Ukraine detains 17-year-old girl accused of poisoning soldiers for Russian cash

Police in Ukraine say they've detained a 17-year-old girl in Zhytomyr, west of Kyiv, on suspicion she helped Russia's security services poison Ukrainian soldiers. According to the police statement, she took instructions from a Russian handler in exchange for at least 5,000 hryvnias — roughly $111. Two soldiers died of poisoning in the Zhytomyr region.

The playbook was simple and cold. Police say the girl reached soldiers over Telegram, then shipped them packages billed as free drugs and told them to take the pills on camera. The recipients had no idea the capsules carried a lethal dose of methadone, according to the statement.

Investigators say they identified other people who had received the packages, which they credit with stopping four more killings across the country. The girl has been notified she's suspected of aiding and abetting the premeditated murder of two people as part of a prior conspiracy, plus shipping drugs and psychotropic substances for distribution. If convicted, she faces up to 15 years behind bars.

Police didn't hold back in their public warning, saying Russia's aim is to kill Ukrainians and destabilize the country from the inside. They urged people not to accept medication, substances, food or drinks from anyone they don't know well. The arrest also fits a pattern: since Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022, Ukrainian authorities say they've opened thousands of collaboration investigations and regularly detain people accused of working for Moscow.

Ukraine and Russia have spent the war accusing each other of recruiting minors for sabotage, poisoning included. In 2023, Ukraine blamed Russia for poisoning Marianna Budanova, wife of Kyrylo Budanov — then head of Ukraine's military intelligence, known as GUR, and now a presidential adviser. Several GUR personnel were diagnosed with the same poisoning, and that same year Paris prosecutors opened a probe into the suspected poisoning of a Russian journalist who made headlines by brandishing an anti-war slogan on state television.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said his life has been targeted repeatedly, telling The Sun he survived no fewer than five or six assassination attempts since the invasion began.