A 19-year-old student from Kiev has been arrested and is accused of planning to blow up a bus carrying soldiers. The attack was prevented in the city of Rivne, according to the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU).
The suspect allegedly placed an improvised explosive device under a bus that was about to transport a unit of Ukrainian soldiers, reports hotnews.ro. In the parking lot, the young man also left a camera, which he disguised in a juice box. Thus, he would have monitored the vehicle.
According to the SBU, Russian secret service agents intended to detonate the bomb at the time of the military bus’s movement to its permanent location. Ukrainian security officers claim that the young man would have acted in exchange for sums of money, after the Russian special services would have recruited him on Telegram.
SBU further maintains that, after arriving in Rivne, he retrieved the explosive from a hiding place. The charge would have been amplified with two bottles containing flammable liquid.
The young man faces up to 12 years in prison. He was allegedly detained while trying to flee to Kiev. The SBU confiscated the phone he used to communicate with Russian service employees.