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Hey everyone—
Welcome to The Under Report, your weekly intelligence brief about the stories that move the world without making headlines.

I started this weekly newsletter to make geopolitics clear and accessible to everyone. We can understand the world without bombastic headlines, partisan moralization, or fear mongering. I'm so glad to have you all along for the ride and I can't wait to grow more.

Share The Under Report if you know someone who would appreciate a weekly intel update. Also, make sure to check out our sponsors to keep the Under Report rolling.

— Eric

P.S. It's a heavy read today, but I think an important one. For some levity, who remembers this classic geopolitical documentary?

In modern conflict the ultimate high ground is between the ears of the enemy. A nation's information space is its largest and most vulnerable attack surface and every citizen is a node which can be exploited. Intelligence services and cyber-cults alike aren't just targeting soldiers, they're after kids. This is not a new Satanic panic or violent video game outrage, it's a new digital national security threat.

Let's dive in.

In Ukraine, more than 700 people have been arrested for espionage and sabotage since Russia’s full-scale invasion began. According to Ukraine’s domestic intelligence service, the SBU, roughly a quarter of them are minors recruited from offline. These aren’t isolated cases. They represent a strategic shift: the intentional grooming of children and teenagers as assets in hybrid warfare.

Here's how the cycle works.

Contact is made through encrypted apps like Telegram and Signal, but it can also be done through innocuous gaming servers on Discord. A target might believe they're talking with a trusted friend or a gaming buddy, but in fact they're online with a Russian operative probing them for leverage.

According to Ukranian intelligence, Russian agents are looking for teens that fit a standard model which is all to common during wartime. They are isolated, often orphans or from single parent households. They are also economically impoverished, and bored. When their new online friend offers them an offline quest and a couple hundred dollars, a Ukranian teenager becomes an activated sleeper cell. Instructions are delivered which may seem innocent enough but provide strategic advantage to Russian operations.

And it's working.

The weaponized teenagers have taken photographs of troop movements. They've set fire to recruiting stations and marked targets for missile strikes. In some extreme cases they've been lured into planting bombs which have killed soldiers. This is the development of a digital infantry from within the borders of a country.

The digital world is no longer isolated from the physical. For teenagers, it is a space for socialization, education, and identity formation. Pew Research reports that nearly half of teens describe themselves as being online “almost constantly.” In the United States, teens now average between 7 and 8.5 hours of screen time per day. In many cases this means that they spend more time online than asleep. 

The online world is just as real as base reality and it exists on continuum of action between digital and actual. Everyday young people interact with hundreds of digital avatars, form relationships, play games, and collaborate with others in a web of parasocial relationships. All of this is done in an environment where algorithms urge constant engagement and provide anonymity for bad actors.

The bottom line is this: digital platforms offer the highest impact, lowest cost way to shape the perceptions of young people. Advertisers can turn them into consumers, intelligence agencies mold them into agents, and cults can turn them into acolytes. What starts online doesn't necessarily stay in the digital world. Here's why it's so effective:

Screens aren’t neutral portal, they're addictive magic mirrors through which anyone can peer. Social media platforms and mobile games are designed to keep users in feedback loops through variable-ratio reinforcement. This is an intermittent reward cycle which drives behavior, like a digital slot machine.

You've no doubt seen this through autoplay videos, algorithmically timed notifications, reward-based streaks, like counters, and “read receipts.” We're all waiting for the payoff. These features are baked into the experience, and for teenagers with still-developing impulse control, their gravitational pull is undeniable.

The OECD’s report on platform design explicitly states that these mechanics “trigger dopamine release and sustain problematic usage behavior” among adolescents. The American Academy of Pediatrics echoes this concern, noting that these structures undermine executive function, fragment attention, and can distort the development of healthy social behavior.

In essence, platforms are uniquely situated to capture the attention of a developing mind. A cunning user can then manipulate that users reality until they take actions which align with their own interests.

One of the earliest viral examples of online coercion was the Blue Whale Challenge. Originating in Russian-language corners of VKontakte in the mid-2010s, it allegedly guided teenagers through 50 days of self-harm tasks, culminating in suicide. Each participant was assigned a “curator” who issued daily instructions. These could range from watching horror movies at 3 AM to carving symbols into their skin.

The scale was disputed. Russian outlet Novaya Gazeta initially linked Blue Whale to over 130 suicides, but follow-up investigations suggested the number was smaller. Still, Russian police arrested and convicted alleged Blue Whale creator Philipp Budeikin after linking three suicides to the challenge. In court, Budeikin claimed he was performing a “cleansing” of society.

Regardless of the death toll, the method was clear: isolate the victim, break down their identity through daily psychological erosion, and escalate behavior until compliance or catastrophe. Since then, social manipulation through online forums has become more sophisticated, platforms more numerous, and identities harder to verify.

Beyond ideology or nation-states lies a third vector: blackmail-for-profit. In February 2025, 16-year-old Elijah Heacock from Kentucky died by suicide after receiving an AI-generated nude image made to resemble him, followed by extortion demands for $3,000.

The FBI, alongside Homeland Security Investigations, reported receiving over 13,000 reports of financial sextortion targeting minors between October 2021 and March 2023, involving approximately 12,600 child victims and resulting in at least 20 suicides. In 2022 alone, the FBI noted over 7,000 sextortion cases involving minors, with dozens of those cases escalating to serious harm or death.

These crimes exploit shame rather than ideology. With the rise of AI-generated explicit content, perpetrators can now target victims at scale. This can be done using real or fake imagery to coerce money, further images, or even live-performed acts. Moreover, the rise of cryptocurrencies and digital gift cards can be used as untraceable payment methods

These information space incursions are the beginning of a new form of hybrid warfare. The conflict between Russia and Ukraine has given us a startling preview of things to come in the future of conflict. Drones are making tanks obsolete. Social media platforms can turn the front line into any phone with an internet connection. A digital avatar can convince a young person to harm themselves or their country.

Digital literacy can only go so far in preventing harm. A couple hours in the classroom every week is nothing compared to the leverage a seemingly trustworthy connection to an online friend. Proof-of-human ID badges on digital avatars could help prevent chatbots from running automated influence operations. Backend IP trackers could flag suspicious accounts seeking out young people from adversarial nations. Algorithms can be tuned to prioritize localized engagement over international connections.

Ultimately, establishing national cognitive security for our most vulnerable falls to the twilight area between private innovation and public oversight. It is likely that we will see more victims before laws are passed and platforms are changed.

Eric Czuleger is a journalist and travel writer who has lived and worked in over 47 countries. He holds a masters degree from the University of Oxford and he is completing a National Security degree from the RAND school of public policy. He's the author of You Are Not Here: Travels Through Countries That Don’t Exist, and host of the “This Is Not a PsyOp” TikTok channel.

📚 Liked today’s brief? Dive deeper—check out my book You Are Not Here: Travels Through Countries That Don't Exist and explore the world’s unrecognized countries.

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