KYIV: Ukraine’s security service on Wednesday accused Russia of blowing up two teenage boys it had recruited to make bombs and plant them near a Ukrainian railway station.
Ukraine and Russia frequently accuse each other of recruiting civilians to carry out sabotage attacks in their local areas, often on railway infrastructure, offering financial incentives and grooming them via social media.
An explosion Tuesday evening in the center of the western city of Ivano-Frankivsk killed a 17-year-old boy on the spot and seriously injured a 15-year-old boy, the SBU security service wrote on Telegram.
In a statement it said “the Russian security service blew up two of their own agents” by remotely triggering an improvised explosive device they were carrying.
Prosecutors said the boys were planning to plant the device near the city’s railway station.
The SBU said Russia had recruited the local teens through Telegram channels, calling them college students “in search of ‘easy money’.”
A Russian handler rented an apartment where the teens learnt bomb-making and fashioned two improvised devices disguised as thermos flasks, packing them with metal nuts to maximize injuries, the SBU said.
As the boys walked together, carrying one of the devices in a package, Russian security services remotely tracking them on GPS “activated the improvised explosive device,” the Ukrainian agency said.
Two bystanders suffered shrapnel wounds while another explosive device left in the rented apartment was also remotely triggered minutes later, prosecutors said, posting a picture of firefighters tackling a blaze.
The Ivano-Frankivsk region, near the border with Poland, has had critical infrastructure damaged by Russian bombing.
“All the circumstances of the crime are currently being established,” prosecutors said.
The SBU said the 15-year-old survivor would be classed as a suspect and risked charges of aiding a “terrorist act” and illegally making explosives, punishable by up to a life sentence.
Ukraine says Russia blew up teens recruited to make bombs
https://arab.news/pcszr
Ukraine says Russia blew up teens recruited to make bombs
- Ukraine and Russia frequently accuse each other of recruiting civilians to carry out sabotage attacks in their local areas
- Prosecutors said the boys were planning to plant the device near the city’s railway station
Venezuela swears in 5,600 troops after US military build-up
- American forces have carried out deadly strikes on more than 20 vessels, killing at least 87
CARACAS: The Venezuelan army swore in 5,600 soldiers on Saturday, as the United States cranks up military pressure on the oil-producing country.
President Nicolas Maduro has called for stepped-up military recruitment after the United States deployed a fleet of warships and the world’s largest aircraft carrier to the Caribbean under the pretext of combating drug trafficking.
American forces have carried out deadly strikes on more than 20 vessels, killing at least 87.
Washington has accused Maduro of leading the alleged “Cartel of the Suns,” which it declared a terrorist organization last month.
Maduro asserts the American deployment aims to overthrow him and seize the country’s oil reserves.
“Under no circumstances will we allow an invasion by an imperialist force,” Col. Gabriel Rendon said Saturday during a ceremony at Fuerte Tiuna, Venezuela’s largest military complex, in Caracas.
According to official figures, Venezuela has around 200,000 troops and an additional 200,000 police officers.
A former opposition governor died in prison on Saturday where he had been detained on charges of terrorism and incitement, a rights group said.
Alfredo Diaz was at least the sixth opposition member to die in prison since November 2024.
They had been arrested following protests sparked by last July’s disputed election, when Maduro claimed a third term despite accusations of fraud.
The protests resulted in 28 deaths and around 2,400 arrests, with nearly 2,000 people released since then.
Diaz, governor of Nueva Esparta from 2017 to 2021, “had been imprisoned and held in isolation for a year; only one visit from his daughter was allowed,” said Alfredo Romero, director of the NGO Foro Penal, which defends political prisoners.
The group says there are at least 887 political prisoners in Venezuela.
Opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Corina Machado condemned the deaths of political prisoners in Venezuela during “post-electoral repression.”
“The circumstances of these deaths — which include denial of medical care, inhumane conditions, isolation, torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment — reveal a sustained pattern of state repression,” Machado said in a joint statement with Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, the opposition candidate she believes won the election.
