Two Russian men who say they secretly worked with Ukraine’s intelligence services have given accounts of operations they claim to have carried out against military assets and personnel inside Russia, in a BBC Eye documentary for the BBC World Service, according to the BBC.
Shadowmen: Russians working with Ukraine premieres on BBC iPlayer and the BBC World Service YouTube channel on Monday 19 October, and airs on BBC Two on Monday 26 October at 23:00.
The Polish journalist Marcin Mamoń spent two years developing contact with a network of Russians who say they have been working covertly in support of Ukraine from inside Russia. Among them is a man the film calls Ivan, who describes himself as a patriot and says he wants Vladimir Putin’s government removed from power, arguing that supporting Ukraine’s war effort could help achieve that.
Another operative, given the name Foma and exiled in Poland, runs a network of volunteers inside Russia who carry out surveillance on senior officers that Ukraine’s military intelligence service, the GUR, is tracking.
The documentary raises the possibility that some operatives claiming to work for Ukraine could in fact be acting on behalf of Russia.
Monica Garnsey, the BBC executive producer, said: “Marcin Mamoń has used the incredible access he gained to tell a story that is not about heroes or villains, but about men who have crossed a line many will never face, and who are living with the consequences. Shadowmen asks difficult questions about acts of war, patriotism, and loyalty, and there are no simple answers.”
The BBC said the film examines the motivations of Russians who say they oppose the Kremlin and the risks they say they have taken, and that it explores the difficulty of independently verifying some of the claims made, with many of those involved unwilling to share further detail for security reasons.
Sabotage inside Russia has been a feature of the war almost since it began, and attributing any individual incident has been close to impossible from outside. Railway lines serving the front have been cut, recruitment offices burned, fuel depots set alight and military figures killed, with the GUR and the Security Service of Ukraine claiming some of it, Russian partisan groups claiming more, and Russian authorities frequently describing perpetrators as recruited over the internet for money.
