AJ
An indictment has been submitted to the court against a 16-year-old Kharkiv resident, who is accused of recruiting other teenagers including a 15-year-old girl, to commit arson and bombings in Kharkiv on behalf of the Russian special services, according to the Regional Prosecutor’s Office on February 25.
According to the investigation, a minor from Kharkiv was in Warsaw in the fall of 2024, at which point they were recruited by the Russian special services through Telegram channels that promised easy money, and the boy, on their orders, was looking for perpetrators of arsons and explosions in Kharkiv.
“Through the Telegram messenger, he offered to participate in terrorist attacks – arson of the TCC buildings and other facilities – for a cash reward of 2-3 thousand dollars.
“In order to involve other teenagers in the crime, the accused deliberately misled them, inventing stories about his own participation in arson and ‘safe’ receipt of funds, and in this way, the illusion of impunity was formed, which was supposed to convince the minors of the safety of criminal actions,” wrote the Prosecutor’s Office.
One of the recruits was a 15-year-old girl from Kharkiv who detonated a bomb near the police station in the Slobodskyi district in December 2024 – acting on Russian instructions, she purchased a mobile phone, set up video surveillance, hid an explosive device in a box, and planted it at near the administrative building – a few hours later, an explosion occurred, and law enforcement officers detained the girl, whose trial is still ongoing.
Polish law enforcement officers forcibly returned the 16-year-old accused to Ukraine in 2025, where he was detained.
The Prosecutor of the Kharkiv Regional Prosecutor’s Office approved an indictment against him on the facts of incitement and aiding and abetting a person who committed a terrorist attack by means of an explosion – he is facing a sentence of up to 12 years.
On December 8, 2024, at around 5pm, an unknown explosive device detonated near a police station in the Slobodskyi district of Kharkiv, the police said, adding that the explosion damaged the building’s facade, but there were no casualties.
Law enforcement officers found and took the suspects into custody on December 9, noting that the detainees were a girl and a boy who were not yet 16 years old, according to Petro Tokar, the Head of the Kharkiv region police.
On April 24, 2025, the Regional Prosecutor’s Office reported that the indictment against the 15-year-old girl who planted an explosive in a trash can at the entrance to the police administrative building in the Slobidskyi district of Kharkiv had been sent to court.
