The New Yorker has published the story of two teenagers from Kherson who, after fleeing Ukraine, became entangled in a network that Western intelligence services link to the GRU. Through the case of 17-year-old Danylo Bardadym and his friend Oleksandr, the magazine describes how vulnerable people are used for espionage, arson and sabotage in Europe.
After the occupation of Kherson and his family’s later move to Haivoron, Bardadym finished 11th grade, complained about low wages and feared conscription once he turned 18. In March 2024, he and Oleksandr left for Poland, where they first worked as movers. They were later invited to Warsaw by fellow Kherson native Serhiy Chalyi, a former gas station owner who, the magazine says, dealt in black-market fuel and stolen cars during the occupation.
At first, Chalyi gave them money for food and housing, then demanded repayment and began assigning criminal tasks. In April, he met the teenagers at a McDonald’s in Warsaw and proposed that they leave a package in a shopping center, promising they would always have money. Soon afterward, Bardadym was told through Chalyi to install the Zangi messenger and travel to Vilnius, where a handler using the name Q ordered him to photograph and film an IKEA store, paying special attention to the mattress section.
Later, Bardadym brought a package with cables to Lithuania, bought a scooter, gasoline, diesel, soap and matches, and in a hotel room followed instructions to mix fuel with grated soap. With Oleksandr’s help, he assembled an incendiary device with a phone timer. Bardadym later said he had begun to understand what was being planned and deliberately bought less fuel than ordered. In the end, he planted only one device in the store instead of two.
The next day, at 4 a.m., the device ignited. Because of the fire alarm and suppression system, the damage remained relatively limited at about 500,000 euros. Bardadym then returned to Warsaw but never received the money he had been promised: instead, he was given the BMW he had previously delivered, and support for housing stopped. Soon after, Q told him to go to the Marywilska shopping center in Warsaw and record what happened. On May 12, 2024, the center burned down, though Bardadym said he only saw the aftermath and did not set the fire himself.
That same day he was sent to collect a new package for an operation in Riga, but Lithuanian security services tracked him by GPS and detained him in Lithuania. During questioning he confessed, and a Lithuanian court later convicted him of carrying out a “terrorist act” as part of a “terrorist group” and sentenced him to three years in prison.
After Bardadym’s arrest, Chalyi tried to flee Poland quickly. Several routes failed, after which he reached Vienna via the Czech Republic with the help of driver Pavlo Tkachuk. According to Polish and Lithuanian authorities, Chalyi was linked to Oleksandr Varyvoda, a Ukrainian living in Krasnodar; investigators believe he may have been the person behind the alias Q. Chalyi’s trail then disappeared. In May 2024, Interpol issued a red notice for him at Poland’s request.
“They are trying to find vulnerable people: loners, outcasts, the inexperienced. Ukrainian migrants, especially teenagers, fit that description perfectly,” Polish lawyer Irena Lipowicz told the magazine.
According to The New Yorker, the case of Bardadym and Oleksandr illustrates the tactic of using so-called “disposable agents.” Western intelligence services believe such operations may be run by a specific unit of Russian military intelligence, the GRU’s Department of Special Tasks. Sources quoted by the magazine say recruiters usually target apolitical people in financial distress who do not fully understand whose interests they are serving.