Russia Recruits 43-year-old TikToker to Spy on Ukrainian Troop Locations - SBU
Ukraine has arrested a 43-year-old TikToker for allegedly spying on troop locations in eastern Ukraine at the behest of Russian intelligence.
The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), in its Monday press release, said the female suspect was a “local employee of a coal mining enterprise” at Pokrovsk, one of the most contested areas on the eastern front in Ukraine’s Donetsk region.
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Pokrovsk is a key logistics hub for Ukrainian troops as it stands on major highways leading to central Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia and Dnipropetrovsk regions, with Russian troops having been attempting to besiege the town in recent months.
The SBU said the suspect was recruited after Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) noticed her TikTok videos, where she then used an unspecified means of communication to talk to her Russian handler.
The SBU did not disclose the nature of the TikTok videos the woman was making.
It said the woman is a resident of Myrnohrad, a town 6 kilometers (close to 4 miles) east of Pokrovsk, where she was tasked with spying on Ukrainian troops and artillery locations that kept the Russian troops at bay.
“On instructions from the Russian special services, the suspect went around the frontline area in the Myrnohrad area, where she tried to identify the locations of Ukrainian troops,” the press release says.
“The enemy was particularly interested in the ‘rear’ locations of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the combat positions of the artillery, which keep the assault groups of the occupiers under fire control,” it adds.

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The agent was arrested at an unspecified checkpoint near the front on an unknown date, where her device, used to communicate with the FSB handler, was also confiscated.
She has been served with suspicion of committing high treason during martial law and faces life in prison, with full confiscation of property, if convicted, the SBU added.
As reported by Kyiv Post on Sunday, May 4, Russian troops are attempting to advance along the Pokrovsk axis via Myrnohrad, where the alleged agent was tasked to spy on.
As of May 5, Ukraine maintains control over the entirety of Pokrovsk, with Russian troops positioned approximately 4 to 6 kilometers (2.5 to 4 miles) south of the city, according to battlefield tracking DeepState UA.
The E50 highway sections west of Pokrovsk, which connect it with Ukraine’s Dnipro city, remain under Ukrainian control.
At the time of publication, Moscow controls nearly all of the Luhansk region and is pressing toward remaining key hubs under Kyiv’s control in the Donetsk region.