The story jumped following a data from Ukrainian intelligence. Apparently, More than 700 people They have been arrested in the country for crimes of sabotage and terrorism. The problem? That a quarter of them were minors, so an investigation was opened to find out how they had got there. They discovered something much bigger: many of them did not even know they were executing a Russian mission.
Spies and terrorists by accident. The war between Russia and Ukraine has stopped being fought only in the battlefields to infiltrate the teenage mobiles. A growing number of Ukrainian minors is being recruited by Russian intelligence services through messaging applications Like Telegramwith the promise of easy money in exchange for performing tasks ranging from taking photographs of military objectives to the placement of explosives.
One of the most recent cases is that of a 16 -year -old arrested In fraganti In the city of Dnipro while collecting information about Ukrainian military positions For the FSB. Your case It is not exceptional: According to the Ukraine Safety Service (SBU), more than 700 people have been arrested for espionage, sabotage or terrorism directed by Russian agents, and as we said, around 25% were minors.
From Telegram to the battlefield. The capture methods follow a disturbing pattern. Wearing anonymous accounts In Telegram, Discord, WhatsApp or Viber, the Russian agents contact young people offering them Between $ 100 and 1,000 For simple tasks that become more and more dangerous: take photos of anti -aircraft systems, cause fires in critical infrastructure or plant explosives in recruitment stations.
Many of recruited teenagers act knowingly, others believe they are participating in games o Digital challenges, as in the case of two children under 15 and 16 years in Járkiv, who thought to be completing a “Quest” by following FSB instructions to geolocate and record military facilities. These coordinates were used to guide air attacks against the city.
Involuntary suicides. In other cases, the result It has been lethal: two recruited teenagers to place a pump in a train station in Ivano-Frankivsk were Victims of the device itselfremotely activated by its Russian supervisors, in what has been described as a forced suicide operation without knowledge of the executor.
In another, described For the GuardianOleh, a 19 -year -old from East of Ukraine accepted a job offered by a stranger named “Anton” for $ 1,000: he had to collect a backpack in Rivne and sprinkle paint in front of a police station. It happens that there was no paint inside the bag, but an improvised explosive artifact, with cables, an attached mobile and a deadly trap that would have made it, without knowing it, a suicidal attacker.
The operation. Oleh was progressively recruited. He started sending photos of public buildings for 50 dollars in exchange for cryptocurrency payments, which made him enter the orbit of his captors. After refusing to set fire to a building, he was contacted weeks later by another man, “Alexander”, which offered him a new seemingly harmless task and Better remunerated. Oleh convinced his friend Serhiy to join the plan. Both, unemployed and needy money, traveled to Rivne and collected the bags in an agreed area.
The operation, carefully directed by Alexander from Telegram, included precise instructions, video calls, remote surveillance and an alleged spray with which they had to make a symbolic graffiti in front of a police station. However, at the last moment, when opening the package, Oleh discovered that he had been deceived and alerted a policeman nearby. SBU agents who followed the operation arrested both young people. The attack was avoided thanks to signal blocking systems that prevented Alexander from detonating the explosives by a call. The same type of attack had killed a 21 -year -old boy three days before in the same city.
Systematic campaign The Ukrainian authorities They denounce that this strategy is not sporadic or improvised, but a systematic effort For destabilizing the country from within, exploiting the precariousness and emotional vulnerability of its youth. Displaced young people, orphans for war or simply in need of money for a mobile phone have become objectives of a covert war machine that transforms their curiosity and despair into sabotage tools.
Faced with this, the SBU has launched A national campaign of awareness to counteract these tactics: alert messages by SMS, poster posters, educational videos in trains and visits to schools where agents teach adolescents how to detect recruitment signals. He campaign motto“Do not burn yours, burn the enemy,” seeks to reverse the narrative imposed by Moscow.
National Security vs. Childhood Rights. No doubt, the use of minors in espionage and terrorism actions also raises a Legal and ethical dilemma. Under the martial law in force in Ukraine, crimes of betrayal, sabotage or collaboration can lead to Perpetual prison sentenceseven for teenagers. Although the Government ensures that due process and legal representation are being guaranteed, organizations such as Human Rights Watch They warn that minors must be treated under international youth justice standards, prioritizing rehabilitation.
Even so, internal pressure on the authorities It is huge: With a current total war and Russian attacks guided from within the country, even adolescents arrested for collaborating with the enemy are seen as traitors. For the head of the SBU, Vasyl Malyuk, there is no ambiguity: “For us, they are traitors of the State.”
Threat that grows. He counted The Financial Times That the sophistication of Russian recruitment techniques is increasing. In June, the SBU warned about a new tactic: Russian agents who pass Ukrainian officials to manipulate minors and get sabotages or cyber crimes on behalf of the government themselves to harm.
Disinformation, digital anonymity and the use of playful playful dynamics have converted the phones of Ukrainian adolescents into The new front of a war without clear rules. Thus, as the conflict extends, Ukraine is forced to fight not only against missiles and drones, but against an invasion that is also infiltrated in the youngest and most vulnerable minds of his society.
Image | Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, President of Ukraine, Pexels
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