Russian intelligence busted for recruiting Ukrainian youths for anti-Semitic provocations
That’s according to the SBU press center, Ukrinform reports.
"The Security Service exposed new attempts by the Russian special services to destabilize the domestic situation in Ukraine and compromise our country in the international arena. By recruiting underage Ukrainian youths, Russian intelligence tried to incite anti-Semitic sentiments in Zhytomyr region, as well as in Dnipro, Lviv, and Vinnytsia," the report reads.
Russian intelligence recruited Ukrainian teenagers for anti-Semitic provocations / Photo: SBU
The group included 13-17-year-old students from local schools. For their remote recruitment, Russian intelligence operatives set up a radical right-wing Telegram channel with youths being their target audience.
Media files obtained in this way were circulated by the Russian special services in foreign media as fake publications to discredit Ukraine in the eyes of the international community.
In Zhytomyr region, law enforcement exposed a 15-year-old schoolboy from the city of Radomyshl, who had long been brainwashed by operatives from the aggressor state via the internet.
Russian spies demanded that the young man put anti-Semitic inscriptions on one of the memorial signs set up the region.
According to the Office of the Prosecutor General, in August 2023 he desecrated the monuments at several cemeteries. He also drew Nazi symbols on the steles commemorating fighters against Nazism.
"He also desecrated the memorial complex dedicated to Jewish children executed in World War 2: he spray-painted a swastika and offensive inscriptions. The house of a local resident, an ethnic Jew, was also vandalized with similar symbols," the report reads.
The teenager took pictures of the results of his actions before sending them to the chat admin for further publication.
In Dnipro, Lviv and Vinnytsia, local members of the Russian-controlled Telegram channel were also exposed. They turned out to be four schoolchildren from local educational facilities.
The operatives documented Russian intelligence operatives’ calls to their targets in which they incited them to commit acts of vandalism at the memorials of Holocaust victims.
Currently, all of the exposed facts are being investigated under three articles of the Criminal Code, including production and distribution of communist or Nazi symbols and propaganda, as well as promoting the cult of violence and intolerance.
The SBU calls on parents to remain vigilant in order to protect their children from malign influence of Russian intelligence agencies.
As reported by Ukrinform, the police detained in Kyiv region this September two local women who had desecrated the graves of Ukrainian defenders on the Alley of Glory.
