Russia Allegedly Recruits Unsuspecting 19-Year-Olds for Suicide Bombing Plot in Ukraine

Russian intelligence hired two 19-year-olds to bomb a police station in Rivne in western Ukraine – with plans to kill them in the process, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) stated.

The SBU said they were caught while planting the bomb, during which the bomb and “additional covert surveillance equipment with a remote access function for the Russian special services” were seized upon their arrest, the SBU said in its Monday press release.

The SBU said the two suspects were recruited by an unspecified branch of Russian special services on Telegram “for ‘quick’ money,” where they were handed an improvised explosive device (IED) to be planted “near the administrative building of a law enforcement agency” in the center of Rivne.

The suspects presumably came from outside Rivne to carry out the plot.

“After arriving in Rivne, they received from the occupiers the geolocation of the cache from which they took the IED to carry out a terrorist attack,” the SBU press release says.

However, the SBU said that unbeknownst to the teenagers, the Russian special service planned to set off the bomb via a mobile phone connected to the IED before the suspects could get away, killing them in the process.

The SBU did not disclose how they learned of Russia’s plot to kill the suspects in the process. Kyiv Post cannot independently verify the SBU’s claims.

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The SBU also attached photos of the arrest in its press release, with a black backpack visible in the background. It is unclear if the authorities disposed of the IEDs on the spot, before, or after the arrest.

The two suspects are charged with attempts to commit a terrorist attack and face up to 12 years in prison with property confiscation if convicted, the SBU said.

Earlier, the SBU reported that a Ukrainian cadet at a military institute was reportedly plotting to help Russia adjust missile strikes on a facility in western Ukraine – with her classmates present – under promises of financial rewards and subsequent extraction to Russia.