According to an investigation by NGL.media, Telegram has channels that focus on bullying children and teenagers. These channels, which contain the word "essence" and city names in their names, are active in cities such as Kharkiv, Kyiv, Dnipro, and others. The journalists note that these channels are "constantly migrating", changing their names and accounts, probably because of the risk of being blocked. However, according to them, all the channels are run by the same people who use the closure or renaming of the channel as another opportunity to make money from teenagers.

In addition, it is indicated that the channels of the Essence network have chats where bullying continues, as well as offering drugs or allowing drug dealers to use these platforms for their activities. The chats are often filled with foul language, threats, calls for violence, and child pornography.

The organizers of the anonymous Telegram channels decided to create a single project to unite the channels from different cities, allowing teenagers to bully each other on a larger scale. According to the investigation, the income from these channels is received by 22-year-old Ukrainian citizen Danylo Stepanenko, who declares his religious beliefs and preaches the approaching end of the world on his page on the russian social network VKontakte. Stepanenko is also known as a pianist who used to run a YouTube channel with his covers of popular songs.

Journalists also identified another administrator of the network, 20-year-old Valentyn Belitskiy, who ran the channels and chats of "Essence" in Kyiv, Dnipro and Lviv. Belitskiy is an active serviceman of the electronic warfare unit of the 36th Separate Marine Brigade of the Ukrainian Navy, based in Mykolaiv. Importantly, the administrators' phone numbers have russian international codes, indicating a connection to Russia.

Recently, in Ivano-Frankivsk, the mother of a 6th grade student at a lyceum reported to the police about the ill-treatment and psychological violence her child suffered from other students. Minister of Education Oksen Lisovyi commented on the incident, noting that the situation has all the signs of systematic harassment.