Russia is allegedly recruiting young Ukrainian women, including teenagers, to carry out assassinations against service members in honeypot traps, Ukraine’s top cop said.
National police chief Ivan Vyhivskyi said there have been at least six cases of contract killings arranged on Telegram between Russian operatives and Ukrainian women so far, including one involving a 17-year-old suspect, local Cenzor.NET reported.
“We are talking about planned murders organized by the special services of the aggressor state and carried out by Ukrainian citizens,” Vyhivskyi said, adding that only one of the assassination cases was prevented.
The operations allegedly begin with Russian recruiters scouting young women on messaging platforms, promising them easy money and coordinating their actions remotely, the police chief said.
The young women are specifically asked to go on adult dating websites and search for Ukrainian military personnel, with Russia providing them money to rent apartments for the deed.
Before the meetup, the women are instructed on where they can get methadone, a synthetic opioid used as a painkiller that can be lethal in high doses, Vyhivskyi added.
The women are also coached on how to lace the servicemen’s drinks with the poison during the meetup.
One such case was reported last week when police found a 27-year-old soldier dead in a residence in the Zhytomyr region, with a powdery substance found in his dishware, according to the national police.
A 17-year-old girl from Berdychiv was arrested in connection with the murder on June 4, telling police she was instructed to poison the man at the instructions of a suspected Russian security services agent over Telegram.
The girl added that she had received a parcel of a clear substance, likely methadone, to carry out the assassination, police added.
The suspect allegedly put the methadone into an alcoholic drink for the serviceman, with the girl leaving the residence after the soldier fell unconscious and died, authorities said.
Ukraine and Russia have previously accused each other of recruiting each other’s citizens to carry out target assassinations against servicemembers through the war.
More than 1,100 Ukrainians have been accused so far of committing arson, terrorism or sabotage in acts of betrayal against their country since the war began in February 2022.
With Post wires
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