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
Short Url
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
US heading to ‘authoritarianism’, warns Human Rights Watch
- HRW: US President Donald Trump has shown ‘blatant disregard for human rights and egregious violations’
WASHINGTON: Human Rights Watch warned Wednesday that President Donald Trump was turning the United States into an authoritarian state as democracy declines globally to its lowest ebb in four decades.
Trump’s return to the White House has intensified a “downward spiral” on human rights that was already under pressure from Russia and China, the New York-based advocacy and research group said in its annual report.
“The rules-based international order is being crushed,” HRW said.
In the United States, the group said, Trump has shown “blatant disregard for human rights and egregious violations.”
In descriptions that would have been unthinkable in the US section of its previous annual reports, the group pointed to the deployment of masked, armed agents — the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency — which has carried out “hundreds of unnecessarily violent and abusive raids.”
“The administration’s racial and ethnic scapegoating, domestic deployment of National Guard forces in pretextual power grabs, repeated acts of retaliation against perceived political enemies and former officials now critical of him, as well as attempts to expand the coercive powers of the executive and neuter democratic checks and balances, underpin a decided shift toward authoritarianism in the US,” the report said.
Human Rights Watch repeated its finding that the United States engaged in enforced disappearances — a crime under international law — by sending 252 Venezuelan migrants to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador.
Trump’s return to the White House has intensified a “downward spiral” on human rights that was already under pressure from Russia and China, the New York-based advocacy and research group said in its annual report.
“The rules-based international order is being crushed,” HRW said.
In the United States, the group said, Trump has shown “blatant disregard for human rights and egregious violations.”
In descriptions that would have been unthinkable in the US section of its previous annual reports, the group pointed to the deployment of masked, armed agents — the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency — which has carried out “hundreds of unnecessarily violent and abusive raids.”
“The administration’s racial and ethnic scapegoating, domestic deployment of National Guard forces in pretextual power grabs, repeated acts of retaliation against perceived political enemies and former officials now critical of him, as well as attempts to expand the coercive powers of the executive and neuter democratic checks and balances, underpin a decided shift toward authoritarianism in the US,” the report said.
Human Rights Watch repeated its finding that the United States engaged in enforced disappearances — a crime under international law — by sending 252 Venezuelan migrants to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador.
Latest updates
Recommended
© 2026 SAUDI RESEARCH & PUBLISHING COMPANY, All Rights Reserved And subject to Terms of Use Agreement.