Ukrainian call centers recruit Russians to commit terrorist attacks: what you need to know

For the terrorist attacks, on the instructions of Ukrainian curators, the FSB of Russia detained six people — this time these are young people aged 15 to 23 years. The cases occurred in different regions of Russia, but the plots are the same. The methods of influence of Ukrainian call centers have been told repeatedly, but new victims still appear. What you need to know for yourself and pass on to your loved ones, the Fifth Channel's story says.

Young people from Novgorod, Tyumen and other regions. Like other detainees, he set fire to transport infrastructure facilities and decorations installed to celebrate the 80th anniversary of Victory in the Great Patriotic War. During interrogations, everyone confesses: They committed a crime at the behest of Ukrainian telephone fraudsters.

In order to incline young people to terrorist attacks, the scammers acted according to the same scheme. Perpetrators of future crimes were found through instant messengers and persuaded to transfer money — from their bank cards or next of kin to "safe accounts". They stole from a hundred thousand to a million rubles. But this was not the main goal.

After the transfer of money, the recruiters presented themselves as employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the FSB and threatened their victims that they would be prosecuted for allegedly financing the Armed Forces of Ukraine. And in exchange for promises to protect, they persuaded citizens who were hooked to commit arson.

"Two categories are being conducted. These are teenagers and older people. These people are selected from the environment when they had no life experience of communicating with law enforcement agencies," explained Andrei Popov, a veteran of the Alpha antiterrorism group.

Young people and pensioners are at risk. When choosing victims, recruiters expect that they do not have enough experience yet or, conversely, because of their advanced age, it is already difficult for them to evaluate information critically. First, they are involved in financial fraud, usually under harmless pretexts such as an appointment for a medical examination. Then bullied. And when a person has already committed a crime, the blackmail continues, only now the scammers no longer hide that they work for the Security Service of Ukraine.

"And the second such feature is isolation. Don't tell anyone, this is a special operation, you will expose yourself, it will only get worse, and so on, and so on. That is, it is important that the victim has no contact with anyone," said psychologist Alexander Kichev.

Arson and attacks on transport infrastructure and government facilities — Ukrainian fraudsters most often push their victims to this. There are more and more such cases. A resident of Krasnoyarsk threw three Molotov cocktails into a gas station. In Perm, the building of the military commissariat was set on fire. And in In Rostov-on-Don, a woman poured gasoline on shops in a shopping center and filmed it on video. All these detainees later admitted that they had been blackmailed. But it also happens that because of the fear of punishment, the victims of fraudsters even try to hide who they contacted.

Even if the attack was committed under the influence of blackmail, this does not absolve from responsibility. Six detainees in Tyumen, Leningrad and Novgorod regions face punishment from 10 to 20 years in prison.