Russian sabotage strategy: How Ukrainians are being recruited online

In recent days, there have been a series of military pickup truck arsons in Ukraine. These incidents occurred in various parts of the country that were not directly impacted by the war—in Lviv, Rivne, Odesa, and Alexandria. In one of these cases, in Alexandria, the perpetrator turned out to be a 28-year-old unemployed Ukrainian woman who acted on the orders of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB).

The Russian FSB assigned her to set fire to a vehicle and a local recruitment office via the Telegram messaging app. She was offered 10,000 and 50,000 hryvnias to complete these two sabotage actions, respectively, which convert to slightly less than £220 and £1,080.

According to information provided by the Ukrainian service Strana, officers of the Security Service of Ukraine have noticed that for some time, Russian security services have been trying to recruit Ukrainians, mainly young people, to carry out acts of sabotage. They use various social platforms for this purpose, such as Telegram or VKontakte, which are banned in Ukraine, as well as the darknet and online games.

They employ different techniques like intimidation, psychological manipulation, or bribery. A particularly effective method involves young people in a multi-stage challenge that starts with an innocent act, like writing an anti-Ukrainian slogan on a building wall and ends with a severe act of sabotage, like setting a building on fire with a Molotov cocktail.

The aim of these actions is not to limit Ukraine's defence capabilities. As explained by Julia Tkacz, a spokeswoman for the authorities of the Kryvyi Rih region, in a conversation with the Suspilne service, it is primarily about propaganda value. These types of operations aim to create the impression that there is an anti-Ukrainian underground in Ukraine. Additionally, they aim to provide the Russian propaganda machine with evidence of the brutality and arbitrariness of Ukrainian services, which are then widely spread on social media, not only in Ukraine but also in Russia and the West.

"They recruit Ukrainians by offering monetary rewards for setting fire to cars, TCC buildings, or simply armed forces properties. Then, they use and spread videos of these arsons online. They claim that the goal of Ukrainians undertaking these actions is to cause internal chaos in the country, leading to riots or civil war," Julia Tkacz explains.

According to information obtained by journalists from the Important Stories service, at the beginning of June, four clients appeared on one of the largest Russian-language darknet portals, seeking contractors to set fire to military vehicles in Ukraine. They offered the equivalent of £1,200 to £1,500 for setting fire to cars of Ukrainian security forces and TCC in cities such as Lviv, Kyiv, Dnipro, Odesa, and others. The ads were posted in Russian, and the authors were not active in other service sections; they registered just before posting them. They contacted potential contractors via encrypted messengers or Telegram. One of them declared that his offer was motivated by pacifist reasons.

Although on a smaller scale, similar actions also occur in other countries. An example is the case of a 26-year-old Colombian who, on June 13th, set fire to buses parked at a depot in Prague’s Klíčov district. A Russian client contacted him through the same platform.

However, not all such actions end in "success." For example, an attempted attack on an American military base in the German city of Grafenwoehr, where Ukrainian M1A1 Abrams tank crews are being trained, failed. In October of last year, a 39-year-old Dieter Schmidt, born in Russia and previously fighting with separatists in the self-proclaimed Luhansk People's Republic, was caught photographing the facility. He had also accepted an assignment for terrorism or sabotage via a messaging app.