct Action Telegram group after Bilyk carried them out. The BBC named Russian diplomat Evgeny Lyukshin as part of the group; it said his details matched those of EL. Lyukshin did not respond to the BBC.

Bilyk is due to be sentenced at Stratford Magistrates’ Court on 19 October. Metropolitan Police Chief Superintendent Rhona Hunt said the incidents caused significant distress and concern in Muslim communities across east London, adding that anti-Muslim hate crime and Islamophobia have no place in London.