Svitlana, the 42-year-old wife of Dima, a Ukrainian army medic who had been a prisoner of war in Russia, had waited for news of her husband’s fate for more than two years.
Then, one morning out of the blue, she received a phone call from a Ukrainian number she didn’t recognize from someone calling himself Dmitry who promised her news of her husband.
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She said she was immediately suspicious because the man had a Russian accent, and her fears were realized when Dmitry told her that he could arrange for her husband to receive better conditions while captive or even early release – if she did something for him.
That “something” was to commit acts of terrorism that amounted to treason. Dmitry said that she could earn improvement in her husband’s situation if she set fire to military registration and enlistment offices or military vehicles, carry out sabotage of railway electrical relay boxes or provide information on Ukrainian air defense units around the capital.
Instead, she acted on the instructions the families of all Ukrainian servicemembers had been given on how to act if they were approached by suspected Russian agents: play along, buy time, record everything, and report it. She contacted Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) who told her to stall the Dmitry to give them time to investigate.
In a subsequent call Dmitry gave her instructions on how to prepare and use a “Molotov cocktail” firebomb, how to dress to avoid security cameras recognizing her, how to set up her phone to avoid it being located. Svitlana pretended to agree to firebomb the relay box alongside a local railway line.
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She was instructed to take a photo of the completed arson attack along with a piece of paper showing the date as proof of completion of the task. In return Dmitry promised to arrange a phone call with her husband, or for a parcel to be delivered to him.
Shortly afterward the SBU confirmed that Dmitry was calling from Russia and told Svitlana to break off contact, so she told him she had changed her mind.
That, she said, was “when the threats began. He [Dmitry] said that my husband would be killed, and I would never see him again.” She said that for days, he kept calling, telling her: “Your husband is being tortured, and it’s your fault!”
Svitlana told the BBC that while she was really concerned for her husband, she would never betray her country: “My husband would never have forgiven me.”
An SBU spokesperson told the BBC that cooperating with Russian agents “will in no way ease the plight of the prisoner; on the contrary, it may significantly complicate their chances of being exchanged.”
They said that in any event the number of cases in which relatives of Ukrainian prisoners agree to carry out acts of sabotage is small as such deeds this may be classified as treason for which the maximum punishment is life imprisonment.
The BBC cited Petro Yatsenko, from Ukraine’s military coordinating headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War, says almost half of all POWs families have been contacted by Russian agents.
He said he understands that families are “in a very vulnerable position and some of them are ready to do anything,” but his headquarters is trying to educate them that cooperating with the enemy will not benefit their loved ones, as the case of Svitlana amply illustrates.
The Russian government told the BBC that allegations that it would use prisoners’ families in such a way was “groundless” as it treats “Ukrainian combatants humanely and in full compliance with the Geneva Convention,” before going on to accuse Ukraine of “…attempting to coerce residents of Russia to commit acts of sabotage and arson within Russian territory, targeting critical infrastructure and civilian facilities.”
At least this story had a happy ending for Svitlana and Dima when, in the autumn of 2024, he was released from captivity.
He told her that his Russian captors had not carried out any threats to punish him for her refusal to cooperate.
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