The Budapest Chief Prosecutor’s Office has brought charges against a Ukrainian boy and is seeking a custodial sentence to be served in a juvenile detention facility over bomb threats sent to mostly Budapest schools last spring, the prosecution said on Monday.

Minor Ukrainian boy threatened to blow up schools in Hungary

According to the statement, the 17-year-old arrived in Hungary with his family in 2022 and was granted asylum in the summer of 2024; he continued his studies at a school in Budapest.

In March 2025, the minor began promoting what he called an extremist “new-generation plan”, with the aim of intimidating pupils and teachers in his circle, as well as followers on his social media accounts, the Hungarian news agency wrote.

As part of that campaign, between 12 March and 30 April 2025, he sent threatening messages from his mobile phone to the official email addresses of eight Budapest educational institutions — including his own — and one school in Russia, while using computer methods designed to prevent the sender from being identified.

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Nine acts of terrorism

In those messages, he claimed on behalf of a multi-person organisation that bombs had been placed in the school buildings and warned that, unless they were evacuated, they would be blown up.

The authorities evacuated the threatened schools after every message. Pupils and teachers were only allowed back in after explosive ordnance checks, and the cost of evacuations and searches came to roughly 300,000 forints, the statement said.

The Budapest Chief Prosecutor’s Office has charged the juvenile defendant with threatening to commit nine acts of terrorism and is seeking a prison sentence to be served in a juvenile detention facility.

He had previously been remanded in custody and is currently under criminal supervision, the statement added.

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Featured image: Police officer searching a school after a bomb threat. Illustration. Source: police.hu