How a Ukrainian Teen Became a Suspected Foot Soldier for Russia

The job offer, pitched to appeal to a 17-year-old Ukrainian refugee without work, promised a BMW car and about $11,000 in cash.Daniil Bardadim, a teenager on the run from war in Ukraine, received the offer early last year after making his way to Warsaw in neighboring Poland, according to investigators.He accepted and was given a BMW, albeit an old one, but not the cash.And what probably once seemed an attractive proposition soured even more badly.

It landed him in jail in Lithuania on a raft of terrorism charges, accused of setting fire to an IKEA store.The job, offered through a shadowy group, turned Mr.Bardadim into an unwitting foot soldier for Russia as part of a multipronged campaign of sabotage attacks on targets across Europe, Lithuanian investigators say.Shopping malls, warehouses, undersea cables and railways in Europe have all been hit over the past two years in what the Center for Strategic and International Studies describes as a drive to sow havoc led by Russia’s military intelligence service, the GRU.The number of covert Russian attacks nearly tripled between 2023 and 2024.

That has worried European governments who fear that the invasion of Ukraine by President Vladimir V.Putin is part of a broader offensive that is underway elsewhere in the shadows and could easily escalate into additional overt aggression.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

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