The Russians recruited minor Ukrainians for anti-Semitic provocations in Zhytomyr region, as well as in Dnipro, Lviv, and Vinnytsia.
This was reported by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU).
Students of local schools aged 13 to 17 were involved in the network of provocateurs. In the right-wing radical Telegram channel, Russians called on Ukrainian children to carry out anti-Semitic actions in their towns and villages. Teenagers were supposed to put offensive inscriptions on memorials and detonate improvised explosive devices there. Then, photo and video reports were required from the participants.
Russian special services "dispersed" these s0-called "evidences" in foreign media to discredit Ukraine.
In particular, a 15-year-old schoolboy from the city of Radomyshl (Zhytomyr region) was exposed, whom the Russians psychologically "processed" over the Internet for a long time. The occupiers forced the young man to write anti-Semitic inscriptions on one of the memorial signs in his area.
Similar provocative images were found on the walls of several private houses.
In Dnipro, Lviv and Vinnytsia, four local schoolchildren were also signed up to the Russian-controlled Telegram channel. The Russians urged them to commit acts of vandalism at the memorial sites of the Holocaust victims.
During searches of the teenagersʼ homes, computers and phones with photos of completed "assignments" were found, as well as components for home-made explosives.
The investigation is ongoing under three articles of the Criminal Code of Ukraine:
- Part 2 of Art. 297 (insulting a grave, other place of burial or the body of the deceased);
- Part 1 of Art. 300 (import, manufacture or distribution of goods that promote the cult of violence and cruelty, racial, national or religious intolerance and discrimination);
- Part 1 of Art. 436-1 (production, distribution of communist and Nazi symbols and propaganda of communist and national socialist (Nazi) totalitarian regimes).
SBU urges parents to be vigilant and monitor their childrenʼs preferences in order to prevent hostile influence.