How Ukraine recruits and trains undercover agents to carry out missions in Russian-occupied territories
In a new interview with the Ukrainian outlet Hromadske, a member of Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces provides rare details about how the Ukrainian military recruits and trains undercover agents to undermine the Moscow-installed authorities in occupied territories. According to this soldier, these missions range from drawing graffiti in support of Ukraine to assassinating Russian soldiers. In English, Meduza shares the main takeaways from the interview.
Sasha, a soldier from Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces (SSO) who’s involved in finding and training undercover agents to work in Russian-occupied territories, has reportedly served in the Ukrainian army for more than 20 years and has been fighting in the war with Russia since 2014.
“My job is to prepare resistance movement members for reconnaissance, sabotage, subversion, and guerrilla activities in the Russian-occupied territories,” Sasha told Hromadske. One of the SSO’s primary goals, he said, is to “increase the level of dissatisfaction with the occupation authorities.”
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According to Sasha, each agent he works with is trained for specific tasks, which can include anything from painting pro-Ukrainian graffiti and distributing flyers to blowing up bridges and assassinating Russian soldiers. “The most important things for our confidants are vigilance and secrecy, as these are essential for their safety. Our operatives in occupied territory have only themselves to rely on — therefore, we must teach them how to avoid danger,” he explained.
Sasha and his colleagues search for “confidants” through a variety of channels and put candidates through a rigorous vetting process, he told Hromadske. While he didn’t disclose specifics about these channels, citing security concerns, he said that the Ukrainian military identifies people who are “patriotic and genuinely willing to carry out resistance movement tasks.” They then narrow the group down to the most capable candidates.
Sasha noted that the SSO doesn’t recruit minors or people deemed mentally incompetent and that it prioritizes residents of occupied territories or areas that may soon come under occupation. Candidates who pass the selection process undergo both remote and in-person training, according to Sasha, with the latter taking place “in conditions as safe as possible for the confidant,” including outside of Russian-occupied territories. Nobody, including the agent’s family, is supposed to know about their activities, unless two relatives are both working for the SSO together.
The SSO teaches its operatives to assess risks, blend in with others, and avoid drawing attention, Sasha said. For each “confidant,” he explained, the military develops an individual behavioral plan:
Sometimes, to carry out an SSO mission, a person has to join the occupation authorities. They might work in the local occupation administration or run a pro-Russian website, for example. In these cases, we prepare the person for their double life, knowing that they’ll have to praise Russia and Putin on Russian TV. [We also prepare them] for the fact that only a limited circle within the SSO will know that they’re actually working for Ukraine. It will be very difficult for them, but the SSO has all of the necessary documents, and a time will come when the person will be able to reveal that they were working for Ukraine.
If an SSO operative “loses their nerve” or encounters an imminent threat, the Ukrainian military evacuates them along with their family, Sasha told Hromadske. According to him, the agency develops an evacuation plan immediately for each new person who begins working with them.
In some cases, the FSB doesn’t even know that they’ve caught one of our confidants. This happens when the Russians enter a newly occupied territory and arrest everyone indiscriminately. [...]
Other times, one of our confidants is arrested because the FSB has identified them. This is exactly why confidants are given minimal information during training about the other resistance members with whom they’ll be working remotely. Yes, there are cases when our confidants die at the hands of the FSB. But war is war — this isn’t just children playing spies.
