Ukrainian resistance and military-intelligence operatives have used fabricated online romantic identities—sometimes posing as women—to coax Russian soldiers into sharing details that were later used to guide drone strikes, according to a report in The Atlantic.
A Ukrainian military-intelligence officer identified as Serhiy posed online as a 35-year-old housewife in an unhappy marriage and spent months exchanging WhatsApp messages with a Chechen commander named Achmad, who was stationed somewhere in Russian-occupied southern Ukraine, The Atlantic reported.
The messages began with personal conversation before shifting toward the front lines. Achmad later sent a photograph taken inside his barracks that, according to The Atlantic, showed a map of the compound in the background. The coordinates visible in the image were subsequently struck by a Ukrainian drone.
Serhiy’s commander described him as adept at the approach. “Serhiy was great at flirting,” the commander told The Atlantic, adding that teammates began asking him for dating advice.
The Atlantic said many of the Ukrainian agents involved in these operations have limited formal training and often rely on printed tradecraft manuals rather than digital materials that could be intercepted. One such manual described CIA “catfishing” tactics in Africa during the Cold War, the report said.
Several Ukrainians interviewed by The Atlantic cited civilian killings and sexual violence during Russia’s full-scale invasion as personal motivation. The report quoted a Kyiv hospital doctor, Tetyana Kostyantynivna, as saying her facility treated sexual-assault survivors from occupied territories in 2022 and 2023 ranging in age from 4 to 75.
