‘Your husband is being abused, and it’s your fault’

Svitlana says she never thought about betraying her country, “not for a moment.”

“My husband would never have forgiven me,” she says, when we meet in her flat near Kiev.

The 42-year-old woman had been waiting for news from her husband Dima, an army doctor captured by Russia, for more than two years when she suddenly received a call.

The voice on the end of the phone tells him that if he has committed treason against Ukraine, Dima may be eligible for better treatment in prison or even early release.

“A Ukrainian number called me. I picked up and the man introduced himself as Dmitry,” Svitlana explains. “He spoke with a Russian accent.”

“He said, ‘You can either burn down a military recruitment office, set fire to a military vehicle or sabotage a Ukrainian railway electrical box.'”

There was another option: revealing the locations of nearby air defense units – vital military assets that keep Ukraine’s skies safe from Russian drones and missiles.

As Dmitry makes his proposal, Svitlana says she remembered the instructions that Ukrainian authorities had distributed to all families in case they were contacted by Russian agents: buy as much time as possible, record and photograph everything. Do it, and report it.

Svitlana reported this and took screenshots of the messages, which she showed to the BBC.

The Ukrainian security service, the SBU, asked him to stop the Russians during the investigation. So he pretended to agree to bomb a local railway line.

As we sit in her immaculate living room, outside which air raid sirens periodically blare, she plays me a recording of two voice calls she made on her phone with Dmitri, via the Telegram app. During the call, he gives instructions for making and planting Molotov cocktails.

“Pour in a liter of lighting fluid and add a little petrol,” explains Dmitry. “Go to a railway junction. Make sure there are no security cameras there. Wear a hat – just in case.”

He also gave Svitlana a tutorial on how to put her phone on airplane mode when she was 1–2 km away from her intended target, to avoid its signal being picked up by mobile phone masts, which could be used by investigators. Can be done.

“Do you know what a relay box is? Take a picture of it. This should be the target of his arson attack,” explained Dmitry, who asked for proof of the task completed.

“Write today’s date on a piece of paper and take a photo with this piece of paper.”

In return, Dmitry said he could arrange a phone call with her husband, or arrange for a parcel to be delivered to her.

Later, the SBU told Svitlana that the man she was talking to was actually in Russia, and that she should break off contact. Svitlana tells Dmitry that she has changed her mind.

“That’s when the threats started,” says Svitlana, “They said they would kill my husband and I would never see him again.”

For days he kept calling and saying: “Your husband is being tortured, and it’s your fault!”

“How worried were you that he might make threats to harm Dima?” I ask Svitlana. His eyes became moist. “My heart hurt, and I could only pray: ‘Lord, please don’t let this happen.'”

“Part of me said ‘This guy has no connection to prisoners.’ The other part asks: ‘What if he could really do this? How would I live with myself?’

In a statement to the BBC, the SBU said that cooperating with Russian agents “will in no way alleviate the prisoner’s plight; on the contrary, it could significantly complicate the prospects for his exchange.”

Authorities are urging all relatives to come forward immediately if they are contacted by Russian agents.

He says those who do will be “protected” and treated like victims.

But if relatives agree to sabotage or espionage, the SBU says, “this could be classified as treason. The maximum punishment is life imprisonment.”

Authorities regularly publicize the arrests of Ukrainians who allegedly commit arson or reveal the location of military sites to Russia.

Pro-Kremlin media are full of videos showing Ukrainians burning military vehicles or railway electrical boxes.

Some criminals do so for money paid by suspected Russian agents, but attacks are also believed to be carried out by desperate relatives.

Petro Yatsenko of the Ukrainian Army’s headquarters for the treatment of prisoners of war says that about 50% of all families of prisoners of war are contacted by Russian agents.

“They are in a very vulnerable position and some of them are willing to do anything,” Petro says, “but we are trying to educate them that this will not help (their incarcerated loved ones).

Petro says that acts such as setting fire to a military vehicle are not considered to cause significant material damage to the Ukrainian Armed Forces:

“But it could destabilize the unity of Ukrainian society, so that’s the main problem.

And, of course, if someone, for example, shares the location of air defense systems, this is a big problem for us as well,” he admits.

Authorities do not publish the number of Ukrainians held as prisoners of war, but the number is believed to exceed 8,000.

A source in Ukrainian intelligence told the BBC that the number of cases where relatives agree to work with Russia is small.

The Russian government told the BBC in a statement that allegations of using prisoners’ families as leverage are “baseless” and that Russia “treats Ukrainian combatants humanely and in full compliance with the Geneva Conventions.”

The statement accused Ukraine of using the same methods:

“Ukrainian operators are actively attempting to coerce Russian residents to commit acts of sabotage and arson within Russian territory by targeting critical infrastructure and civilian facilities.”

Svitlana’s husband Dima was released from prison only three months ago.

The couple is now happily back together and is enjoying playing with their four-year-old son Vova.

How did Svitlana feel when her husband was finally free?

“There were tears of joy like I’d never cried before,” she says, smiling. “It felt as if I had snatched my love from the jaws of death.”

Dima told his wife that the Russians did not act on their threats to punish him if he refused to cooperate.

He was shocked when Svitlana told him about the call.

“He asked me how I was holding up,” she says. “Well, as I always say, I’m an officer’s wife.”