Poland hands teenage Russian agent who plotted terrorist attacks from EU soil over to Ukraine
A teenage asset of the Russian secret services who was uncovered by Security Service of Ukraine (SSU) counterintelligence in Europe has been handed over to Ukraine at the border by Polish law enforcement officers.
Source: Security Service of Ukraine (SSU)
Quote: "Security Service counterintelligence has detained a minor agent of Russia's secret services who, working from EU territory, was seeking people to carry out contract terrorist attacks in Ukraine. Most of the agents he recruited turned out to be teenagers looking for easy money."
Details: The 16-year-old from Kharkiv, who left for the EU in autumn 2024, was detained on Ukraine's western border after being brought there by Polish law enforcement under a forced return procedure.
While living in Poland, he had searched Telegram channels for opportunities to make easy money and had come to the attention of the Russian intelligence services. Once recruited, he was tasked with finding people to carry out terrorist attacks in Ukraine and putting them in touch with Russian operatives who would give them their instructions.
The SSU said his recruits had included two 15-year-olds from Kharkiv, a girl and a boy, who carried out bomb attacks outside police stations in the city's Slobidskyi and Kholodnohirskyi districts in December 2024.
The girl retrieved an improvised explosive device from a hideout, while the boy manufactured another IED himself, filling it with metal nuts. They then placed the devices at the attack sites.
The pair were detained immediately after Russian operatives remotely activated the hidden IEDs.
It has also been established that the teenage agent enlisted a 21-year-old woman from the frontline city of Kostiantynivka to carry out another terrorist attack.
At the start of this year, the woman travelled to Odesa Oblast and rented an apartment where she made an IED from plastic explosive. When she planted it near a military enlistment office, law enforcement officers caught her red-handed, foiling the attack.
The teenage Russian agent is now in custody and faces up to 12 years in prison with confiscation of assets.