Ukrainians hired by Russia carrying out campaign of attacks behind the lines

Russia not only wants to destroy Ukraine on the front lines, but also by infiltrating the streets of its cities far from the combat zone. The Ukrainian Interior Ministry reports almost weekly on cases of Ukrainian citizens hired by the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), the successor agency to the KGB, to carry out attacks behind the lines. Above all, the Kremlin wants to fish in troubled waters, among the silent opposition that thousands of men of draft age are waging to avoid enlisting. Recruitment offices are the main target of Russian sabotage to fuel discontent against the army.

It all began in early February, when five attacks against recruitment offices (TCK) and their military personnel occurred in less than a week. Since then, the Security Service of Ukraine (SSU) has continuously reported the arrests of individuals who allegedly carried out attacks, or were preparing to do so. The latest case came to light after the arrest on May 19 of a 17-year-old, from whom, according to the SSU, explosive material and homemade systems for making them were confiscated. The detainee had planned to plant a bomb in a TCK office in Kyiv.

The young man had previously been investigated for setting fire to military vehicles and was under house arrest. According to Ukrainian authorities, his modus operandi was as follows: he was recruited by the FSB via messaging apps. Through one of these apps, he received orders from Russian agents. The last message informed him of the location where he would find an explosive device that another collaborator had left for him. The SSU claims he was arrested while collecting this material.

Multiple similar cases have emerged since February, and most concur that the accused are young people suffering from marginalized economic and social circumstances. Last April, the SSU arrested a 22-year-old woman who was allegedly ordered by the FSB to transport explosives in the city of Dnipro. The suspect, according to Ukrainian police, was a polysubstance addict from Bakhmut (a city razed and occupied by Russia in 2023) who was living as a refugee in Dnipro.

The SSU stated in its report that the woman was contacted by the FSB through a Telegram job-seeking channel. She received payment in cryptocurrency. The police report suggested that Russian agents intended to remotely detonate the bomb as the woman carried it along a central street in Dnipro. In February, a 21-year-old unemployed man died when the bomb he smuggled into a TCK office in Rivne was remotely detonated.

Social unrest

Moscow is seeking to inflame an already complex social situation for the Ukrainian government. Tens of thousands of men in Ukraine are avoiding compulsory recruitment. Few now voluntarily join the ranks. Most avoid traveling far from their homes to evade recruitment patrols, or pay bribes of up to €5,000 ($5,700) to dodge the draft. The discontent of Ukrainians who do not want to fight is growing in the face of a seemingless endless conflict.

Tensions with the TCK occur daily. A May 27 Ukrainian army statement admitted that cases of “obstruction” of the work of recruitment offices “have increased significantly, with citizens even encouraging them.”

On May 27, three men and a woman were arrested for attacking members of a mobilization patrol in the city of Cherkasy. The video of the brawl, like many similar ones, went viral on social media. A TCK soldier was seriously injured on May 29 in Kharkiv when a bomb exploded in his vehicle. Police do not immediately point to Russian responsibility. Oleksandr Syrskyi, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, ordered an investigation on May 30 to find the leaders of about 100 residents of the city of Kamianets-Podilskyi who attacked a military team working with a TCK patrol.

Russian collaborators are not limited solely to organizing alleged sabotage or attacks. Most of the arrests are of people who, in exchange for money, provide information to the enemy about the Ukrainian military. Seven people were arrested in the last week of May alone.

On May 28, the SSU claimed to have dismantled a network of four collaborators in the town of Kostiantynivka who were passing the coordinates of Ukrainian units to the invader. Russian forces are attempting to surround this municipality, in Donetsk province. The four men acted separately but provided information to the same Russian agent, including the location of Ukrainian military equipment.

On May 30, a 38-year-old taxi driver was detained while filming a military facility in Dnipro. That same day, in the west of the country, in Khmelnytskyi, a 53-year-old Ukrainian citizen was arrested for allegedly providing details of military airfields. According to the SSU report, this man, unlike previous detainees, had been specifically targeted by the FSB for being pro-Russian. Collaboration with the enemy is punishable in Ukraine by life imprisonment.

Collaborators in Europe

Kyiv believes that Russia is already applying the same system of recruiting Ukrainian collaborators in other European countries. This is according to a June 2 statement from the intelligence service of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense (GUR).

“Russian special services have intensified their attempts to recruit Ukrainian citizens to carry out illegal activities within the European Union,” the GUR reports. According to Ukrainian authorities, the people contacted by Russian agents are refugees living in difficult conditions, primarily from the eastern regions of Ukraine occupied by Russian forces. Ukrainian collaborators in Europe monitor strategic infrastructure and carry out other espionage activities, the GUR states, without providing further details.

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