On September 1, a new school year began in Ukraine. In Kyiv, 420 schools started training, most of which went to full-time education. However, shortly after classes began, the police began receiving reports of them being mined.
While this may seem like a prank, or mundane phone terrorism, this situation is similar to the events on the eve of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. It may be a variant of civilian intimidation used as a tool of hybrid warfare.
Background
In January 2022, when rumors of a Russian invasion were already a major topic of media attention, a wave of fake minirevents swept through Ukraine. Posts and phone numbers of Ukrainian law enforcers received calls with reports that bombs had been planted in schools, shopping centers and government offices.
In particular, since January 10, 2022 (when most of the schools left the winter break), fake bombings of schools were reported in 12 regions of Ukraine. This wave lasted at least three days. Often, services such as MsgSafe, which allow you to create one-time mailboxes, were used for such messages. On January 20, schools in Kyiv, Dnipro, Berdyansk, Odesa, Rivne and a number of other Ukrainian cities were "booby-trapped".
There was a similar situation last school year. So in early September it was reported about the threat of a terrorist attack in schools in Kyiv, because of which most of them had to be evacuated.
An investigation by BBC News Ukraine indicates that this is probably a whole trend, not only in Ukraine, but also in Russia. Investigators found more than 20 anonymous groups and Telegram channels, the authors of which called for sending messages about mines. Such messages were also received in Moscow, as well as in a number of other Russian cities.
Trend or hybrid warfare
The Security Service of Ukraine reported that since the beginning of 2023, there have been more than 2,000 reports of mined places of mass gathering of people. Most often these are schools, hospitals, shopping centers. For comparison, in 2021 such a figure was about 1,000 cases.
The Security Service of Ukraine directly attributes this to Russian terror tactics against civilians. Indeed, although the handwriting of the "miners" is quite similar, there are facts pointing to the purposefulness and good planning of this action.
In both Russia and Ukraine, the messages come from anonymous sources. However, the investigation has shown that the letters to Ukrainian law enforcement agencies may come from Russian citizens. In particular, this assumption is based on the fact that many messages in January 2022 contained obvious lexical errors indicating the use of automatic translators.
In early 2022, the Security Service reported an increase in this type of crime. In just one month, there were approximately 300 reports of fake bombings. As indicated above - for a whole year such appeals come to about a thousand. This activation of special services linked directly to Russia's attempt to destabilize the situation in Ukraine.
In January 2022, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine reported that 70% of such messages came from the territory of Russia or Belarus. By the end of January 2022, the number of such reports exceeded 500 - more than half of those received a year earlier. The late Minister Denys Monastyrsky said that law enforcers tried to identify criminals by the IP addresses of the servers through which the messages were sent. Often the network through which the letters were sent turned out to be Russian, or the servers were located on their territory.
The investigation directly identified several cells that were coordinated from Russian territory. Thus, in March 2023, the Security Service of Ukraine exposed a group that in October 2022 sent messages about the mining of 14 ships. The work of the group was coordinated by a resident of the Chernihiv region of Ukraine, who directly received instructions from the territory of Russia via messengers.
Recruitment of children
There are cases when schoolchildren themselves report mines to disrupt classes at school, although these cases do not usually occur in a coordinated manner. Nevertheless, schoolchildren are still involved in these actions.
The detained coordinator of the group that reported fake bombings turned out to be a minor. The investigation found that the Russians created a group in one of the popular messengers to involve other minors. It consisted of teenagers, among whom one was appointed coordinator on the territory of Ukraine. And this is not an isolated case.
In Cherkasy, law enforcement authorities exposed two high school students from a local school, who in July 2023 reported the "mining" of the regional military administration and the city shopping center. According to the investigation, the young men acted on the instructions of the FSB representatives, who recruited both students through Telegram channels controlled by the Russian special services.
According to the Ukrainian security services, the Russian occupants use the VK social network banned in Ukraine, Telegram channels and Internet game platforms controlled by the aggressor's special services to recruit Ukrainian teenagers. On these resources, representatives of the Russian security services get acquainted with young users and offer them cooperation. Very often Russia uses methods of blackmail and psychological manipulation, as well as offers money to induce children to engage in subversive activities.
Is there any criminal responsibility?
Ukrainian law itself provides for sanctions for such actions. However, in the context of Russian aggression against Ukraine, the situation may be much deeper.
The Human Rights Ombudsman Service of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine points out that by disrupting the educational process with false reports of mined schools, the initiators are causing great distress and suffering to children, thus violating their rights to protection from all forms of violence, healthy development and education as defined in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (Articles 19, 6, 28).
The problem lies in the fact that, given the credible falsehood of the report about the bombing, separately such action cannot be qualified as terrorism within the meaning of the norms of international law, directly described in the International Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombings and the Council of Europe Convention on the Prevention of Terrorism.
However, comprehensively, the actions of the Russian security services can be regarded as crimes against humanity. Even if we do not take into account the recruitment of children (which itself is considered a crime under international law), the Ombudsman's Office points out that given the systematic nature of such actions and the fact that they are organized and carried out by enemy armed formations, we can speak of a certain state policy aimed at undermining the psychological health of the national group, inflicting suffering (including moral suffering), and driving the population abroad by creating a sense of constant danger.
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