Ukrainian teen saboteurs recruited on Telegram to attack their own countrypublished at 14:22 GMT 20 November
Ed Main
BBC Trending senior journalist
The BBC has gone undercover online to investigate how Ukrainians are being offered thousands of dollars to stage arson attacks and bombings against their own country.
The Ukrainian government has accused Russia of using Telegram – and in some cases TikTok or even video game platforms – to recruit teenagers and children as young as 11 to carry out sabotage.
With help from BBC Ukrainian we used a burner phone and an alias to join several Telegram channels we had been tipped off about.
These channels are not explicitly pro-Russian, but play on anger felt by some Ukrainians towards the conscription service, which has been dogged by allegations of brutality and corruption.
One we contacted immediately offered payment, either in cryptocurrency or via bank transfer, to carry out arson. We were told to contact a second account for more details and then received a message with a price list detailing how much they paid for different targets. This ranged from $1,500 (£1,150) for setting fire to a post office to $3,000 (£2,300) for a bank.
One 18-year-old, who is in detention awaiting trial on terrorism charges, told the BBC he was promised $2,000 to plant a bomb in a van used by the conscription service, but the attack was foiled.
The BBC has not been able to independently verify that the Russian state itself is responsible. The Russian Embassy in London did not directly comment on Ukraine’s allegations but issued a statement accusing Ukraine of a similar sabotage campaign using Russian citizens.
The BBC reported a number of channels, accounts, chats and bots to Telegram, which removed a few but not most of them. In a statement, Telegram said: “Calls to violence or destruction of property are explicitly forbidden on Telegram and are immediately removed whenever discovered.”