Lower thirds:

00:02 Report by Mariel Mueller
02:27 Oleksandr Shevchenko | Kharkiv Regional Prosecutor's Office
03:16 Anastasia Filiphenko | Deputy Head of Investigations, Kharkiv Police

Script:
 
00:00   ((Please add source insert: SBU)) 
 
This Ukrainian-made video depicts classic spy activities... paired with the warning: We will find you.    
   
It's a response by Ukraine's intelligence agency, the SBU, to an alarming trend:
 
00:17 ((Please add source insert: National Police Ukraine))
Ukrainian teenagers and children as young as 12 are carrying out such acts of sabotage and espionage - for Russia. Prosecutors say they’re being recruited and instructed by Russian FSB agents — often through encrypted messaging apps.    

00:33  ((source insert disappears))
  
HE… is one of them. We’re calling him Maksym — he doesn’t want to be identified.   
We meet him at a police station in Kharkiv, his lawyer by his side.   
  
He says he got drawn into these activities because he and a friend were looking for a way to earn money.
  
00:51
+++ SOT Maksym   
On Telegram we looked through different channels where people post jobs in Kharkiv. We found a job putting up posters. I messaged a guy called Vladimir – he asked my age, name, city and if I had experience. +++   

01:07
 
Maksym and his friend were told to hang posters advertising driver jobs in public squares. They earned 400 hryvnias — just over eight euros — paid through a banking app. Quick and easy. Then came the next assignment – for 20 Euros.   
  
01:25
+++ SOT Maksym   
We had to spray-paint a wall near the railway, writing that our president is a ‘scumbag’, and other insults.   
 
01:32
 
Maksym says he was skeptical about the job – but he followed the order and sent a picture to Vladimir as proof.
Then came bigger tasks.  
 
 01:43
+++ SOT Maksym   
The next day, he told me to set fire to a transformer box near the railway.+++   

01:47
 
He refused, but then Vladimir threatened him. Maksym  was starting to fear for his life and that of his father.
  
01:55
+++ SOT Maksym   
He sent me my dad’s phone number and said, ‘If you don’t do it, he’ll feel bad.’ I was so scared, I started shaking.+++  

02:02
 
So Maksym set the transformer box on fire and sent a short video to Vladimir. Fearing it might cause a train to derail, he says he put the fire out himself. Not long after, he was caught by Ukrainian police.   
Oleksandr Shevchenko is leading the investigation into Maksym’s case — and 40 similar ones involving minors.  
 
02:26
+++ SOT Oleksandr Shevchenko, Kharkiv Regional Prosecutor's Office (Ukrainian)  
I’d say the enemy is exploiting the psychological vulnerability of teenagers quite effectively — tapping into their thirst for adventure, youthful idealism, and the desire to gain recognition among peers. +++   

02:43
 
A police officer takes us to the site of an attack. Last December, a 15-year-old detonated a homemade explosive device near a Kharkiv police station.  
The blast caused only minor damage, and no one was injured - but it could have turned out differently. In another incident, a child died when detonating a device. Police say law enforcement is working closely with schools and child services to warn minors – but says parents need to step up, too.   
  
03:15
+++SOT Anastasia Filiphenko, Deputy Head of Investigations, Kharkiv Police (Ukrainian)   
Parents should pay more attention to the development of their children, have more preventive conversations with them, and tell their children what not to do.   

03:26
 
Maksym claims he didn’t realize he was being used by Russians, because Vladimir messaged him in Ukrainian.
He says he’s learned his lesson – but likely too late. The teenager’s been charged with sabotage and is facing up to a decade behind bars.