Just before midnight on 20 March last year, two small-time criminals from south London set alight a warehouse containing vital communications equipment destined for Ukraine.

They did not do it for ideological reasons. Instead, they did it for cash. The pair were arsonists for hire - referred to as "road men" in court - working indirectly for the Wagner Group, the mercenary group now controlled by the Russian state.

The fire-setters' connection to Wagner was through a small-time drug dealer from Leicestershire, called Dylan Earl.

Five men, including Earl, have now been convicted over their involvement in the arson attack, which caused £1m of damage.

• Three men found guilty of arson attack for Wagner group

Earl had been in touch with pro-Russian accounts earlier in the month on the secure messaging app Telegram.

With one account, which had the username Minsk KGB, he discussed whether he should go and fight for Russia in Ukraine, saying: "I need a fresh start bro. Do I need to speak Russian though? Because that's not the best. Litch [literally] know 30 words if that."

But by 16 March - four days before the attack - he was being tasked by a Telegram account linked to the Wagner Group to do some work in the UK.

It used the name Privet Bot - meaning "hello bot" in Russian - a notorious Telegram account that has encouraged sabotage attacks and murder in other parts of Europe.

The account wrote to Earl: "We have our first task for you. The map shows there are a few buildings at this address. And there are warehouses among them.

"They sponsor and provide aid to Ukrainian terrorists. Today we await from you photos and videos of the warehouse and the building and of the people owners of the warehouse."

Some of the messages the group exchanged were shortened or written in non-conventional ways, something that is commonly used to prevent social media filters tracking the content.

Earl contacted another man, Jake Reeves, who was a cleaner at Gatwick Airport, through a Telegram group set up to put criminals in touch with each other.

At Earl's request, Reeves, from Croydon, in south London, got hold of a local acquaintance of his, Nii Mensah, who was clearly ready to carry out crimes for cash.

Mensah had never met Earl, but he soon messaged him, saying: "I'm down for da causee bro. 3 ppl and car."

On the night of 20 March, four men set out from south London in a red Kia Piccanto.

Sixty-one-year-old Paul English was at the wheel. In court, he denied knowing what was going to happen on the night and was found not guilty of arson.

Nineteen-year-old Ugnius Asmena sat beside him in the passenger seat, while Mensah and his friend Jakeem Rose, both 21 years old at the time, sat in the back.

The four men drove north across the Thames and into Leyton, in east London, where they headed to the Cromwell Industrial Estate. They parked at the back of the warehouses.

Mensah and Rose got out, collected a jerry can from the boot, climbed over a wall and headed for units one and two. The warehouses the Wagner Group wanted to be burned were used by two businesses involved in sending parcels and equipment to Ukraine.

Both are owned and part-owned by Mikhail Boikov, a British-Ukrainian businessman.

It was not a sophisticated attack.

With Mensah streaming the whole event to Earl on FaceTime, Rose poured petrol along the front of the warehouses, lit a rag, and set the buildings alight.

The four men fled in the Piccanto. But not before Rose accidentally left a large zombie-style knife behind at the scene with his DNA on it.

In a lorry parked next to the warehouse, Yevhen Harasym was trying to sleep.

"I heard the crackling noise of the metal rolls of the warehouse door and realised that something was happening. I opened the door and saw the fire," he said while giving evidence in court.

"I grabbed the fire extinguisher from the back of the lorry.

"I was able to extinguish the fire outside the door, but the flames inside the warehouse continued to burn."

Eventually he had to retreat and move his lorry to safety, leaving the blaze to the fire brigade.

By the time the fire was out more than £100,000 worth of goods had been destroyed including communications equipment for Starlink satellites, which have proved vital on the frontline in the war in Ukraine.

Earl was delighted, messaging an online contact: "Got that warehouse ting done. It was the one behind all the gates. Bro 8ft gates around whole ting."

But his Wagner Group handler Privet Bot was less pleased, saying on Telegram: "You rushed into burning these warehouses without my approval. Now it will be impossible to pay for this arson.

"We could have burned the warehouses much better and more if we had coordinated our actions. It was necessary to set fire in different places all around the perimeter at once and it would be bigger."

While encouraging Earl to be more patient, Privet Bot told him to watch the TV spy series The Americans, which tells the story of KGB agents operating patiently deep undercover in the US in the 1980s.

But further down the chain everyone Earl had hired was furious at not getting paid. Eventually, eager for more cash, they patched things up. Within two days Privet Bot had another job for Earl, and his men for hire.

"Two places burning in the west," Earl wrote to a contact who used the handle 'Kash Money'. Recon also. Wine shop. Restaurant."

"How much tho?" Kash Money asked.

"£5,000. Maybe 6", Earl replied. "If they nap [kidnap] the guy 15."

In a parallel discussion, he wrote to Reeves: "Correspondence London: £1,000.00 East Warehouse. £5,000.00 West Wine Shop. £5,000.00 West restaurant. Total - £11,000.00."

In his Telegram chat with Earl, Reeves was still wondering why Wagner had wanted the warehouse burned down. Earl wrote: "It's a mail provider to Russia, Ukraine and Belarus from UK. Ran by a Ukrainian man who send 100+ lorries to Ukraine."

Russian 'billionaire'

The wine shop and restaurant plot targeted exiled Russian businessman Evgeny Chichvarkin.

He had made hundreds of millions of pounds by creating Russia's largest mobile phone retailer, Evroset. But he had fallen out with the hard men in the Russian government and was forced to sell his business in 2008.

He now runs an award-winning wine shop in London's Mayfair, called Hedonism Wines, as well as a Michelin-starred restaurant, called Hide.

Since Russia's invasion of Ukraine he had personally driven several lorries of medical aid to Ukraine. Reeves wrote on Telegram that the Wagner contact wanted Mr Chichvarkin kidnapped "to get him sent back to Russia for imprisonment".

Earl persuaded a man - who was not charged with any offence - to conduct some reconnaissance of the wine shop.

The shop and restaurant were never actually attacked, as counter terrorism police disrupted the plot, nor was Mr Chichvarkin kidnapped.

Speaking to the BBC, Mr Chichvarkin said even after the failed plot he has tried not to think about the threat he faces.

Partisan cells

The Wagner Group's strategy seems to have been to sow wider chaos in the UK, as well as targeting people who were helping Ukraine.

At one point Privet Bot asked Earl: "Do you have any friends among hooligans or acquaintances in the IRA?

"We need people that you have across Europe and the UK. We need those who are our kindred spirit.

"You need to organise partisan cells in the country and in Europe. And think of a name for your movement. We'll give you support."

As the plan developed, Earl started to drag other people into the proposed kidnap and attack on the Mayfair wine shop, including his drug-dealing contacts. Ashton "Ace" Evans was a small-time dealer operating out of Pontywaun near Newport, in South Wales, and was one of the people Earl approached.

"It has to be clean bro. Full masks, not ballies [balaclavas]. I can provide if needed. Gloves. No number plates," Earl wrote. "It's 10-15 minutes from Buckingham Palace."

"Yhhhh that's gonna bring a lot of attention", Evans wrote back. "MI5 etc."

"This owner is a billionaire from Russia," Earl explained.

"Does it need to be explo** [explosives] can it be just a fire?" Evans asked.

Earl replied: "Fire is possible, But if it doesn't fully burn they will not pay me more than 25%."

Evans was found guilty of failing to tell the police about the Mayfair plot.

By 9 April, relations between Earl and his Wagner Group contact had shown signs of cooling. Earl was worried and sent Privet Bot a stream of messages.

"I know I can be the best spy you have ever seen but we need more communication and faster work with contracts," he wrote.

"I am a very good leader, coordinator and organiser," he boasted. "I am offering you… spy operations in my country against individuals, business, government, even in Europe."

Eventually Privet Bot wrote back urging him to be patient.

"You remind me of myself at your age and there are things you should learn. You are our dagger in Europe and we will be sharpening you carefully so that you will become sharper."

On 10 April, Earl was arrested by counter-terrorism detectives in the car park of a branch of B&Q, in Hinckley.

Verdicts

Earl pleaded guilty to preparing acts of serious violence on behalf of a foreign power (Russia), an offence under the new National Security Act. He also pleaded guilty to aggravated arson, possessing cocaine with intent to supply, and possessing £20,070 that was the proceeds of crime.

Reeves pleaded guilty to agreeing to accept money from a foreign intelligence service - the Wagner Group - also under the new National Security Act. He also pleaded guilty to aggravated arson.

During the trial, at London's Old Bailey, Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb said generations before them would have described what the pair had done simply as "treason".

Nii Mensah, Jakeem Rose, Ugnius Asmena were found guilty of aggravated arson. Rose had previously pleaded guilty to possession of a knife.

The driver Paul English, 61, was cleared of all wrongdoing.

Ashton Evans, 20, was found guilty of failing to disclose information about terrorist acts relating to the Mayfair plot, but cleared of failing to tell authorities about the warehouse arson.

Another man, Dmirjus Paulauskas, 23, was cleared of two similar offences relating to both terrorist plots after the jury deliberated for nearly 22 hours.

Commander Dominic Murphy, head of the Metropolitan Police's Counter Terrorism Command, said the response to state threats, particularly from Russia, had changed following the Salisbury nerve agent attack, in 2018.

"We've made the UK a hostile operating environment," he said. "As a result, they've diversified and are now contacting relatively young people to act on their behalf as proxies in doing their activity."

It was a dramatic start to the week in Russia.

On Monday morning, President Vladimir Putin sacked his transport minister, Roman Starovoit.

By the afternoon Starovoit was dead; his body was discovered in a park on the edge of Moscow with a gunshot wound to the head. A pistol, allegedly, beside the body.

Investigators said they presumed the former minister had taken his own life.

In the tabloid Moskovsky Komsomolets this morning there was a sense of shock.

"The suicide of Roman Starovoit just hours after the president's order to sack him is an almost unique occurrence in Russian history," the paper declared.

That's because you need to go back more than thirty years, to before the fall of the Soviet Union, for an example of a government minister here killing themselves.

In August 1991, following the failure of the coup by communist hardliners, one of the coup's ring leaders - Soviet interior minister Boris Pugo - shot himself.

The Kremlin has said little about Starovoit's death.

"How shocked were you that a federal minister was found dead just hours after being fired by the president?" I asked Vladimir Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov on a Kremlin conference call.

"Normal people cannot but be shocked by this," replied Peskov. "Of course, this shocked us, too.

"It's up to the investigation to provide answers to all the questions. While it's ongoing, one can only speculate. But that's more for the media and political pundits. Not for us."

The Russian press has, indeed, been full of speculation.

Today several Russian newspapers linked what happened to Roman Starovoit to events in the Kursk region that borders Ukraine. Before his appointment as transport minister in May 2024, Starovoit had been the Kursk regional governor for more than five years.

Under his leadership - and with large sums of government money - Governor Starovoit had launched the construction of defensive fortifications along the border. These were not strong enough to prevent Ukrainian troops from breaking through and seizing territory in Kursk region last year.

Since then, Starovoit's successor as governor, Alexei Smirnov, and his former deputy Alexei Dedov have been arrested and charged with large-scale fraud in relation to the construction of the fortifications.

"Mr Starovoit may well have become one of the chief defendants in this case," suggested today's edition of the business daily Kommersant.

The Russian authorities have not confirmed that.

But if it was fear of prosecution that drove a former minister to take his own life, what does that tell us about today's Russia?

"The most dramatic part of this, with all the re-Stalinisation that has been happening in Russia in recent years, is that a high-level government official [kills himself] because he has no other way of getting out of the system," says Nina Khrushcheva, professor of International Affairs at The New School in New York.

"He must have feared that he would receive tens of years in prison if he was going to be under investigation, and that his family would suffer tremendously. So, there's no way out. I Immediately thought of Sergo Ordzhonikidze, one of Stalin's ministers, who [killed himself] in 1937 because he felt there was no way out. When you start thinking of 1937 in today's environment that gives you great pause."

Roman Starovoit's death may have made headlines in the papers here. But this "almost unique occurrence in Russian history" has received minimal coverage on state TV.

Perhaps that's because the Kremlin recognises the power of television to shape public opinion. In Russia, TV is more influential than newspapers. So, when it comes to television, the authorities tend to be more careful and cautious with the messaging.

Monday's main evening news bulletin on Russia-1 included a four-minute report about Putin appointing a new acting transport minister, Andrei Nikitin.

There was no mention at all that the previous transport minister had been sacked. Or that he'd been found dead.

Only forty minutes later, towards the end of the news bulletin, did the anchorman briefly mention the death of Roman Starovoit.

The newsreader devoted all of 18 seconds to it, which means that most Russians will probably not view Monday's dramatic events as a significant development.

For the political elite, it's a different story. For ministers, governors, and other Russian officials who've sought to be a part of the political system, what happened to Starovoit will serve as a warning.

"Unlike before, when you could get these jobs, get rich, get promoted from regional level to federal level, today, that is clearly not a career path if you want to stay alive," says Nina Khrushcheva.

"There's not only no upward mobility to start with, but even downward mobility ends with death."

It's a reminder of the dangers that emanate from falling foul of the system.

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Former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has joined Goldman Sachs as a senior advisor.

Sunak, who resigned as PM in July 2024, will work part-time advising the bank's clients with his "unique perspectives and insights" on global politics and the economy, the company said.

He remains the Conservative MP for Richmond and Northallerton in Yorkshire.

Sunak previously worked at the bank as an analyst in the early 2000s before he entered politics.

Godman Sachs' chairman and chief executive David Solomon said he was "excited to welcome Rishi back" to the firm.

Alongside advising clients, Sunak will also "spend time with our people around the world, contributing to our culture of ongoing learning and development", Solomon said.

Sunak's salary will be donated to The Richmond Project, a charity he founded earlier this year alongside his wife Akshata Murty to try and improve numeracy across the UK.

The Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (Acoba), which must sign off jobs taken by former ministers for two years after they leave office, said Sunak's new role presented a number of risks that Goldman Sachs could benefit from unfair access to information due to his time prime minister.

He will not be allowed to advise other governments or their sovereign wealth funds for the bank, or advise clients that he had direct dealings with while he was prime minister.

He also cannot lobby the UK government on behalf of the bank.

Acoba noted that Sunak previously spent 14 years working in the financial services sector before he became an MP, including at Goldman Sachs.

He first joined the bank as an intern in 2000, before working as an analyst from 2001 to 2004.

He later co-founded an international investment firm.

First elected as an MP in 2015, Sunak served as Boris Johnson's chancellor during the Covid pandemic.

He became a household name when announcing schemes such as furlough at pandemic-era press conferences.

His resignation as chancellor in July 2022 sparked the downfall of Johnson's government.

Following Liz Truss' brief spell in Number 10, Sunak became prime minister in October 2022. He held the role until July 2024, when he led the Conservatives to their biggest electoral defeat in history.

The job at Goldman Sachs is the latest role Sunak has taken since stepping down as prime minister.

In January he joined the Blavatnik School of Government at the University of Oxford, as well as the Hoover Institution at Stanford University in the US. He is not paid for either of these roles.

He has however been paid more than £500,000 since April for giving three speaking engagements.

Former prime ministers often join speakers agencies to give talks to major companies or at dinner events.

The death toll from flash floods that struck central Texas on Friday has now climbed to more than 100 people and an unknown number of others are missing.

Search and rescue teams are wading through mud-piled riverbanks as more rain and thunderstorms threaten the region, but hope was fading of finding any more survivors four days after the catastrophe.

Camp Mystic, a Christian all-girls' summer camp, confirmed at least 27 girls and staff were among the dead. Ten girls and a camp counsellor are still missing.

The White House meanwhile rejected suggestions that budget cuts at the National Weather Service (NWS) could have inhibited the disaster response.

At least 84 of the victims - 56 adults and 28 children - died in Kerr County, where the Guadalupe River was swollen by torrential downpours before daybreak on Friday, the July Fourth public holiday.

Some 22 adults and 10 children have yet to be identified, said the county sheriff's office.

• Why Texas floods were so devastating

Camp Mystic said in a statement on Monday: "Our hearts are broken alongside our families that are enduring this unimaginable tragedy."

Richard Eastland, 70, the co-owner and director of Camp Mystic, died trying to save the children, the Austin American-Statesman reported.

Local pastor Del Way, who knows the Eastland family, told the BBC: "The whole community will miss him [Mr Eastland]. He died a hero."

In its latest forecast, the NWS has predicted more slow-moving thunderstorms, potentially bringing more flash flooding to the region.

Critics of the Trump administration have sought to link the disaster to thousands of job cuts at the NWS' parent agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The NWS office responsible for forecasting in the region had five employees on duty as thunderstorms brewed over Texas on Thursday evening, the usual number for an overnight shift when severe weather is expected.

• Did US government cuts contribute to the Texas tragedy?

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt rejected attempts to blame the president.

"That was an act of God," she told a daily briefing on Monday.

"It's not the administration's fault that the flood hit when it did, but there were early and consistent warnings and, again, the National Weather Service did its job."

She outlined that the NWS office in Austin-San Antonio conducted briefings for local officials on the eve of the flood and sent out a flood watch that afternoon, before issuing numerous flood warnings that night and in the pre-dawn hours of 4 July.

Trump pushed back when asked on Sunday if federal government cuts had hampered the disaster response, initially appearing to shift blame to what he called "the Biden set-up", referring to his Democratic predecessor.

"But I wouldn't blame Biden for it, either," he added. "I would just say this is a 100-year catastrophe."

Texas Senator Ted Cruz, a Republican, told a news conference on Monday that now was not the time for "partisan finger-pointing".

One local campaigner, Nicole Wilson, has a petition calling for flood sirens to be set up in Kerr County - something in place in other counties.

Such a system has been debated in Kerr County for almost a decade, but funds for it have never been allocated.

Texas Lt Gov Dan Patrick acknowledged on Monday that such sirens might have saved lives, and said they should be in place by next summer.

Meanwhile, condolences continued to pour in from around the world.

King Charles II has written to President Trump to express his "profound sadness" about the catastrophic flooding.

The King "offered his deepest sympathy" to those who lost loved ones, the British Embassy in Washington said.