Through interviews with police and intelligence officials in six countries across Europe and the Middle East, The Financial Times established that this 17-year-old is one of a growing number of teenagers who are being recruited online by hostile states for spying and sabotage.<\/p>\n
The boy \u2013 \u201can avid gamer who is good with computers\u201d, according to an interview with his father in De Telegraaf \u2013 is now awaiting trial. His father, who described his son as \u201cnaive\u201d, remains bewildered. \u201cWe raise our children to prepare them for all kinds of dangers in life: smoking, vaping, alcohol and drugs,\u201d he told the Dutch newspaper. \u201cBut not for something like this.\u201d <\/p>\n
Russia<\/a> and Iran<\/a> have long enlisted proxies to perform hostile acts on European soil, but targeting minors represents a new twist on their subversive gig economy.<\/p>\n The tactic first emerged in Ukraine<\/a>, where teenagers have been recruited online for sabotage, espionage and to spread propaganda. Moscow has since sought underage foot soldiers west towards Poland<\/a>, the Netherlands<\/a> and the UK<\/a>. Tehran, spotting an opportunity to accelerate operations against Iranian dissidents in Europe and sow chaos in Israel<\/a>, was quick to follow suit.<\/p>\n \u201cHostile states are absolutely trying to target teenagers,\u201d says Dominic Murphy, who stepped down six weeks ago as head of the London Metropolitan Police<\/a>\u2019s counterterrorism command, which oversees investigations into national security threats across England and Wales. \u201cI was surprised by the scale of the challenge because it really seemed to come very suddenly, 18 months ago. I was then equally surprised by the volume of youngsters that were ready and willing to engage online … and how quickly this was moving to real-world activity.\u201d<\/p>\n Ukrainian intelligence officials say 21 per cent of those arrested for collaborating with Russia in 2025 were teenagers. A significant proportion of the arrests made in connection with anti-Semitic attacks across Europe claimed by the Iranian-backed militia group Ashab al-Yamin \u2013 also known by the longer name Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamia, or Hayi \u2013 involve local perpetrators in countries such as Britain, France<\/a> and the Netherlands who are under 18.<\/p>\n The recruitments follow a similar pattern: young people are usually approached on online channels which are well hidden and hard to track: from Telegram to TikTok<\/a>, Snapchat<\/a>, Facebook<\/a> and Discord. They are offered money, commonly cryptocurrencies<\/a>, in exchange for completing tasks. Their recruiters depend on anonymity; many work for criminal groups which, like cyber hackers, may be independent from the state but co-opted by intelligence agencies for covert operations. <\/p>\n Gaming sites \u2013 the most widely consumed entertainment media among 13- to 24-year-olds \u2013 have become an obvious hunting ground for potential saboteurs with a proven interest in problem solving.<\/p>\n In Ukraine, the chat function in the popular online game World of Tanks is commonly used as a recruitment portal, from which agents then move the conversation to Telegram. Some state-backed agents, especially those working for Russia, also invoke the mission format and \u201cquest\u201d mentality of online games to entice young people to move beyond the virtual battlefield to real-world action. It is, says one western military official, \u201clike a game of Pok\u00e9mon Go, but with air-defence systems\u201d.<\/p>\n Preventing minors from being drawn into this net has rapidly become a top priority for Europol<\/a>, the European Union<\/a>\u2019s intelligence and crime-fighting agency. \u201cWe have a young generation which is slightly detached from their parents, that are educated online, often by social media<\/a> or gaming platforms,\u201d the agency\u2019s director, Catherine De Bolle said in an interview conducted just before she stepped down from her post last month.<\/p>\n \u201cA young person who is still developing an ethical and moral compass, who hasn\u2019t found their place in society, is psychologically more vulnerable to approaches by somebody who gives them attention, who gives them care, who engineers a way into their life and gains their trust,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n Yet the states view the teenagers they employ as disposable. There is little risk for them if the operations fail, and upside only if they succeed. Any connection to Russia or Iran is hard for European intelligence agencies to prove, and for the aggressor states, entirely deniable. The jeopardy lies with the recruits, such as the Dutch teenager, whose lives will be irrevocably changed if they convert online tasking into an actual mission.<\/p>\n The result, according to police and intelligence officials, is that Russia and Iran are exploiting a generation of digital natives to further their aims in so-called hybrid warfare \u2013 the no-man\u2019s land between peace and armed conflict.<\/p>\n \u201cThe anonymity of the online environment gives [minors] the ability to engage in what they might see as edgy behaviour,\u201d says one British security official. \u201cThey might not see the impact or real-world consequences.\u201d<\/p>\n Just over a year ago, Ukrainian police arrested two groups of suspected Russian agents who were covertly photographing air-defence systems on the outskirts of Kharkiv. <\/p>\n At first, this looked like standard espionage, directed by Moscow\u2019s FSB spy agency to advance its conflict in eastern Ukraine. But the perpetrators were not Russian infiltrators or trained agents but local teenagers.<\/p>\n The children, all aged 15 or 16, had been unwittingly recruited by the FSB to collect intelligence under the guise of a \u201cquest\u201d game \u2013 a citywide scavenger hunt in which participants compete to finish a list of challenges.<\/p>\n They received geographical co-ordinates of the defence systems from their Russian handlers via a chatroom, according to details of the operation uncovered by Ukraine\u2019s SBU intelligence agency. They were asked to travel to the area, take photos and videos and provide a description; Moscow later used this information to carry out air strikes on Kharkiv. Other tasks given to the groups included setting fire to Ukrainian military vehicles. <\/p>\n SBU intelligence officials say that far from being the exception, Russia\u2019s recruitment of minors, and even children \u2013 which began a year into the conflict \u2013 is now the norm. The Kremlin widened its net after Ukrainians who might previously have had some Russian sympathies became alienated by the war. Enlisting young Ukrainians had the benefit of destabilising the country internally, by co-opting the younger generation to subvert the national war effort.<\/p>\n For Moscow, Ukrainian minors represent \u201cthe line of least resistance\u201d, says Laura Brady, a Ukraine-Russia analyst at the Earendel Associates consultancy. \u201cA younger person will be less curious, perhaps, about why they\u2019re being asked to do something,\u201d she says. \u201cThey\u2019ll be cheaper to employ. There\u2019ll be less caution about going through with an activity which might seem a bit odd. Children are fundamentally more impulsive.\u201d<\/p>\n Russian agents\u2019 methods include positioning themselves as peacemakers. One SBU official describes how a Ukrainian teenager might be enticed to burn down local military recruitment offices and their vehicles on the basis that this would prevent their brother, father or other male relative from being forcibly mobilised into the army. <\/p>\n According to the SBU, the youngest Ukrainians to have been recruited by Moscow were just 11 \u2013 one in Kyiv, the other in Odesa. These children, both boys, were tasked with burning cars and setting fire to electricity boxes in residential buildings. <\/p>\n Older teenagers are typically given an escalating ladder of activities, akin to training. They might be asked to print anti-war leaflets and post them around their neighbourhood, then commit minor acts of arson, progressing to arson endangering life; and, finally, the construction and detonation of bombs. <\/p>\n The results can be catastrophic, not least for the perpetrators. In March last year, in the western Ukrainian city of Ivano-Frankivsk, a 17-year-old boy died and his 15-year-old accomplice lost his legs after a bomb they had built exploded before they had reached their intended detonation site. The boys had been recruited by Russian agents on Telegram and offered $1,700 \u20ac1,470) to plant the device. SBU officials say they became unwitting suicide bombers, or what the Russian agents refer to as \u201csingle-use agents\u201d.<\/p>\n Teenage recruits can expect life-changing penalties if caught. Two 14-year-old boys who set off a self-made bomb near a police station in Kyiv three months ago at the behest of a Russian recruiter were swiftly caught by the SBU. Despite their ages \u2013 and the fact that no one was harmed in the attack \u2013 they face prison sentences of up to 12 years.<\/p>\n The SBU now believes that Russia is scaling up its targeting efforts. Brady adds that young people who are successfully drawn into Russia\u2019s sphere of influence are often challenged to recruit their peers through TikTok or Telegram or their gaming platforms, \u201cso the recruits themselves are force multipliers\u201d.<\/p>\n The first signs that Moscow\u2019s hunt for young saboteurs was reaching farther into Europe were seen in the countries along Ukraine\u2019s border.<\/p>\n In Poland, teenage Ukrainians were caught spraying anti-Polish slogans on national monuments. In Latvia<\/a>, Moscow has co-opted young people to distribute pro-Russian propaganda leaflets and to attack cars and buildings belonging to the Ukrainian diaspora. In Lithuania<\/a>, a 17-year-old Ukrainian national, Daniil Bardadim, set fire to an Ikea store in Vilnius in 2024 on behalf of Russian security services. He pleaded guilty to arson and is currently serving a three-year prison sentence.<\/p>\n Ukrainian intelligence officers, who have become adept at detecting the threat to minors, are now advising European allies on how to counter it. While Russia\u2019s domestic intelligence agency, the FSB, was masterminding the approaches to Ukrainian teenagers, the GRU (its military intelligence directorate) and SVR (the foreign intelligence agency) are behind the operations to recruit minors further afield, the SBU believes.<\/p>\n At the headquarters of Latvia\u2019s VDD domestic security service in Riga, the agency\u2019s director general, Normunds Me\u017eviets, describes how Moscow\u2019s agents guide novice recruits through a thicket of ever-riskier activities. <\/p>\n The first task might be just to set fire to a car. \u201cYou need guts to do it at night time, when you are alone. You have to buy a liquid, to make this Molotov cocktail, then you have to look for the target, do some reconnaissance,\u201d Me\u017eviets says. \u201cThe risk is not very high, but there is lots of pressure. You are nervous about how to approach this target, you have to then run away, to hide yourself. It takes something from the person, especially if this person is not experienced.\u201d<\/p>\n Latvian saboteurs might graduate to targeting cars with Ukrainian number plates, then Ukrainian trucks, then set fire to a property belonging to a Ukrainian \u00e9migr\u00e9. The next step would be attacking critical infrastructure \u2013 an army base, where there is a fence, surveillance and security staff. \u201cBy this time, you are emotionally and psychologically prepared to do it,\u201d Me\u017eviets explains. Often these more sophisticated attacks are reserved for older recruits in their 20s or 30s.<\/p>\n Russian agents invent a range of cover stories to explain why a task needs to be done. \u201cThere is some kind of legend. They\u2019ll say, \u2018This is a bad person who owes money to someone … so to punish him, here is \u20ac500. Why not burn down his car?\u2019\u201d says Me\u017eviets.<\/p>\n The VDD chief has little sympathy for those who are taken in. \u201cIf you are not a total blockhead, sooner or later you will understand very well what you are doing,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n NOTE TO EDITORS: This handout photo may only be used in for editorial reporting purposes for the contemporaneous illustration of events, things or the people in the image or facts mentioned in the caption. Reuse of the picture may require further permission from the copyright holder. Moscow\u2019s agents are now recruiting teenagers in western Europe, including the UK.<\/p>\n These cases are particularly hard to track because they reach public attention only if they come to court and there are multiple reporting restrictions around any offences involving minors. <\/p>\n However, the Met has acknowledged that it is arresting teenagers for sabotage and reconnaissance activities. \u201cChildren and young people are vulnerable to … hostile activity,\u201d Vicki Evans, the UK\u2019s senior national co-ordinator for counterterrorism policing, admitted last year. \u201cIt is a huge concern for us.\u201d<\/p>\n Murphy, the former Metropolitan Police commander, recalls that about 18 months ago the force started to notice youngsters \u201cconducting hostile reconnaissance for a variety of different reasons on behalf of a foreign state\u201d, citing both Russia and Iran. \u201cWe were increasingly seeing younger people engaging in what looked almost like a parallel universe.\u201d <\/p>\n The Met has previously released data showing that 20 per cent of the people it arrests in counterterrorism cases are aged 17 or under. Murphy estimates that a similar proportion of minors are now being arrested by the force in connection with national security activity.<\/p>\n Just last week, a court at London\u2019s Old Bailey heard that a Norwegian teenager had been hired by a Swedish organised-crime group used by the Iranian regime, to murder an unknown target in the UK.<\/p>\n The alleged perpetrator, Johannes Natland, had only just turned 18 when he flew into Manchester airport and was directed by his handlers to a hidden stash of weapons and a stolen car, according to the prosecution. He was arrested in a hotel room in west Yorkshire before he had carried out the hit. A search of his room revealed a semi-automatic pistol, a revolver and 12 rounds of live ammunition. Natland denies a charge of conspiracy to murder. The trial is ongoing.<\/p>\n Investigators at Europol have observed teenagers across the continent being lured to action in similar ways. <\/p>\n Nefarious actors congregate in online forums such as extremist right-wing Discord groups and Telegram channels. \u201cIt could be a Swedish organised crime group trafficking cocaine, or a terrorist recruiter, or a state looking for people to carry out hybrid attacks,\u201d says De Bolle, the former Europol director. \u201cAll these different actors have the same interests in trying to find young people and give them tasks.\u201d<\/p>\n The Dutch 17-year-old arrested in Rotterdam last year, along with an accomplice of the same age, is accused of using a wifi-intercepting technology to eavesdrop on government and law-enforcement buildings in The Hague, including Europol\u2019s own headquarters.<\/p>\n One of the boys was approached on Telegram by a hacking group affiliated with the Russian government and offered payment in exchange for their services. The two teenage suspects are still awaiting a court date.<\/p>\n For De Bolle, the exploitation of minors by criminals of all types is Europol\u2019s top priority and a rapidly growing risk. Children massing on social media and gaming platforms are, she says, \u201csuper simple\u201d to identify and recruit. <\/p>\n \u201cFor the groups who are using them \u2013 if they are successful, fine, if they are partly successful, fine, if this person is killed, so what? And if this person is arrested, so what? It\u2019s a fire-and-forget weapon,\u201d De Bolle adds. This is, she says, \u201cthe criminal adaptation of our throwaway society\u201d.<\/p>\n A gambit born in the heat of the Ukraine war is now being deployed further east, in the conflict between Israel and Iran.<\/p>\n In March this year, a 14-year-old boy in Tel Aviv was charged with making contact with a foreign agent and passing intelligence to the enemy. His path to criminality, according to Israeli prosecutors, had begun 11 months earlier, when he responded to an Iranian agent on Telegram who was offering crypto payments in exchange for a range of subversive activities. <\/p>\n He went on to capture video footage of Tel Aviv\u2019s Kirya military headquarters, to film the damage caused by Iranian missile strikes at two locations, and scrawl graffiti messages across Tel Aviv, prosecutors said. He was paid more than $1,170 (\u20ac1,012) for his actions, spread across four separate digital wallets.<\/p>\n Shin Bet, Israel\u2019s domestic counter-intelligence agency, was already trying to alert the country to this danger. Last summer, the agency spearheaded the release of an information notice to parents, warning that Israeli children and teenagers had \u201cencountered seemingly innocent messages online\u201d asking them to photograph buildings and facilities, gather information, spray hateful graffiti and identify sensitive sites. <\/p>\n These requests, explained Shin Bet, were appearing on Facebook, Telegram, Instagram<\/a> and TikTok. \u201cAn investigation shows that these calls are being made by hostile Iranian elements … with the aim of recruiting Israeli minors for espionage activities.\u201d<\/p>\n Intelligence experts suggest Tehran is designing its operations straight from Moscow\u2019s playbook. \u201cIran deeply distrusts Russia, but in situations where they have a common enemy, their interests align,\u201d says one western security official. \u201cAnd in those circumstances, the GRU is definitely teaching the [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] \u2013 in drone warfare, in hybrid activity and in sabotage.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"In](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/UPFBVNAYORHKNF56IOQQKKLOQ4.jpg\")
In Ukraine, the chat function in the popular online game World of Tanks is commonly used as a recruitment portal, from which agents then move the conversation to Telegram. Photograph: Getty Images <\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/DK3ZJSLK65XGG4RV7FA5432T3M.jpg\")
A man walks past the headquarters of the Federal Security Service , the successor agency to the KGB, and Lubyanka Square in front of it in central Moscow. Photograph: Alexander Nemenov\/AFP via Getty Images <\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/HNO5DA7A25H6LMCDW2DAESV4KI.jpg\")
A military police force member of Royal Netherlands Marechaussee stands guard near a Jewish school in Amsterdam following its reopening two days after an attack on the Jewish institution. Photograph: Jeroen Jumelet\/ANP\/AFP via Getty Images <\/p>\n![\"Johannes](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/KY7FDRJFZEKCAZFTRYGO56DA7Y.jpg\")
Johannes Natland’s passport, shown to the jury in the trial of Johannes Natland, a Norwegian teenager who it is alleged was recruited by a Swedish organised crime group used by the Iranian regime to murder someone in England. Photograph: Counter Terrorism Policing\/PA Wire<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/YQYIVHV2OMNOHJ7RE55PI66GUA.jpg\")
A message shown to the jury in the trial of Johannes Natland, a Norwegian teenager, who it is alleged, was recruited by a Swedish organised crime group used by the Iranian regime to murder someone in England. Photograph: Counter Terrorism Policing\/PA Wire <\/p>\n