Russian intelligence agencies are increasingly using fake female profiles on dating platforms to lure Ukrainian military personnel into assassination attempts, UUN reported.
Operatives use fake accounts on dating sites and messaging apps to contact service members before arranging meetings at pre-selected locations where attacks are allegedly planned.
Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) alleged that the operations have involved several methods, including improvised explosive devices placed at meeting sites, poisoned food and drinks, and direct physical attacks carried out by alleged Russian agents.
Since the start of the year, Kyiv’s military counterintelligence has disrupted more than 50 alleged plots.
Criminal investigations are ongoing into the alleged incidents under charges including treason, premeditated murder, and terrorism.
Alleged Operations
The SBU cited several investigations that it said illustrate the tactics used in the alleged plots.
In January 2026, a Ukrainian soldier was allegedly lured to an industrial area in Zaporizhzhia, where, according to investigators, he was attacked by a knife-wielding assailant instead of the woman he believed he was meeting.
The attacker was arrested shortly afterward, while investigators later identified the woman allegedly responsible for communicating with the soldier online on behalf of Moscow’s Federal Security Service (FSB).
In another case, the SBU said it intercepted a parcel containing a drink allegedly mixed with a lethal dose of methadone before it reached its intended recipient.
Reportedly, the suspected Russian agent had instructed the soldier to consume the drink during an online video date.
In March last year, Ukrainian authorities arrested a suspected FSB agent in the Kharkiv region, accused of posing as a volunteer while delivering food and medication allegedly laced with poison to a Ukrainian soldier.
