Ukraine says Russia recruits teenage girls for killings via Telegram

Ukraine’s national police chief said Russian operatives were using Telegram and other social platforms to recruit teenage girls for killings of Ukrainian servicemen, a tactic that pushed the war further into homes, apartments and the private lives of minors. Ivan Vyhivskyi said the effort was being coordinated remotely by handlers linked to Russian intelligence, after police arrested a 17-year-old girl suspected of murdering a serviceman in Zhytomyr region.

Vyhivskyi said police had recorded six contract-killing cases arranged through Telegram since the start of 2026, and that one had been stopped before it was completed. He said recruiters sought out young women on messaging platforms, dangled easy money, then directed them from afar. According to his account, the girls were told to identify Ukrainian military personnel on dating websites, rent apartments to meet them, and use methadone, a synthetic opioid that can be lethal in high doses, to lace drinks.

Ukrainian police said the detained suspect was a 17-year-old resident of Berdychiv in Zhytomyr region. Local reporting said the victim was a 27-year-old serviceman who was found dead in a rented apartment after a resident of Zhytomyr alerted police on June 4, 2026. Investigators said the teenager had been in Telegram contact with a man they believed may have been linked to Russian security services.

The allegations fit a broader pattern of hybrid warfare that has repeatedly blurred the line between the front and the rear. Ukrainian police said they foiled a separate Russian spy ring in March 2026 that was planning contract murders of military personnel and volunteers in Kyiv and Kyiv region. Prosecutors later said an international network under Russian intelligence supervision was also planning contract killings and sabotage on European Union territory.

Ukraine’s security service has said more than 1,100 Ukrainians have been accused of arson, terrorism or sabotage during the war, a figure that underscores how heavily Moscow and Kyiv both now focus on covert action, infiltration and internal security. In that climate, the alleged use of teenage girls as disposable intermediaries is especially chilling: it turns online grooming, criminal drugs and wartime espionage into a single pipeline aimed at soldiers far from the battlefield.