On 1 February, a young man walked into a military enlistment office in Rivne with a bomb in his backpack. Moments later, it detonated, killing him instantly and injuring eight Ukrainian service members. He was just 21, recruited online by Russian intelligence operatives who offered quick cash for sneaking the bomb inside. This attack was not an isolated incident – it was the beginning of a wave of deadly bombings targeting draft offices across the country.
Two more attacks followed this week. In Kamianets-Podilskyi, in the Khmelnytskyi region, a man walked into a recruitment centre, bag in hand, claiming he had personal items to hand over. The bomb went off before he could drop off the bag, killing him and severely injuring two doctors, a soldier and a member of staff. In Pavlohrad, in the Dnipropetrovsk region, another bomb blast injured a serviceman. Three suspects were soon detained: all the bombers were recruited by Russian-run Telegram channels designed to sabotage Ukraine’s conscription efforts.
More than 80 per cent of Ukrainians use the Russian-made app to follow breaking news, but its hidden side offers far more. Ukrainians can earn $100 for exposing the home addresses and photos of enlistment officers, $2,000 for setting their vehicles on fire and $5,000 for burning down a draft office. The reward for the assassination of a draft officer (usually a war veteran) is ‘negotiable’. The recruits – mainly young, unemployed men opposing conscription – start small, spreading posters in their home regions with QR codes linking to these Telegram channels, before going on to blow up soldiers’ cars, plant explosives at enlistment offices and even carry out targeted killings.
Ukraine’s security service is working overtime to capture the collaborators. According to Serhiy Andrushchenko, first deputy head of the agency, nearly 500 people were detained last year for burning private cars of military personnel (some 300 were torched across the country), damaging railways and planting explosives at draft offices. Andrushchenko says Russians now tend to remotely detonate the bomb while the collaborator is still on-site – to avoid paying for their services. ‘Russian intelligence treats these people as expendable material,’ he said. ‘The FSB doesn’t care what happens to them once the job is done.’
As a countermeasure, Ukraine has launched an official Telegram chatbot, ‘Expose the FSB Agent’, where citizens can report suspicious messages or channels. Since December, it has received nearly 2,300 reports of Russian attempts to recruit saboteurs.
The security risks of Telegram have long been debated in Ukraine. Spy chief Kyrylo Budanov has repeatedly warned that the app poses a serious national security threat, saying that Russian intelligence services can access users’ personal data, including deleted messages. Last September, Kyiv restricted Telegram’s use on government-issued devices, banning it for state officials, military personnel and critical infrastructure workers. However, the decision doesn’t extend to personal smartphones.
A full nationwide ban has yet to be discussed. Despite its risks, Telegram remains Ukraine’s most widely used news source. Would banning it be unpopular? Almost certainly. But at a time when the country is struggling to mobilise troops and when critical infantry shortages are allowing Russian forces to push forward, it shouldn’t even be a question. As Ukraine’s army chief warned this week, national defence is impossible without public support and respect for the military. Hunting down traitors one by one is an uphill battle. Shutting down the Russian network is far easier.
This article was originally published in Svitlana’s weekly Ukraine in Focus newsletter.
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