A woman in a Russian border city rejected a uniformed man’s advances. Two days later, she says, masked soldiers abducted her and demanded she confess to Ukraine ties.

A woman living in a major Russian border city says men in military uniforms abducted her, threatened to torture her with electric shocks, searched her phone, and demanded that she acknowledge possible ties to Ukraine. Two days earlier, she had rebuffed a serviceman who approached her in a parking lot.

The woman, Angelina, told the news outlet Vot Tak about the ordeal. She believes the two incidents are connected, though reporters could not independently verify a link.

Angelina said she stopped in a store parking lot on her way home on September 8. At her request, the outlet did not identify the city. A man in a military uniform who was sitting in a nearby car called her over. He appeared to be about 50. His uniform had no shoulder insignia, but it bore a patch that Angelina could not make out.

The man suggested that they get to know each other and “go for a drive somewhere.” “I told him he was a little outside my age range,” Angelina said. The serviceman then began asking about her tattoos, saying some of them contained “Nazi symbols.” She ended the conversation and went into the store. She later saw the man again near the entrance. He shouted “Glory to Ukraine” and then said, “Over there in Ukraine, we cut up those khokhols with knives,” using an anti-Ukrainian slur.

When Angelina left the parking lot, she noticed the serviceman’s car following her. Frightened, she drove around for a while to avoid revealing where she lived. Eventually, the car disappeared from view.

Two days later, on September 10, Angelina drove to a gym. As soon as she got out of her car, two masked men in military uniforms ran up, grabbed her, and dragged her into a black Nissan. She could not recall its license plate number. Two other men were inside: a driver in a military uniform and a man in civilian clothes in the front passenger seat. The man in civilian clothes identified himself as a security officer and showed her some form of identification, though Angelina could not recall which government agency he claimed to represent.

The men took her phone. The man in civilian clothes said the authorities had “received a tip” about Angelina and had reason to believe she intended to join the Freedom of Russia Legion, which fights on Ukraine’s side.

The car began moving. After a while, the men ordered Angelina to put a bag over her head. She believed they initially drove around the city before leaving it and turning onto a dirt road.

The men questioned her throughout the drive. They asked about Ukraine and the Ukrainian Armed Forces, the accounts she followed on her phone, and whether she might want to join an armed group. They also examined her tattoos. They asked about her relatives, former husbands, and current boyfriend, including whether she planned to remarry. Angelina said the men knew details of her private life that she had never shared publicly on social media.

At one point, the car stopped, and another man got in. Angelina never saw his face. “He got in and said, ‘We’re going to put handcuffs on you now and shock you. What aren’t you telling us?’” Angelina recalled.

She replied that she did not understand what they wanted from her. She said that was when she first thought the ordeal might be connected to the serviceman outside the store.

She received no direct answer. But the men continued threatening to “pin prostitution” on her and accuse her of other crimes.

Eventually, they drove her to another location, took her out of the car, and ordered her to squat. They removed the bag from her head, returned her phone, and gave her 500 rubles for a taxi. “They said, ‘You can stand up and leave in a minute. You’re across the street from your home. Don’t you dare go filing a complaint anywhere,’” Angelina recalled.

They had indeed dropped her off near the building where she lived. But she had no legal connection to the apartment, and she was registered at another address. She does not know how her abductors learned where she actually lived.

Angelina said the ordeal had left her “consumed by terrible paranoia,” but she did not go to the police. She does not know what she will do if the men return. “I’m trying to assume that won’t happen,” she told reporters.