Soon after midday on July 19, 2024, Hrystyna Garkavenko, the 19-year-old daughter of a priest, arrived at his church in Pokrovsk, eastern Ukraine. Although she was devout, she wasn’t there to pray.
Familiar with the building thanks to her father’s role there, the young woman went up to the second floor and entered one of the rooms. There, in a window shielded by blinds, she set up a cellphone as a live-streaming camera, pointing it toward a road used by Ukrainian troops and vehicles traveling to and from the front lines further east. The feed was sent directly to Russian intelligence.
This was far from the only task Garkavenko carried out for Russia’s main intelligence agency, the Federal Security Service (FSB), Ukrainian prosecutors said. Throughout that year, she messaged with an FSB agent, passing on information about the locations of Ukrainian military personnel and equipment in Pokrovsk, a strategic hub.
“I just wanted to talk to this person more. And just because I wanted to talk to him, I agreed to help him,” Garkavenko told CNN in a rare phone interview from prison, where she is serving a sentence of 15 years for treason.
She declined to tell CNN whether she had romantic feelings for the agent. But Pavlo Uhrovetsky, head of the Donetsk Regional Prosecutor’s Office, said that “in addition to her active pro-Russian stance, the young woman had developed more than a friendly relationship with that person.”
Garkavenko is one of thousands of Ukrainians believed to have been recruited by the FSB and other Russian intelligence agencies to spy on their own country. According to the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), investigators have opened more than 3,800 treason investigations since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, with more than 1,200 individuals already found guilty and sentenced. On average, those convicted face 12 to 13 years behind bars, though some are sentenced to life.
CNN has reached out to the FSB for comment.
Andrii Yakovliev, a defense counsel and expert on international humanitarian and criminal law at the Media Initiative for Human Rights, a Ukrainian NGO, told CNN that Ukraine ensures the conditions are in place for a fair trial, and that, in general, the country’s courts respect due process. He added that prosecutors tend only to go to court if they have sufficient evidence and “will not call white black” to get a conviction.
“Passing information to Russian intelligence is the most common treason during wartime,” Ivan Kisilevych, head of the Department of the Office of the Prosecutor General, told CNN.
The range of tasks carried out on behalf of the FSB is very wide, according to the SBU, and geography – in terms of proximity to the fighting – does not matter.
“In frontline areas, we more often detain agents who collect and pass information about the movements or positions of the Ukrainian army,” an SBU statement said. “In western and central Ukraine, Russian agents more often gather and leak information about military facilities, critical infrastructure, and attempt sabotage near thermal power plants, police buildings, and railway lines.”
Defense Ministry adviser Serhiy Beskrestnov warned this week that Russian agents were seeking to recruit Ukrainians to register Starlink satellite internet terminals that the Russian military could then use, after unapproved Russian systems were blocked. The Russians are offering $300 to Ukrainians willing to do so, he said.
Why some Ukrainians agree to spy
The profile of Ukrainians recruited by Russia is a broad one. While some are ideologically motivated, this group is shrinking, intelligence officials say. For the majority, money is the primary motivation.
According to the SBU, Russian intelligence operatives primarily recruit people who are desperate for money, such as the unemployed, or individuals with various addictions – to drugs, alcohol, or gambling.
“It is important to understand that we are not talking about thousands of dollars,” said Kisilevych. “For most, it is a few hundred dollars or other material benefits… It is easy money for traitors. They simply receive money on their cards, not thinking where or whom it comes from.”
Andriy, an SBU counterintelligence officer, told CNN that Telegram channels are currently one of the most common recruitment tools. CNN is not using his last name due to the nature of his work.
“Russians post ads offering quick, easy money. They then gradually assign tasks. Initially, these are very primitive – buy coffee, take a photo of a receipt in a cafe. For this, the funds are transferred to a bank card, and the recruitment process begins gradually,” he explained. “Later, more sensitive tasks appear – installing cameras along railway tracks, photographing military facilities, and so on.”
If at a certain point the person refuses to cooperate, recruiters resort to blackmail, Andriy said, threatening to hand over the correspondence to the SBU. “At that point, people have no way back,” he explained.
Garkavenko says her contact began as a casual acquaintance via Telegram. “At first, it was just a normal introduction, a casual conversation. Then he presented himself as an agent of the Russian Federation and suggested cooperation,” she said, speaking from a penal colony for women convicted of crimes against national security and treason.
Garkavenko said she considered quitting at one point. “I had doubts, I wanted to stop at a certain moment, and I told this person that several times. But I was told that everything would be fine, that they would protect me, and nothing bad would happen. I believed him.”
Although she was paid by the FSB for her actions, it was not her main motivation, she told CNN.
‘Well done, I love you’
The SBU reports almost weekly on new detentions of suspected local collaborators, ranging from ordinary citizens to military personnel.
The alleged treason it says it uncovers involves a wide range of individuals. Among those already convicted are a 50-year-old factory mechanic in Kramatorsk recruited by the FSB, who sent coordinates of Ukrainian military personnel and heavy weapons; a 40-year-old former factory employee in Kramatorsk, who guided Russian bombs to the region; a 21-year-old Kyiv resident, who helped coordinate Russian missile attacks on the capital; and a 49-year-old resident of the Chernivtsi region who worked for a delivery service. Acting under the “cover” of his courier work, the agent rode around the area recording military and critical infrastructure facilities, the SBU said.
Uhrovetsky, of the Donetsk Regional Prosecutor’s Office, recalls what he described as the “cynical” case of Iryna Landuga, a woman convicted last year of passing information about Ukrainian military positions to her son, who fought for the Russian army, and receiving financial compensation in return.
“We heard her talking to her son, after she gave him the coordinates of the Ukrainian forces. After that, these locations were shelled, and she herself (went and checked) that there were dead and wounded. She thanked them and rejoiced, saying, ‘Well done, I love you,’” Uhrovetsky said.
According to the court ruling, in August 2023, while returning from the store, Landuga, who lived in Kurakhivka, in Donetsk region, saw Ukrainian soldiers at the home of her son’s godmother and in the barracks of the Military Mining Rescue Unit. She told her son about this, after which the area was shelled, resulting in at least one death. A 59-year-old civilian woman living in a nearby building died under the rubble, the court document said. The godmother was out of town at the time.
In audio provided by the prosecutor’s office to CNN, Landuga can be heard saying of the attack: “People died there. A woman died… Everything’s fine, everything’s good. They hit the barracks? Well done, I love you. Good job. For the godmother, I kiss your hands… Very grateful for the barracks. And the rest we’ll consider collateral damage.”
In October 2025, she was handed a life sentence, the court noting her indifference to the consequences of her actions.
Waiting for a swap
Garkavenko received a 15-year sentence in June, after pleading guilty and expressing remorse. Uhrovetsky said she made her plea “because she wants to be exchanged.”
In her interview with CNN, Garkavenko said that although she has never been to Russia, she has relatives there and wants to live with them.
Kisilevych noted that some Ukrainians are promised that if things go wrong, they will be exchanged for Ukrainian citizens held as prisoners of war by Russia. For some of those detained, going to Russia is the only palatable option, he said. “But I have serious doubts that they will be better off there. I doubt they will arrive there as heroes.”
While she awaits a potential exchange, Garkavenko’s father – the priest – remains in Ukraine. She said he was shocked when he found out what she did, but did not abandon her. “He supports me, and says that everything will be ok. He accepted my decision to go for an exchange.”
Andriy, the SBU counterintelligence officer, said that the Russian intelligence service does not really care about those who are recruited remotely. “They are just expendable to them.”
He added that there will always be people trying to steal secrets – and that for intelligence operatives, the search for traitors never stops. “It’s meticulous work, involving a detailed study of a collaborator’s life. Sometimes it gets to the point where you realize that you know their life so well that you basically become part of it,” he said.
Garkavenko said she made a conscious choice to help Russia and now regrets what she did. “I hurt my loved ones and, to some extent, ruined my own life.”
