Children in Russia and Ukraine recruited as spies: Report

During the Russia-Ukraine war, both the countries have alleged each of recruiting school children as spies.

Children are easier to recruit and are hardly suspected to be working as spies, thus enabling the spying agencies of both countries to have found a new target, The Economic Times report said.

Quoting a local news outlet, Delfi, the publication stated that a few days ago, a Lithuanian school was warned that Russian intelligence agencies might try to recruit teenagers for hybrid activities.

Vilmantas Vitkauskas, director of the National Crisis Management Centre stated that Russia has already tried this tactic in Ukraine and might plan on doing the same against other countries.

Throwing some light on the recruitment process, Vitkauskas said that in the beginning the teens, children receive messages on social media from strangers suggesting them to take pictures of some insignificant buildings or paint graffiti, in exchange for some money.

Then later the children are instructed to take photographs of military installation, equipment, setting military facilities to fire and even laying of explosives.

Quoting the spokesperson of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), Artem Dekhtiarenko, the report added that around 22 percent of Ukrainians recruited by Russian intelligence service are minors. They are recruited by Russian intelligence services to prepare sabotage acts or terrorist attacks in the country, the report added.

The publication further quoting a report The Kyiv Independent said that the youngest executors of Russian orders were 13-year-old teenagers, whom the SBU exposed for setting fire to Ukrainian Railways' (Ukrzaliznytsia) railroad switchboards.

Russia too accuses Ukraine of recruiting children as spies, the report added. Quoting Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) the publication added that Ukraine’s military intelligence has been working on collecting personal information about Russian schoolchildren with the sole intention of recruiting them for criminal activities.

Multiple Russian citizens accused of carrying out or planning sabotage operations on Ukraine’s behalf were apprehended by the FSB, adding that some of them were women minors, the report added.

Quoting a report by the Newsweek based on social media reports, the publication added that last year in September, an Mi-8 helicopter at an air base was set on fire by two teenagers in Omsk, Russia, using a Molotov cocktail and cigarettes.

The publication quoting a last year’s report by Russia.Post stated that number of acts, involving minors in acts of sabotage, is growing rapidly in both Russia and Ukraine.