How children become victims of scammers and are judged

How mothers fight for children accused of terrorism and sabotage

On June 16, the St. Petersburg City Court sentenced 23-year-old Sergei Sakharov to 12 years in prison under the article of sabotage. In January last year, a young man, at the request of telephone scammers, set fire to the cabin of a diesel locomotive at the Ruchi station.

Sakharov is one of dozens of young people who committed arson under the influence of scammers. Most often, their victims are tried under articles of sabotage and terrorism. The terms are huge - up to 15 years.

Russian courts always believe that a person can resist mental coercion and blackmail. In reality this is not the case. Lawyers and parents of victims insist: cases where fraudsters pose as government agencies, exert prolonged psychological pressure on a person and take advantage of his vulnerable state should be considered separately.

“His behavior hasn’t changed at all.”

St. Petersburg resident Sergei Sakharov, according to his mother Irina, was tricked by the scammers for three days. “He was heavily attacked on WhatsApp: employees of various banks and state security agencies allegedly contacted him. Seryozha was plunged into tunnel thinking and was not allowed to sleep. As he himself said, “I was kept on a leash.”

In mid-January 2025, people allegedly from MTS called Sergey and said that he needed to extend the service contract. The young man dictated a code from an SMS, and his government services were hacked. Afterwards, they began to threaten Sakharov that two criminal cases had been opened against him - and in order not to end up in prison, he “must commit an act in the name of his homeland with the help of FSB officers.”

Irina describes her son as an “ordinary normal guy”: he volunteered at a hospice, played in the theater, was fond of music, and studied to become a ship electrician. A year before graduation, in February 2022, Sergei was summoned to the military registration and enlistment office. The young man applied for alternative civilian service, citing health problems and an aversion to violence. He was refused, and the family went to court.

“For more than two years we sued the military registration and enlistment office - we brought witnesses and brought testimonials, but they refused us without explanation,” says Irina. Sergei did not make it to the second appeal in the city court: on January 19, 2025, he was arrested.

On the eve of the arson, everything was as usual: Sergei came home, calmly talked with his family, none of his friends or colleagues suspected anything.

News about sabotage in the family was discussed superficially: “They set fire to an ATM in Kolpino again, look what’s happening.” We didn’t realize the scale of the tragedy,” notes Irina, who is a witness in her son’s case.

On the night of January 18, Sakharov, under the influence of scammers, went to the Ruchyi railway station not far from his home. There, a young man opened the cabin of the locomotive and threw an incendiary mixture into it. Russian Railways estimated the damage at 6,513,185 rubles and 98 kopecks.

“On the morning of January 18, he was already at home and sleeping, and in the evening he came with his girlfriend as if nothing had happened. They sat, drank coffee, talked - his behavior did not change at all, his mother recalls. "I think anyone who commits an illegal act thinks about going into hiding rather than going home that night."

The next day, riot police burst into the apartment screaming.

“There’s a button for everyone”

After her son’s arrest, Irina began collecting other stories from open sources in which people committed arson and were charged with sabotage or terrorism. Irina collected a variety of cases: when a person acted under psychological influence, according to his personal beliefs, or in the hope of making money.

By April 2026, there were more than 350 cases in the table, including criminal prosecution of teenagers. Shortly before this, the State Duma allowed children to be held criminally liable in cases of sabotage from the age of 14.

“I just wanted to understand: has my son gone crazy or is this really a disaster? It turned out that everything was fine with my son: similar cases occur almost every day. When one messenger is blocked, scammers switch to another. Some doors closed, others opened.”

Having studied dozens of cases from open sources, Irina came to the conclusion that scammers are divided into three types. The first is small scammers who use random calls and just want money. The second is social engineers who set themselves the task of taking money from a person.

The third is trained security forces who know how to exert psychological influence on the victim. Their scheme is much more complicated. Using merged databases and social networks, a profile of a person is created, where everything is indicated: his weaknesses and strengths, how much money he has, what he values. This makes it easier for scammers to intimidate a person and, using psychological manipulation, make him lose control of the situation.

“These kids are not morons, as commentators like to claim. These children are victims of skilled psychologists, manipulators, military psychologists,” comments Irina.

Prosecutor General Alexander Gutsan speaks about this : “Our children are drawn into committing illegal actions <...> professionally trained people, military psychologists, whose goal is to cause maximum damage to our country.”

Irina is sure that they also collected information about her son: “Everyone knew about him: the composition of the family, what he did, where he worked, why he applied for alternative service. Too many coincidences. Who knew that Sergei had problems with the central nervous system? Only the one who stored this information.”

Lawyer of the human rights organization “First Department” Evgeny Smirnov believes that his struggle for alternative service could have attracted the attention of the security forces to Sakharov. Human rights activists know cases where FSB officers stage such provocations in order to increase detection rates. So, in November 2024, the “First Department” talked about the verdict of a resident of Orel, in which the FSB admitted that the provocateur acted on their instructions.

“We have many such cases - when we understand that this is the work of the FSB - moreover, we assume that they are the majority,” comments Smirnov.

Fraudsters or provocateurs often convince victims that they are “helping our valiant authorities identify saboteurs and are participating in some kind of special operation.” Others are threatened with the well-being of loved ones, while others are threatened with loss of money. “You can find a button for everyone,” Irina is sure.

In May 2026, she, along with other relatives of victims of fraud, was at a round table in the State Duma, where they discussed the problem of telephone fraud. It was attended by representatives of the Ministry of Digital Development, the Central Bank, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Prosecutor General's Office and lawyers. During the meeting, lawyer Kaloy Akhilgov proposed amending Art. 40 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (“Physical or mental coercion”), explaining this by the fact that in Russia there is a doctrinal presumption , a scientifically based assumption developed by legal science, which is recognized as true until the contrary is proven : mental coercion is always recognized as surmountable.

The rule of law, in theory, should protect the one who is blackmailed, but in reality “almost never protects”: “In none of the cases studied by us, the criminal prosecution of the victim courier was terminated on the basis of Article 40,” the lawyer emphasizes.

Akhilgov prepared the text of a bill that expands the concept of mental coercion to include situations where a person acts under prolonged psychological pressure, and scammers take advantage of his vulnerable position (age, fear, debt, isolation from loved ones) and pose as government agencies.

“The state simultaneously solves two problems: to protect those who are being scammed, and to imprison those who are being scammed.” As long as this is done by the same article of the Criminal Code, both will turn out badly,” Akhilgov is sure.

“The legislation puts these girls and boys with a lack of critical thinking and life experience on a par with people who deliberately carry out terrorist attacks,” adds Irina. This is wrong. There must be a clear differentiation of the motives for which the crime was committed.”

“Dad, now I’ll either be killed or imprisoned”

Twenty-year-old Alexander from St. Petersburg suffered from severe headaches since childhood. Five years ago he was diagnosed with insomnia and regularly took sleeping pills. Doctors could not find medications, and the prescribed antidepressants only made things worse, says Alexander’s mother, Yana.

“Constant pain went through his life in the background. Sasha is a very calm and reasonable person, he never raises his voice. But to drown out this pain, he began to cut his arms and stomach. The doctor prescribed antidepressants, but the condition did not improve. Sasha developed a persistent desire that he did not want to live. He is a very empathetic person, he was worried that he was causing us inconvenience,” says Yana.

Alexander was regularly observed at the psychoneurological clinic. At the end of 2025, the young man visited a day hospital for a month, where he was diagnosed with split personality. This freed the young man from the army.

Despite his health problems, Alexander studied at college to become an auto mechanic and worked in production. In addition to him, the family has five more children. In January 2026, after the New Year holidays, the parents and their younger children left for the Krasnodar region: their father was offered a job there as an excavator operator. Alexander and his 18-year-old sister Ksenia (name changed) remained in St. Petersburg.

A couple of weeks later, the parents discovered that Alexander was trying to take out a loan: he had a joint account with his father. “We were surprised: everything is fine with his money. He has a dad and friends who always support him,” says Yana. Father told Sasha not to take out any loans.

On the night of February 6, Alexander called his father and “almost screamed” into the phone. “He said: “Dad, now I’ll probably either be killed or imprisoned.”

Later, the sister said that from the beginning of February, Alexander behaved strangely: he did not talk to anyone, he could freeze, staring at one point. Ksenia attributed her brother’s strange behavior to illness; she thought that he would soon feel better and her brother Sasha would return.

At that time, Alexander was already communicating with scammers. They called him and informed him that a bank card had been issued to him. The young man was asked for his passport information, and he dictated it. Then Sasha received an SMS notification that 300 thousand rubles had allegedly been transferred to his virtual card.

At first, the scammers called on a mobile phone, then they began to simultaneously attack through Yandex Messenger. They introduced themselves as FSB officers and said that “everything is very serious.” According to Yana, each time the scammers warned that “everything is confidential and he has no right to tell it to anyone.” Alexander, in her words, “was on sleeping pills and did not understand what was happening.” Yana suggests that the attackers could have received information about their son from the Ministry of Internal Affairs (Sasha received a new passport at the end of January) or from the military registration and enlistment office, where they knew about his psychiatric illness.

“Then I received an SMS that 160 thousand rubles had been withdrawn from the card. He was told that he had to urgently put this money back, otherwise he would have problems: this money was allegedly transferred to Ukraine, and this is an article. Then he tried to take out a loan, but they didn’t give it to him. Then they told him: “Since you cannot return the money, the state is ready to help you. You will meet a person, he will give you 160 thousand, and you will put it back into the account.”

A girl came to meet Alexander. Yana is sure that “she, too, was one of the deceived.” The girl handed over the money and asked: “Say “Glory to Russia!” in the video.” Alexander deposited the money on the specified bank card.

Afterwards they began to force him to cooperate with the words: “This is a considerable amount, and the state gives it to you. You must commit sabotage to expose Ukraine.” The young man was instructed how to make an incendiary mixture. On February 5, 2026, he took a canister from the balcony, put it in his backpack and began to get dressed. When his sister asked what was happening, Sasha took her into the bathroom, turned on the water and said that he could not explain anything because he was being bugged.

At that moment the doorbell rang - two men in civilian clothes were standing on the threshold. They introduced themselves as local police officers and said that the neighbors allegedly complained about the noise. One man walked along the corridor and looked into the room, and then asked Sasha for passport information for the protocol. Before leaving, the men asked: “Aren’t scammers pestering you by any chance?” Sasha remained silent. And then he nevertheless left Ksenia the email address of the person who “supervised him from the FSB” and left the house with the canister.

Half an hour after Sasha left, Ksenia saw several people in civilian clothes under the door of the apartment. According to Yana, they broke the common door on the floor in order to freely approach the apartment. The men stood on the floor all night.

At that time, Sasha, being in touch with the scammers, arrived at the settling tank, approached a specific train, broke the glass of the driver's cab and threw an incendiary mixture there. After the arson, the guy called his parents. “He was badly burned, his whole face and hands were burned. He didn’t understand what had happened at all, but he understood how serious it all was. He says: “They’ll probably put me in prison for 12 years.” Why did you do this? “I don’t know, that’s what they told me.” Why didn't you tell us? “I wasn’t allowed to.”

“The terrorist attack does not suit them, because Sasha did not kill anyone”

Yana had heard similar stories about arson, but did not attach much importance to them: “We don’t watch TV. We are believers and study the Bible more. When this happened, my husband and I didn’t know how to behave.”

She claims her son wanted to go to the police and turn himself in, but his parents asked him to wait until they found a lawyer. The evening of the next day, Sasha was arrested at a friend’s house.

At this time, two men in civilian clothes, this time different, came to sister Ksenia’s apartment again. They introduced themselves as police officers and showed poor quality printed photographs of a man with a canister approaching a train. Ksenia replied that her brother was not at home. The men left, but returned a few hours later and asked to check whether his brother was really not in the apartment.

The girl copied the ID information, and then asked to check this data through friends in the authorities. It turned out that one ID belongs to a person who died in the Northern Military District, and the second belongs to a police officer who died several years ago.

After the arrest, Alexander was brought home, searched, and his computer, phone and canister were taken from the balcony. The employee told Sasha to eat, take some pills and take a change of clothes.

The next day, the lawyer found the young man in the detention center. On February 13, Yana and her younger children returned by train to St. Petersburg. On this day, Sasha had a trial on the basis of suppression. Ignoring the young man’s diagnosis, the court sent him to a pre-trial detention center on charges of terrorist attack under Art. 205 part 2 .

Now Alexander is in the psychiatric department of the medical building at pre-trial detention center No. 1. Despite guarantees from loved ones, the court refused to release Alexander under house arrest. The investigation, according to Yana, believes that Sasha had “intent against his homeland.”

“This is some kind of nonsense, they don’t prove it in any way. Sasha is an absolute pacifist by nature, he never fights or insults anyone.” A case of fraud, according to Yana, was not opened. “Fraud is part and parcel of this whole thing. If there were no fraud, nothing else would exist. But they are not interested."

Since February, my parents have seen Sasha only twice: they don’t give her any more visits. Sasha attends meetings via video link. “They are punishing us so that Sasha takes the blame on himself.” Yana believes that they want to “pin extremism on their son as well”: “The terrorist attack does not suit them, because he did not kill anyone.”

According to Yana, Sasha’s visits to the PND are ignored by the investigation: “We have prescriptions, extracts, evidence that he visited the hospital for PND, but they believe that this is not called “registered”.” In the letter, Sasha wrote that he does not receive treatment in the medical building.

“In the hospital he cannot read books, letters are not delivered to him, and he is not taken for walks. Worse than in a punishment cell. They don’t give him any medications - only painkillers when the headache is very severe, and they just recently started giving him sleeping pills.” Yana tried to transfer the necessary drugs to the prison hospital, but they were not accepted. “We were told that they could not monitor how he would take these drugs. “What if he overdoses, we will be to blame.”

The investigator, according to Yana, refuses to attach SMS to the case and check the email from which the scammers wrote to Sasha, although this could prove his innocence. When the lawyer tried to request video from city cameras near Sasha’s house, it turned out that the recordings were missing. “It was from our house that all the videos for the required date were accidentally deleted. Can scammers from Ukraine delete videos from city recorders?”

“The investigator claims: “He is in conspiracy with people who have not been identified.” Why don't you install them? Мы же дали электронную почту, Саша предоставил их номера телефонов. Нет, они этого не хотят. Они хотят из мальчишки, над которым поиздевались мошенники, сделать преступника и разломать его жизнь».

Сейчас Яна живет в постоянном ожидании новостей и «потеряла радость»: «У меня маленькие дети, и я понимаю, что для них жизнь продолжается и они не должны пребывать в моем унынии».

Все близкие, по словам Яны, сопереживают семье и помогают Александру в заключении: пишут письма, делают заказы в магазине. Сама Яна пишет не только сыну, но и другим политическим заключенным младше 25 лет. «К сожалению, мой сын оказался заложником политической обстановки. Важно, чтобы он не был выброшен из социума».

Яна говорит, что люди , пишущие политзекам, «связаны невидимой цепочкой небезразличия»: «Такие чаты очень объединяют людей. Ведь когда мы перестаем сочувствовать и сопереживать, мы превращаемся в судей, которые с безразличным лицом уничтожают жизнь человека».