Counterterror chiefs issue chilling warning as Russia 'tries to recruit' UK schoolchildren

Schoolchildren are being targeted by hostile foreign states including Russia, counter-terror chiefs have warned, as part of a growing effort to recruit vulnerable Britons for surveillance, sabotage and even acts of violence. Officers say children in their mid-teens have already been investigated as part of “threat to life” operations – and are urging parents and teachers to remain alert to signs of manipulation online.

Russia, China and Iran are increasingly turning to disillusioned young people and petty criminals as proxies to carry out hostile state activity in the UK, including arson attacks and kidnappings. Counter Terrorism Policing says there has been a fivefold increase in hostile state threats since 2018, with 20% of its current casework involving espionage, sabotage or state-backed violence – not traditional terrorism.

Deputy Assistant Commissioner Vicki Evans, Counter Terrorism Policing’s senior national co-ordinator, confirmed there have been ten charges under the new National Security Act since it came into force in December 2023. Commander Dominic Murphy, head of the Metropolitan Police’s Counter Terrorism Command, told a briefing at New Scotland Yard: “There has never been a time like now for the scale of the threat we see in state threats.

“I said in January 2024 this was about threats to our way of life more than it was about threats to life, but actually that’s no longer an accurate description of the threat we face. We are increasingly seeing these three states, but not just these three states, undertaking threat to life operations in the United Kingdom alongside those threats to our way of life operations.”

Commander Murphy said Russia has “changed tactics” since the 2018 Salisbury poisonings, moving away from organised state operations and towards online recruitment of what he described as “a disenfranchised group of people who are on the criminal fraternity”.

He pointed to the recent case of 20-year-old Dylan Earl, who was approached online and offered the chance to build a “small army” to work for the Kremlin. Earl went on to orchestrate an arson attack on a warehouse linked to Ukraine, directed by the Wagner Group.

He said Iran also poses a “very real physical threat” to individuals in the UK, with officers regularly disrupting plots linked to Tehran. While China represents a smaller share of the caseload, police are investigating claims of undeclared “police stations” and bounties offered for Hong Kong dissidents, as seen in other countries.

Ms Evans warned that criminal proxies are now a “prevalent” tool used by foreign powers, often with small cash payments encouraging people to carry out “unwittingly significant actions”. She said young people may not be ideologically aligned with hostile states but are being persuaded online to take part in dangerous activity without understanding the consequences.

She added: “We really encourage people – parents, teachers, professionals – just to be inquisitive. If they’re concerned, ask those questions, and if they think there’s something they need to be concerned about, seek help and act, because we want to make sure that we’re protecting people from inadvertently being drawn in this sort of activity.”

She warned that hostile state operations are designed to “fracture public trust,” undermine democratic institutions, and threaten the systems that underpin life in the UK.