Lithuania claims Moscow’s special services are seeking to turn youngsters into intelligence assets
The Lithuanian Ministry of Education has issued a warning to schools about what it described as possible attempts by Russian special services to enlist teenage students, according to local media.
The warning was delivered by Vilmantas Vitkauskas, deputy director of the National Crisis Management Centre, a government body tasked with managing emergencies and national security threats.
The Delfi news outlet reported on Monday that educators have been told to advise students to be wary of strangers offering seemingly easy jobs online, which authorities say could be a front for recruiting young people into espionage.
Vitkauskas claimed Russia is applying tactics in the Baltic region similar to those allegedly used in Ukraine. Kiev’s security forces have accused Moscow of covertly recruiting local teenagers. Russia, in turn, has claimed that Ukrainian intelligence agencies have used online platforms to recruit vulnerable individuals, including minors, for operations involving espionage and sabotage inside Russia. These efforts are said to intersect with Ukraine’s thriving cybercrime ecosystem.
In December, Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said it had foiled an assassination attempt allegedly organized by Ukrainian operatives, which involved three teenagers acting as scouts. In September 2024, two schoolchildren aged 13 and 14 were apprehended after setting fire to a helicopter. They told police they had been promised more than $60,000 for the act of sabotage.
READ MORE: NATO-backed Ukrainian intelligence seeking to turn Russian teens to crime – FSB
In March, the FSB accused Ukraine’s military intelligence agency (HUR) of trying to collect personal data on Russian schoolchildren through a phishing scheme. The agency said the cyber operation could be used later for recruitment and claimed it was “directed by NATO special services.”
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