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On October 8, Ukraine's Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) thwarted a Russian intelligence operation aimed at recruiting local Ukrainian teenagers for sabotage near Kyiv. Russian handlers, posing as SBU officers, blackmailed a 17-year-old boy from Kyiv Oblast into setting fire to a truck convoy belonging to a local logistics company. The teenager was also instructed to acquire a package of screws, conceal it, and inform a Russian handler of its location.

Separately, another 16-year-old local resident was recruited to retrieve the screws from a specific location on a highway, which would temporarily halt freight traffic. Russian agents had recruited both teens separately through fake romantic interest profiles on Telegram. Once the teens were ensnared, the agents replaced the fabricated "girl" profiles with a Russian intelligence operative posing as an SBU officer.

This operative told the boys that the girls had been detained for treason and threatened to prosecute them as accomplices.

To avoid fabricated charges, the teenagers were coerced into assisting with the investigation. The SBU uncovered the plot when the 17-year-old set fire to several trucks. The investigation revealed that the two teens had been recruited independently by Russian agents on the dating app. The agents created fake female profiles that later disappeared and were replaced by the Russian operative offering to assist the teens in the fabricated investigation.