Teenage vandals pay to attack their own country

In July, a 17-year-old man traveled 500 miles from his home in eastern Ukraine to collect bombs and mobile phones hidden in a park in the western city of Rivne.

He said he was promised $2,000 (£1,520) to plant the bomb in a van used by Ukraine’s military recruitment department.

“When I connected the wire, I thought it was going to explode. I thought I might die,” he told the BBC.

The Ukrainian government alleges that Vlad was one of hundreds of children and teenagers recruited online by Russia and paid to carry out sabotage and other attacks on their country. His name has been changed to protect his anonymity.

He said he was told to set up his phone to live-stream the scene to his handlers so they could detonate the device remotely if someone entered the vehicle.

However, Ukrainian SBU security services monitored and foiled the attack. Flood, now 18, is awaiting trial on terrorism charges and could be sentenced to 12 years in prison.

Sitting in the high-security detention center in Rivne with his lawyer by his side, he admitted that he could have helped in the killing.

“I did consider it. But no one likes a draft officer,” he said. “I thought: OK, I’ll be like everyone else.”

The SBU said more than 800 Ukrainians, including 240 minors, some as young as 11, have been confirmed to have been recruited by Russia in the past two years.

However, cyber security expert Anastasiia Apetyk, who teaches internet security courses in Ukraine, is also aware of younger cases. “They’re trying to recruit children as young as 9 or 10 years old,” she said.

Andrei Nebitov, deputy chief of Ukraine’s national police, said there was a well-thought-out strategy to find vulnerable people who could be manipulated.

“Children don’t always fully realize the consequences of their actions,” he said.

“The enemy has no shame in using minors to create explosives from household chemicals and placing them in various locations such as military recruiting offices or police stations.”

Recruitment takes place mainly on the Telegram app, but also on TikTok and even on video gaming platforms, the SBU said. Officials say those recruited are almost always motivated by money rather than pro-Russian sympathies.

Vlad said he did not support Russia and was not involved in criminal activity.

He joined two Telegram channels and posted that he was looking for remote work. Half an hour later, a man who called himself Roman replied. When they later spoke on the phone, Vlad said Roman spoke Russian with a street accent.

Flood said he was initially reluctant but was later persuaded to take on a series of increasingly dangerous missions. First, he was told to collect a grenade, but when he arrived at the designated location, the grenade was missing. Anyway, he got paid $30.

A few days later, he received another assignment – to set fire to a van belonging to the recruitment center, film and escape.

Vlad said he received about $100 in cryptocurrency for that attack, far less than the $1,500 he was promised. Roman told him that if he planted the bomb in Rivne, he would get the rest of the money.

BBC Telegraph found the recruitment sites were not explicitly pro-Russian, but they fueled anger among some Ukrainians over the service. Haunted by accusations of brutality and corruption.

We included several of the messages we received using burner phones and aliases.

The channels contained footage of fires and explosions, which they claimed were carried out on their orders. But the BBC has not yet been able to verify the circumstances of the videos.

One account we contacted immediately offered to pay in cryptocurrency or via bank transfer to carry out the arson. We were told to contact the second account for more details and then received a message with a price list detailing how much they were willing to pay for different targets.

The amount of compensation for setting the post office on fire was $1,500 and the amount for the bank was $3,000. They explain that banks are worth more because security glass makes them harder to attack.

“You either need to pour gasoline in it or throw some Molotov cocktails in it,” the account suggested.

But even ordinary Ukrainians looking for work may find themselves being offered money to carry out sabotage.

We found ads offering high salaries for unspecified part-time jobs posted in various unrelated Ukrainian Telegram groups, including some targeting refugees and even beauty tips. When we followed up, a recruiter again offered thousands of dollars for the arson attack and asked us to send the video as evidence.

“I need all the arson I can get,” they messaged. “It’s much harder to find someone reliable than to part with money. That’s why I pay what I say and I pay quickly, usually within hours of receiving the video.”

The BBC reported a number of such channels, accounts, chats and bots to Telegram, which removed some, but not most. One of the still-active channels has gained over 750 subscribers since we started monitoring, while an account we told Telegram was providing us with direct payments for arson attacks still exists.

“Telegram explicitly prohibits comments that incite violence or damage property and will remove them immediately if discovered,” Telegram said in a statement.

Ukrainian officials have publicly named members of Russian intelligence services they suspect of acting as saboteur handlers.

The BBC has not been able to independently verify whether the Russian government itself was responsible.

However, some European governments say they have evidence that Russian agents recruit young people to carry out acts of sabotage, arson and even surveillance in their countries. Six men jailed in UK For their role in a Russian-ordered arson attack on a London warehouse delivering aid to Ukraine.

In Ukraine, hundreds of suspected saboteurs are awaiting trial, but for some the consequences could be fatal. Several suspects were killed by explosives they carried.

The SBU claimed that Russian agents deliberately detonated the device remotely, knowing their agents would be killed.

In March, a 17-year-old died and a 15-year-old was seriously injured when a bomb he delivered to the Ivano-Frankivsk train station exploded.

The BBC referred the SBU’s allegations to the Russian Embassy in London. In a statement, it accused Ukraine of similar sabotage Use Russian citizens.

“The practices you mentioned have become a hallmark of Ukrainian special forces. In particular: the recruitment of civilians, including children, to carry out arson, damage or explosions against people, buildings or vehicles.”

There are reports that the vandalism in Russia was caused by Ukrainians recruiting people on Telegram. But again, verifying who is actually behind these attacks is notoriously difficult.

In the meantime, Flood has a message for those tempted by recruiters.

“It’s not worth it. Either they cheat you and you go to jail like me, or you have a bomb in your hand and it kills you.”