June 11, 2025

Teenagers Hired Online, Jailed for Arson


Teenagers Hired Online, Jailed for Arson
A penitential center in Moscow. Senate of Russian Federation, Flickr.

According to the independent outlet Mediazona, nearly every week Russian authorities report detaining teenagers for setting fires along the country’s railway infrastructure. These incidents are increasingly prosecuted as terrorism or sabotage, with officials often citing “political hatred” as the motive. But in many cases, it appears the real motivation is money.

Such jobs — paid assignments found on anonymous forums — are part of a growing underground market where young people are hired for tasks ranging from vandalism to physical threats. Despite the severity of the charges they face, their stories rarely reach the public due to the secrecy surrounding juvenile court proceedings. The public only hears about the arrests and the harsh sentences that follow.

In one case, in November 2023, authorities raided the home of 18-year-old Yaroslav Kuligin in Domodedovo, just outside Moscow. Kuligin and several teenage friends were beaten, pinned to the floor, and forced to give up their phone passwords, according to court testimony. One teen, 17-year-old Yevgeny Nazarenko, later said he was beaten with a military helmet.

By morning, five teens were released, but Kuligin, Nazarenko, and 16-year-old Nikita Alekseyenko remained in custody, facing charges of sabotaging railway infrastructure. All three confessed — but later claimed they did so under torture, which included electric shocks.

According to Mediazona, Kuligin reportedly began looking for side work in September 2023 and posted a message on an anonymous forum seeking employment for himself and two friends. He was soon contacted by a user known as “Novgorodian Pirate,” who offered illegal assignments for “sportiki” (young athletic men) looking for easy money for doing tasks such as breaking windows, threatening individuals, or setting fires.

The practice of hiring “sportiki” emerged in the 2010s with the rise of dark web forums. Cryptocurrency became the preferred method of anonymous payment. After the start of Russia’s War on Ukraine, intelligence services — Russian or Ukrainian — began exploiting these networks, commissioning acts of sabotage later thought to be attacks ordered by Kyiv.

One case in April 2025 saw a military court sentence four men and one woman to up to 18 years for setting fire to a helicopter and a relay protection cabinet near Moscow. One defendant said he had been recruited through a Telegram group called “Lyokhie Dengi” (“Easy Money”) and was promised 3 million rubles (about $38,000) for destroying the helicopter.

Kuligin’s first assignment came on October 9, 2023: He was instructed to set fire to a commuter train and record the footage, including a specific hand signal. The next day, he sent a video showing a burning train in Lobnya, north of Moscow. He was paid approximately R100,000 ($1,300).

On October 21, Kuligin and Nazarenko completed a second job, burning another train in Domodedovo, earning another R100,000. A third attempted arson by Kuligin was aborted after he was spotted by a guard. A few days later, Nazarenko returned to Domodedovo with Alekseyenko, who said he barely knew Nazarenko at the time. When offered R5,000 ($65) to help burn a relay protection cabinet — on his mother’s birthday — Alekseyenko agreed, saying he had no money for a gift.

That same day, November 22, security forces arrested the teens. By morning, they had all confessed. Their statements, however, were laced with language uncharacteristic of minors, such as references to undermining Russia’s defense and economic security, suggesting, defense lawyers argue, that the confessions were coerced.

The teens claim they were simply trying to earn money. Kuligin reportedly wanted to move out of his mother’s home, but couldn’t afford rent. Their lawyer, Igor Volchkov, said many accused in these cases come from broken, impoverished homes. “I haven’t seen a single case where the parents weren’t divorced,” he said.

Authorities have opened a separate case against the alleged coordinator, “Novgorodian Pirate.” According to an FSB document, he is “linked to Ukrainian intelligence services,” though the evidence remains vague. His real identity and whereabouts are unknown, and defense attorneys have received no further details.

The legal team said they suspect that Kuligin and his friends were tracked using taxi records showing late-night trips to remote areas. Though investigators gathered extensive evidence, some peers said the group did not hide their activities. 

Volchkov argues Kuligin may have been set up. In one message, the so-called “pirate” instructed him to target the “oldest and most worn-out” train and gave precise coordinates. The second train they burned had been decommissioned for six months and was scheduled for repairs. It was moved into the open just days before Kuligin received the arson order — a suspicious coincidence, the lawyer claimed.

You Might Also Like

Hell Behind Bars for a Teenager
  • February 16, 2025

Hell Behind Bars for a Teenager

A 14-year-old Russian girl accused of terrorism spent almost a year in a pretrial detention center, where she was beaten and subjected to sexual violence.
Like this post? Get a weekly email digest + member-only deals

Some of Our Books

White Magic

White Magic

The thirteen tales in this volume – all written by Russian émigrés, writers who fled their native country in the early twentieth century – contain a fair dose of magic and mysticism, of terror and the supernatural. There are Petersburg revenants, grief-stricken avengers, Lithuanian vampires, flying skeletons, murders and duels, and even a ghostly Edgar Allen Poe.
Chekhov Bilingual

Chekhov Bilingual

Some of Chekhov's most beloved stories, with English and accented Russian on facing pages throughout. 
Marooned in Moscow

Marooned in Moscow

This gripping autobiography plays out against the backdrop of Russia's bloody Civil War, and was one of the first Western eyewitness accounts of life in post-revolutionary Russia. Marooned in Moscow provides a fascinating account of one woman's entry into war-torn Russia in early 1920, first-person impressions of many in the top Soviet leadership, and accounts of the author's increasingly dangerous work as a journalist and spy, to say nothing of her work on behalf of prisoners, her two arrests, and her eventual ten-month-long imprisonment, including in the infamous Lubyanka prison. It is a veritable encyclopedia of life in Russia in the early 1920s.
Fish: A History of One Migration

Fish: A History of One Migration

This mesmerizing novel from one of Russia’s most important modern authors traces the life journey of a selfless Russian everywoman. In the wake of the Soviet breakup, inexorable forces drag Vera across the breadth of the Russian empire. Facing a relentless onslaught of human and social trials, she swims against the current of life, countering adversity and pain with compassion and hope, in many ways personifying Mother Russia’s torment and resilience amid the Soviet disintegration.
Steppe / Степь (bilingual)

Steppe / Степь (bilingual)

This is the work that made Chekhov, launching his career as a writer and playwright of national and international renown. Retranslated and updated, this new bilingual edition is a super way to improve your Russian.
Russian Rules

Russian Rules

From the shores of the White Sea to Moscow and the Northern Caucasus, Russian Rules is a high-speed thriller based on actual events, terrifying possibilities, and some really stupid decisions.
Tolstoy Bilingual

Tolstoy Bilingual

This compact, yet surprisingly broad look at the life and work of Tolstoy spans from one of his earliest stories to one of his last, looking at works that made him famous and others that made him notorious. 
Maria's War: A Soldier's Autobiography

Maria's War: A Soldier's Autobiography

This astonishingly gripping autobiography by the founder of the Russian Women’s Death Battallion in World War I is an eye-opening documentary of life before, during and after the Bolshevik Revolution.
Moscow and Muscovites

Moscow and Muscovites

Vladimir Gilyarovsky's classic portrait of the Russian capital is one of Russians’ most beloved books. Yet it has never before been translated into English. Until now! It is a spectactular verbal pastiche: conversation, from gutter gibberish to the drawing room; oratory, from illiterates to aristocrats; prose, from boilerplate to Tolstoy; poetry, from earthy humor to Pushkin. 
Faith & Humor: Notes from Muscovy

Faith & Humor: Notes from Muscovy

A book that dares to explore the humanity of priests and pilgrims, saints and sinners, Faith & Humor has been both a runaway bestseller in Russia and the focus of heated controversy – as often happens when a thoughtful writer takes on sacred cows. The stories, aphorisms, anecdotes, dialogues and adventures in this volume comprise an encyclopedia of modern Russian Orthodoxy, and thereby of Russian life.

About Us

Russian Life is a publication of a 30-year-young, award-winning publishing house that creates a bimonthly magazine, books, maps, and other products for Russophiles the world over.

Latest Posts

Our Contacts

Russian Life
73 Main Street, Suite 402
Montpelier VT 05602

802-223-4955