The man was wearing a kaki uniform, a baseball cap and a camouflages ski mask, which raised the drama in the classroom in high school. Because he worked as an intelligence officer, he did not announce his name and created even more mystery.
His presentation started with a video with a pile of $ 100 bills on a mousetrap with a red skull and cross bones. “How you don’t fall into the fall of Russian intelligence services,” the video advised.
Towards the end, he had continued the screen after the Chilling screen examples of the past year, including a teenager who died after being that reversed In a suicide terrorist of the Russians without this knowledge. Others would come close. And the 50 young students in the room, aged 16 and 17, would be sounded.
Think of this class, in a high school in the western city of LVIV, as the Ukrainian version of ‘Scared. “The course, introduced this spring by the best internal security agency of Ukraine and the National Police in secondary schools throughout the country, is intended to prevent teenagers from falling under the influence of Russian agents.
“I remind you that the criminal responsibility in Ukraine starts at the age of 14,” said the camouflaged man at the presentation on a recent Wednesday. “Unfortunately, this easy money can lead to criminal liability or to death.”
For more than a year, the Ukrainian authorities say that the Russian state -owned company, known as the FSB, is aimed at Ukrainian teenagers on social media apps such as Telegram, Tiktok and Discord. They are offered hundreds or even thousands of dollars to perform simple tasks: deliver a package. Take a photo of a power sub -station. Spray graffiti.
The FSB did not respond to a request for comments for this article.
Many young people do not necessarily know that they are being recruited. The Ukraine security service, known as the SBU, says that the teenagers often just look for “easy money” on Telegram, where the Russians are waiting for them.
But some correspond to more complicated missions, often because they were blackmailed for the first task they did, or for compromising photos that have been hacked from their phones.
The SBU said at the end of last month that the authorities had accused more than 600 people of trying to commit arson, terrorism or sabotage in Ukraine after he was recruited by Russian intelligence services. Of these were about one in four minors. (The adults often had criminal registers or a history of drug abuse.) One perpetrator was only 13.
In May the head of the National Youth Police in a TV interview said that almost 50 other children Had reported to the authorities that Russians had tried to recruit them.
Since the full invasion of Russia in Ukraine in February 2022, both parties have been working on clandestine warfare. Ukraine has recruited people in Russia for targeted murders at a high level, according to sources of law enforcement. For example the Ukrainians claimed responsibilityY for killing a top Russian general and his assistant with a bomb planted in a scooter in December.
But with the recruitment of the young Ukrainians, the Russians are taking a new step by striving for more random attacks, near military recruitment centers or train stations, said Rokssolana Yoverka-Islesko, an SBU spokeswoman for the LVIV region. It is reminiscent of how teenagers were used as suicide bombers in Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere.
In December the news in Ukraine was filled with reports of an important matter. The SBU and the National Police have held two groups of teenagers in the eastern city of Kharkiv, of which they said Fake “Quest” GameIn which the 15 and 16-year-old tasks were sent, such as setting fires and taking photos and videos of certain goals, even air defenses. Ukrainian authorities said the Russians used the information to perform air strikes in Kharkiv, the second largest city in the country. These claims could not be verified independently.
During the class, the camouflaged agent and Mrs. Yavorka-Isauwko went one by one by other examples.
In March, in the case most resonated with the students, a 15-year-old and a 17-year-old on Telegram in the western city of Ivano-Frankivsk recruited with the promise of $ 1,700 said the Ukrainian authorities. Following the instructions, the teenagers built two bombs from thermos bottles and metal nuts. When they tried to deliver one of the bombs, the authorities said, Russian agents it exploded Remotely near the train station. The 17-year-old was killed and the 15-year-old lost his legs.
In April the SBU caught a 17-year-old and an 18-year-old who Burned train relay boxes In Lviv. They were recruited on Telegram, the authorities said. Searches of their mobile phones showed text messages between the teenagers and their Russian handlers. “Yes, the money will be there tomorrow,” wrote the handler, adding that it would come around lunch. “I have it, Bro,” answered one of the teenagers. In the end, around $ 178 was transferred to his account.
And in May – just three days in front of the class – two teenagers in the western city of Rivne made an explosive device of Russian instructions, placed it in an abandoned building, positioned an ax and covered the entire construction with paint, the authorities said. Then they called emergency services and claimed that there was a dead person. After the police had responded, the bomb exploded, but nobody was damaged. The teenagers were arrested.
The recent class was about the 200th that the agency in the LVIV region has done since the Outreach program started in April. The presenters knew how to keep the teenagers’ attention.
“Perhaps not all these special operations are reported in the media but believe me, the enemy does not sleep,” said Mrs. Yavorka-Islanko. “They work actively and perform illegal activities, no matter how strange it sounds, directly in your phones.”
She added: “And if you hear an offer to quickly earn money for a brand new iPhone or $ 1,000, it sounds of course very tempting. Sometimes the task is disguised as a simple courier’s supply, taking photos of critical infrastructure or spraying provocative graffiti. That is often the first step in the direction of your re -y direction.”
This classroom in the LVIV Secondary School No. 32 resembled a typical scientific classroom in the United States, complete with creaking wooden floors, a poster of a tiger on the wall, models of DNA and lungs in the back, and teenagers in hoodies and jeans, heavy metal t-shirts and a barbie-offspr.
But these students did not make jokes or whisper like many teenagers do. They asked questions: How did the Russians supervise? How could they help combat the FSB?
These students grew up with the war against Russia. Family members fought on the front line. The uncle of a girl was missing.
“Can I help and report it to the security services if I have already been approached for recruitment?” Early Volodia Sozonyk, 17, a boy in a blue hoodie and a manga-t-shirt. “If they have sent me an address or something that I have to do, can I identify that place for your employees to help?”
Mrs. Yavorka-Isaaiko and the camouflaged man told the students that they could report any recruitment attempts to a new chatbot called “the FSB agent.”
And Mrs. Yavorka-Isaaiko told the students that they should use their common sense.
“Nobody in real life will suddenly offer you $ 1,000 or $ 2,000,” she said. “You have to understand: the only free cheese is in the mousetrap.”
Oleksandra Mykolyshyn And Nataliya Vasilyeva contributed reporting.
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