US EditionRussia grooms Ukrainian teens as spies and saboteurs
- Security services in Ukraine report that Russian operatives have been enlisting teenagers and young adults within the country to conduct espionage and sabotage activities, with multiple arrests made both in Ukraine and several European countries by mid-2025.
- This recruitment targets vulnerable youths, including orphans and displaced individuals, by offering payments through encrypted messaging apps that resemble scavenger hunt-like games.
- The Security Service of Ukraine has arrested over 700 suspects since spring 2024, including about 175 minors, and reports indicate attempts to bribe around 50 Ukrainian children via messenger apps by May 2025.
- SBU chief Vasyl Malyuk described Russia as aggressively recruiting agents from its own citizens, calling them 'state traitors,' while a teenager arrested in Dnipro was found with photos and coordinates of military targets intended to aid missile strikes.
- These efforts form part of a broader Russian campaign to destabilize Ukraine militarily and ideologically by indoctrinating children and using them as weapons, prompting Ukraine to launch nationwide awareness and rehabilitation initiatives.
26 Articles
26 Articles
In recent months, nearly 200 minors have been arrested by the Ukrainian authorities, the Financial Times reports this week. Kiev accuses them of collaborating with Moscow. If some of them acted deliberately, others would have been fooled by Russian agents. - They risk life imprisonment: in Ukraine, dozens of teenagers recruited by the Russian (International) services.
Oleh found work through a Telegram channel that offered day work and extras. It seemed pretty easy: she had to travel from her home in eastern Ukraine to the western city of Rivne, pick up a backpack with a paint boat and spray it in front of the local police station.
A Telegram message may be just the beginning, writes the Guardian - Ukraine's Security Service warns that with this "model", the Russians will also strike at the West
A Russian Saturday campaign began in the spring of last year in Ukraine and expanded this year. Ukrainian teenagers are in many cases instruments of this campaign – sometimes without their will, writes...
Oleh is 19 years old, unemployed and recently become a father. Desperate, he seeks a way to earn quickly. Between telegram chats and suspicious offers, in 2024 he finds a job...
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