The Internal Affairs Ministry of Russia on Tuesday warned residents in the western border regions of Kursk, Belgorod, and Bryansk – which have sustained an ongoing Ukrainian invasion since August 6 – not to use online dating sites out of concern that Ukraine is using them for intelligence-gathering.
“The use of online dating services is strongly discouraged. The enemy is actively using them to gather information,” the Russian government warned, according to a translation of a report on the Russian state media outlet Interfax by the Moscow Times.
In addition to dating sites, the government warned locals to shut off CCTV and security cameras.
“The enemy is identifying IP address ranges in our territories, remotely accessing unprotected security cameras, monitoring everything from private yards to strategic roads and highways,” the Interior Ministry reportedly warned through a spokesperson. “Unless necessary, it is better not to use security cameras.”
“It is important to monitor and moderate chats and to quickly delete the accounts of people captured by the enemy or those whose phones have been compromised,” the announcement continued, referring to soldiers captured by incoming Ukrainian forces.
The Russian government declared a state of emergency in Kursk, the most affected region, on August 9 after Ukrainian forces crossed the border into Russia and began capturing territory. As of Tuesday, the Ukrainian state media network Ukrinform claimed, citing military authorities, that Kyiv was in control of 486 square miles of territory in Kursk and fighting on a frontline stretching across nearly 650 miles. Russian officials have not significantly disputed Ukraine’s progress in undisputed Russian territory but have accused Ukrainian forces of human rights abuses against civilians in those areas.
According to Kursk acting governor Alexei Smirnov, his region is planning to evacuate 180,000 people as a result of the Ukrainian incursion, and of those, 121,000 have been displaced since August 13. In the same meeting during which Smirnov announced the mass evacuation, his counterpart in Belgorod said authorities were planning to evacuate as many as 11,000 people.
The Ukrainian government has insisted that – contrary to the Russian government, whose “special operation” in Ukraine was accompanied by the “annexation” of four occupied Ukrainian territories – Kyiv does not intend to capture Kursk or convert any uncontested Russian territory into Ukrainian land. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky explained in a national address this weekend that his military is “creating a buffer zone on the aggressor’s territory,” specifically Kursk, to make it more difficult for Russia to transfer soldiers to the front lines within Ukraine.
While the Ukrainian incursion into Russia came as a surprise this month, Zelensky appeared to hint that he was closely monitoring the border region in January, when he signed a decree delcaring Kursk, Belgorod, and Bryansk, among other territories, “historically” Ukrainian.
The Russian government warning on the potential of dating sites being used as intelligence collection tools is a response to over two years of reporting revealing that Ukrainians and supporters of their cause, men and women alike, are using accounts on dating websites to converse with Russians. Some target any Russians in the country, hoping to convey news that Russian strongman Vladimir Putin censors in other media. Others build communication with Russian soldiers hoping for some useful intelligence. Still other users have scammed Russians out of potentially thousands of dollars, some redirected into the Ukrainian war effort.
In 2022, during the early days of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the fashion magazine Elle profiled users of popular dating applications such as Tinder and Badoo using profiles of women – sometimes their own, authentic profiles – to match with Russian men and then send them news about the war they believed to be censored in Russia. The tactic became a trend after a Lithuanian influencer, Agnė Kulitaitė, encouraged women to use Tinder to send Russians messages “spreading the truth” about Putin and the violence in Ukraine.
Elle also reported that “dozens have also used Tinder to gather intel and triangulate the locations of Russian soldiers in Ukraine.” The users communicate with the same Russian soldier from different locations, then use their shared intelligence on the distance between the soldier and their locations to reveal where the soldier is located.
“A lot of people feel very helpless in this situation, demanding their politicians do something, but they don’t know what to do directly,” a data scientist named Marijn Markus told Elle at the time. “Some of them start painting flower art and selling that, which is good; but as a data person, I grab a beer and spend the night flirting with Russians.”
In a similar report by Huck magazine that year, Ukrainian women speaking to the outlet said they began weaponizing their presence on dating applications when they “started to notice that Russian soldiers’ profiles were popping up on their Tinder feeds, some posing in uniforms and holding guns in their pictures.” The magazine identified one woman who had interacted with over 70 Tinder accounts and relayed that information to the Ukrainian military. Some of the Russian soldiers were found to be located in Belgorod.
Tinder and Hinge halted their services in Russia in May 2023, but other dating sites still offer opportunities for those seeking to find Russian soldiers. In July, the Daily Mail revealed a web of Ukrainians using Russian dating sites to enamor soldiers and scam them into sending them thousands of dollars. The Ukrainians use fake profiles of women and convince Russian soldiers to buy “tickets” for events, where they are meant to meet the women who do not exist, through websites they control. When the soldiers ask for a refund, they receive requests to buy more “tickets.”
“The group, known as the Monetary Army, use a range of tactics to trick Russian soldiers, cops and military academy students, among other professions, into handing over up to £19,000,” the Daily Mail reported.