Russian special services recruited Ukrainian teens for anti-Semitic provocations
The Security Service of Ukraine (SSU) has reported that it exposed Russian secret services recruiting Ukrainian teenagers to carry out anti-Semitic provocations in different regions of Ukraine.
Source: press services of the Security Service of Ukraine, the National Police of Ukraine and the Prosecutor’s Office of Zhytomyr Oblast
Quote: "By recruiting underage Ukrainian boys the Russian special services were trying to incite anti-Semitism in Zhytomyr Oblast as well as in the cities of Dnipro, Lviv and Vinnytsia.
As a result of complex measures the SSU has neutralised a network of saboteurs which the aggressor was secretly using.
The group consisted of 13- to 17-year-old students of local schools. The Russian special services have created a radical right-wing Telegram-channel for young people in order to recruit them remotely.
The Russian administrators of this Internet resource were using psychological manipulations to urge Ukrainian teenagers to commit anti-Semitic acts in their settlements.
According to the plan of the Russian special services, these provocations were supposed to be conducted in the form of offensive inscriptions on memorial sites and explosions with the use of self-made explosives there.
Herewith the representatives of the aggressor state suggested the members of the community publish photo- and video-reports of these provocations.
Then the Russian special services spread the media files they received in foreign media as fake publications in order to discredit Ukraine."
Details: The investigation has found out that this Telegram-channel had a special chat called National-Socialist Youth Battalion. It was created and administered by a 14-year old Dnipro city resident. Teenagers from different oblasts of Ukraine were members of the group.
They were fond of Nazi symbols, the propaganda of communist and national-socialist regimes; they spread materials about these topics on social media and urged others to do the same.
For instance, a 15-year old resident of the city of Radomyshl in Zhytomyr Oblast had desecrated memorials on several cemeteries in August 2023 with the community’s approval. He painted Nazi symbols on the steles commemorating the people who fought against nazism during WW2.
On 5 September, the police were informed that an act of vandalism was committed overnight at the Memorial to the Jewish children executed during the Second World War and at the mass grave of fallen soldiers. Nazi symbols and an anti-Semitic inscription were painted on the obelisks.
The boy caused harm to an 85-year-old local woman as well, painting symbols and an inscription indicating her nationality on the walls of her house.
The boy took photos of the damage done and sent them to the administrator of the chat to spread them online.
Members of law enforcement have exposed other members of the online community aged 13-17. The investigators of the Chief Directorate of the National Police of Zhytomyr Oblast jointly with the personnel of the SSU Directorate have conducted authorised searches in their places of residence.
During the searches they have found and seized spray paint, books dedicated to corresponding topics, gadgets the teenagers used for committing unlawful acts in the places of residence (the cities of Vinnytsia, Dnipro, Ivano-Frankivsk, Lviv, Radomyshl) of the persons of interest.
A pre-trial investigation is underway, the involvement of other persons is being established.
The SSU asks Ukrainians to be cautious and control the interests of their children in order to prevent the Russian special services influencing them. They also call on the citizens not to give in to the provocations, and assist law enforcement officers in exposing the organisers, executors and accomplices of unlawful acts.
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