How Ukraine’s undercover agents have infiltrated Putin’s invading forces

Ukrainian special forces (left) and partisans (right) have been part of the resistance since Russia launched its all-out invasion (Picture: Special Operations Forces of Ukraine/Atesh)

Taking up Ukraine’s cause from the shadows, a network of partisans and agents are risking their lives on Russian-occupied ground.

One highly active organisation has shared pictures of troops at a military parade with Vladimir Putin’s image in the backdrop and details of what it claims are deficiencies in the federation’s domestic air defence.

The Atesh group’s clandestine activities are part of a wider pattern of resistance, ranging from assassinations to peaceful civil disobedience.

As Moscow seizes the initiative on the battlefield, Ukrainian special forces revealed to Metro.co.uk how they are playing a ‘leading role’ supporting partisans operating in occupied territory.  

The guerillas are thought to be behind mysterious explosions, assassinations and acts of sabotage such as derailed trains.

Outside of Kyiv’s formal military structure and thought to be civilians or veterans, they risk death if caught by Putin’s forces. 

But the resistance movement has continued to carry out acts ranging from reconnaissance of air and naval bases to the destruction of key installations.

Undercover agents from Atesh have even apparently been able to infiltrate the ranks of the Kremlin’s invasion forces.   

A spokesperson for Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces (SOF) told Metro.co.uk this week that the elite arm of Kyiv’s armed forces has been at the forefront of the resistance activity.  

Lieutenant Colonel Oleksandr Kindratenko said: ‘Ukrainian SOF play a leading role in the organization, training and support of the so-called partisan units. Since the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion in February 2022, units of the resistance movement have been operating in the special forces.  

A clandestine shot of a Russian military airfield in Novofedorivka on the western coast of Crimea (Picture: Atesh, @atesh_eng)

‘This is a new type of force for the Ukrainian army.

‘The basis of these units are people who conduct reconnaissance, discover valuable data and coordinates, cooperate with our armed forces and carry out sabotage. At the same time, they are behind enemy lines, in the Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine.’ 

The respected US Institute for the Study of War (ISW) has been mapping partisan acts which have taken place during the all-out attack.

They include arson, sabotage, the detonation of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and ‘targeted violence’ involving small arms fire.   

Vladimir Putin can be seen depicted in the backdrop of a video released by the Atesh partisan group (Picture: Atesh, @atesh_eng)

Lt Col Kindratenko told Metro.co.uk: ‘The results of the work of the resistance movement are the destruction of enemy personnel and equipment, command posts and communication routes and successful obstruction of the advance of enemy troops.

‘As an example, in October 2023, in the temporarily occupied city of Melitopol, in the Zaporizhia region, a unit of the resistance movement conducted an operation which resulted in a railway track being blown up.  

‘The railway track and a train delivering ammunition and fuel for the Russian army in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine were damaged.  

‘There are already dozens of such operations. However, we do not talk about them, because our guerrillas are in constant danger, and exposure for them means risking their lives.’ 

High-profile Ukrainian military operations said to have involved partisans include the devastating missile strike against Russia’s Black Sea Fleet headquarters in occupied Crimea. 

Another is the assassination of Vladimir Malov, an executive secretary at a local branch of Putin’s United Russia party, with an IED in the southern Kherson region. Atesh, which is comprised of Ukrainians and Crimean Tatars, did not claim responsibility for his death in a car bomb last October but said the party official had refused an offer to co-operate.   

Non-violent civil resistance in Russian-occupied areas is also taking place as the occupiers carry out a pattern of ‘looting, killing and kidnapping’, according to the peaceful Yellow Ribbon group. 

The resistance activity reaches much further than the activity claimed by Kyiv and allied groups, with Lt Col Kindratenko only acknowledging Ukraine-backed partisan activity in occupied territory.

Ukrainian operators stand in front of destroyed Russian military vehicles (Picture: Special Operations Forces of Ukraine/Facebook/NavalSOFCenter)

A wider feature of the war has been unclaimed attacks inside Russia’s lawful borders, damaging targets including air bases and military aircraft, railway lines and oil refineries. 

On Tuesday, uncrewed aerial vehicles were used to strike an oil factory and a manufacturing facility for Iranian Shahed drones in Russia’s Tatarstan Republic, around 745 miles inside the country.

Russian partisans opposed to Putin, including the Freedom of Russia Legion, have also been part of the resistance with activities including cross-border raids into Belgorod.  

George Barros, the ISW’s Russia team lead, has previously told Metro.co.uk how the partisan movement continues a Ukrainian tradition of resistance.   

‘Ukraine had an active partisan movement from the 1930s and 1940s in Soviet-occupied Ukraine in order to try to defeat the Russians,’ he said.   

‘The movement failed but it was supported by the CIA and MI6 up to the early 1950s. 

‘In the current war, we have seen Ukrainian partisans operate behind Russian lines to do a variety of interesting and important tasks. These include car bomb and IED attacks and targeted violence, including assassinations.   

‘There are Russian officials who have been killed behind the lines and the partisans also target Ukrainians who have joined the occupation forces, so they are a great disincentive for would-be collaborators or Russian officials deploying to Ukraine who know they have to keep on their backs.

‘They also serve as forward observers for artillery and conduct sabotage at rail lines and ammunition depots.’

Partisan activity was said to have contributed to one of Kyiv’s most successful strikes of the war, when at least two cruise missiles hit the naval fleet’s base in Sevastopol on September 22 last year. 

Admiral Viktor Sokolov, the fleet’s commander, and 33 officers were said to have been killed at the fleet’s headquarters in the peninsular, which was illegally annexed by Russia in 2014.  

In February he was reported to be alive and to have been sacked after 27 successful attacks on Russian ships by Ukrainian forces since the outset of the all-out invasion more than two years ago.   

Partisans with the Atesh group say they are about to blow up a section of railway as part of an operation with Ukrainian forces (Picture: File image)

Information for the strike had been provided by ‘Russian residents of Crimea’ to the Ukrainian underground, according to reports at the time.  

Along with the publicised attacks, Atesh is actively recording and monitoring Russian installations and troop movements. 

Last summer, the group suggested it had an agent in the Russian national guard who was deployed to the city of Melitopol in the south-eastern Zaporizhzhia oblast.   

The guerillas said the person’s tasks ranged from ‘damage to military equipment to sabotage of the execution of repressive criminal tasks against the local population’.   

A Russian military parade was shown in mobile phone footage shot from a bus in a clip released by the group, whose name means ‘fire’ in Tatar. 

On Thursday, Atesh said on X that it had ‘agents’ in the Russian army who had identified a shortage of air defence systems in the Ryazan region, which lies south-east of Moscow.

The post included pictures of Russian military vehicles, two of which were marked with the ‘Z’ symbol.

Activists have destroyed symbols of the Russian occupation distributed in occupied Ukraine (Picture: @yellowribbonENG)

While the extent of the group’s activities is unknown, the video can be viewed alongside the unclaimed explosions and drone attacks taking place deep inside Russia’s legal borders. 

Another way that Kyiv’s security service has made contact with Russian military personnel is through Ukraine’s ‘I Want to Live’ project, which helps demoralised enemy troops to surrender.

In October, Metro.co.uk told how the website was facilitating an average of one surrender every two days as Moscow used soldiers as ‘artillery meat’, according to a representative of the project.

The partisans’ activities will become even more vital as Ukraine struggles with shortages of weapons amid renewed Russian assaults.  

‘It’s interesting to see and track the continuation of Ukraine’s partisan tradition,’ Barros told Metro.co.uk. 

‘They are not special forces soldiers, they are civilians or veterans who are doing what they can. They tie up Russia’s forces and increase its requirement to do internal policing.   

The Ukrainian flag is displayed at the top of Pahkal-Kaya mountain in occupied Crimea on the country’s Day of Unity (Picture: @yellowribbonENG)

‘They can also cause significant operational problems if they manage to get the timing right. For example, while a railroad or bridge is relatively easy to repair, if Kyiv can co-ordinate with its partisans behind the lines to render it inoperable, if only for a few hours, it can become an important action. 

‘Russia claims from time to time to apprehend and kill partisans. It’s a huge testament to their bravery that they continue to do such risky things.’

The ISW said this week that the Kremlin may be ‘intensifying the overall tempo’ of its offensive operations in Ukraine, including drone and missile strikes against energy facilities. 

The Washington-based institute also noted an increase in the number and size of Russian forces’ mechanised ground assaults in select parts of the eastern front over the past two weeks.  

The push may be an attempt to seize on Ukrainian materiel shortages before Kyiv has a chance to bolster its weapons stocks with Western assistance, the ISW said.

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