Russia Tried to Use a 16-Year-Old Girl to Target a Ukrainian Power Plant

Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) said it had detained a 16-year-old resident of Kropyvnytskyi, whom it accused of working for Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) and trying to install a GPS tracker to guide a missile strike on the city’s thermal power plant, according to the SBU on January 7. 

The SBU stated the suspect was detained at night near the facility’s fence as she tried to activate a “beacon,” and that the tracker was intended to be concealed under snow on the power plant’s grounds.

The agency said the GPS tracker was intended to serve as a targeting reference for an attack on the Kropyvnytskyi thermal power plant, which provides residents with electricity and heating, and it published video and images linked to the case.

The teenager was recruited via a Telegram channel advertising “easy earnings” and was first tasked with filming military sites and other critical infrastructure in the city before receiving instructions to prepare the strike.

The agency said she received money from Russia to purchase the tracker, ordered it online, collected it from a post office, and that investigators seized a phone they said contained evidence of coordination with the FSB. 

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The SBU added that the girl had been notified of suspicion under Ukraine’s criminal code article on treason committed under martial law and was being held in custody, facing a possible life sentence with confiscation of property.

Earlier, it was reported that the SBU detained a former Rivne Nuclear Power Plant employee suspected of helping Russian military intelligence by trying to activate a GPS tracker on a power-line pole to aid strikes on energy infrastructure.

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