The Federal Security Service (FSB) said the eight minors held in August and September 2026 were aged 14 to 17, alongside two adults aged 19 and 24. The detentions spanned Moscow, St Petersburg and the Leningrad, Nizhny Novgorod, Omsk, Ryazan and Sverdlovsk regions.
The Investigative Committee, which handles major criminal cases, gave details on four of those held. One teenager is accused of firebombing two petrol stations in St Petersburg and the Leningrad region. According to the investigation, after he met a girl on the chatbot, a person contacted him and threatened him and his family to force him to follow instructions.
Two underage girls in St Petersburg are accused of setting fire to petrol stations and police cars. The fourth suspect is an 18-year-old man from Vladivostok who, according to the Investigative Committee, set fire to a transformer box on the Leningrad direction of the Moscow Railway on 1 October. A court ordered him held in pre-trial detention; the other three teenagers were placed under house arrest. All face terrorism charges.
According to the FSB, "Ukrainian special services officers" posed as potential romantic partners on the bot and asked users to send their geolocation, pay for a restaurant order or follow a phishing link. People purporting to be from the FSB or Rosfinmonitoring, Russia's financial monitoring agency, then contacted the Russians. They argued that the transferred money had gone to the Ukrainian armed forces and that the Ukrainians would use the geolocation for strikes. Threatening criminal prosecution, they pushed people into arson under the pretext of testing an facility's security or taking part in operational measures.
Criminal cases have been opened over terrorism (Part 2 of Article 205 of the Criminal Code), attempted terrorism (Part 3 of Article 30 and Part 1 of Article 205) and deliberate damage to property (Part 2 of Article 167).
Divinchik was added to the register of banned sites in December 2025. In summer 2026, a criminal case accusing Telegram founder Pavel Durov of facilitating terrorist activity was opened over the Divinchik/Leo chatbot. According to the investigation, the messenger's administration failed to remove channels, chats and bots that Ukrainian special services use to prepare and coordinate sabotage in Russia.
There is no independent confirmation of the FSB's account of the recruitment. According to rights defenders, some such cases may be fabricated by security service officers.