The Transbaikalia Regional Court announced the verdict in the criminal case against two residents of Chita, aged 16 and 17, who were found guilty of committing "sabotage," the regional prosecutor's office reported.
According to the investigation, in August 2024, a 16-year-old resident of Chita was communicating in Telegram with a certain "curator from Ukraine," who offered him to set fire to a cell tower for a reward of 30,000 rubles.
The teenager asked his 17-year-old friend for help. In September, they entered the territory of the mobile communication station on the outskirts of Chita, doused the equipment with gasoline, and set it on fire. They recorded their actions on video. The damage from the fire was estimated at more than 350,000 rubles.
In February, the head of the Investigative Committee for the Irkutsk region, Anatoly Sitnikov, reported the detention of two schoolchildren for setting fire to a cell tower, while two more young men, aged 16 and 18, were detained for allegedly "on the orders of Ukrainian special services" throwing bottles with flammable liquid at military trucks. Earlier in Ust-Kut, two students were detained for setting fire to a relay cabinet.
In January, four young people from Novosibirsk were sentenced to terms ranging from 5 to 7.5 years for setting fire to a relay cabinet, a cell tower, and a decommissioned Su-24 on the territory of an aircraft factory.