- July 18, 2026
- 3:56 pm
- World News
Russian special services use one of the most cynical methods of warfare against Ukraine: they create fake female accounts, feign love, gain the trust of young servicemen, and then send them poisoned gifts. One of the victims of such an operation was 23-year-old marine Nikita Orlivovsky, who called his virtual beloved ‘Dear’ and until the end did not suspect that he had become the target of a planned murder.
Russia wages war not only with missiles, drones, and assault units.
Russian special services search for Ukrainian military personnel on social networks and messengers, study their personal lives, exploit loneliness, trust, and the desire to start a family. After this, they offer the person love, support, and a shared future, and at the right moment, send a deadly ‘gift’.
According to a TSN investigation, since the beginning of 2026, Ukrainian law enforcement has recorded six such episodes. One murder was prevented. In five cases, the servicemen died.
These crimes show how dirty the Russian special services operate. They do not just recruit killers. They create an entire fictional life around the future victim — with photos, video calls, declarations of love, and conversations about family.
And then they turn human trust into a weapon.
‘Dear’ was the first to write to the 23-year-old marine
One of the victims of this scheme was 23-year-old Ukrainian serviceman Nikita Orlivovsky.
About three months before the tragedy, an unknown girl wrote to him on Telegram. She claimed to have seen his photo on a dating site.
However, from the very beginning, there were signs in her behavior that the contact was not accidental.
The girl already knew the young man’s name and where he was from. One of her first questions was to clarify whether Nikita was indeed an active serviceman.
Then she asked to send a recent photo.
It was likely important for the people behind the account to confirm the identity of the chosen target and ensure they were communicating with a serviceman.
The virtual acquaintance introduced herself as a resident of Kharkiv. She said she lived under Russian shelling, and her relatives were supposedly on the front line.
The girl portrayed loneliness and vulnerability. She said she dreamed of meeting a reliable man and starting a family.
Gradually, the correspondence became more personal.
She asked Nikita where he was, what he was doing, and where he was going. She was interested in his service, relatives, personal plans, and movements.
At the same time, the interlocutor constantly emphasized how similar they were.
If Nikita said he loved cooking, she replied that she was also into cooking. When he talked about wanting to start a family, the girl said she dreamed of the same.
This formed an emotional dependency.
In Nikita’s phone, her contact was saved as ‘Dear’.
Russian curators created a non-existent love for him
The people managing the account used psychological manipulation.
The girl could suddenly stop communicating and then reappear, saying she was injured during another Russian strike on Kharkiv.
Nikita began to worry about her and became even more attached to a person who, in reality, probably never existed.
The correspondence included supposedly joint photos of the couple. According to TSN, the images were created using artificial intelligence.
Russian curators effectively created a fictional reality for the serviceman.
In it was a girl from Kharkiv, talks of love, a future meeting, family life, and joint photos.
In reality, each message could be part of an operation to study the victim and prepare for murder.
This is where the particular cynicism of the Russian scheme manifests. The serviceman was not intimidated or blackmailed. He was given what he wanted — a sense of closeness, love, and hope for a normal life after the war.
The meeting was replaced by a bottle of poisoned alcohol
When Nikita got leave and came to Zhytomyr, the girl promised to meet him in person.
However, shortly before the meeting, she said she couldn’t come due to issues with apartment documents.
Instead, ‘Dear’ decided to send him a gift — a bottle of expensive alcohol.
She set a condition: Nikita had to open the bottle and drink with her during a video call.
For the serviceman, this seemed like a romantic gesture. For the Russian curators, the video call, according to the investigation, could have been a way to control the task’s execution and ensure the victim actually consumed the poisoned drink.
A deadly methadone-based mixture was pre-injected into the bottle.
For this, the bottle was pierced with a syringe. Externally, the packaging looked intact, and the color and taste of the drink were almost unchanged.
During the video call, Nikita drank three small shots.
He was alone in the apartment.
Soon the serviceman lost consciousness.
Doctors fought for his life for several days
The next day, Nikita’s relative received a call from unknown individuals claiming to be law enforcement officers.
They asked when she last saw the young man and advised her to immediately check his apartment.
The door had to be broken down.
Nikita was found unconscious. Doctors managed to restore his heart function, after which he was taken to intensive care.
For several days, doctors fought for the life of the 23-year-old serviceman, but they could not save him.
The young man did not die on the front line or during a Russian missile strike.
He was killed in the rear, using trust, romantic feelings, and the desire to be loved.
The executor was promised five thousand hryvnias
The investigation established that the virtual ‘Dear’ account was managed from temporarily occupied Ukrainian territory.
At the same time, Russian special services found an executor who was supposed to prepare and send the poisoned bottle.
According to the Zhytomyr Regional Prosecutor’s Office, a 19-year-old resident of the Poltava region was involved in the crime.
He was recruited through Telegram.
For completing the task, the young man was promised only five thousand hryvnias.
According to the investigation, he bought a bottle of strong alcohol, injected it with a methadone-based substance, and sent the package to Nikita in Zhytomyr.
After the serviceman’s death, the suspect was detained at his place of residence.
He is charged with premeditated murder, committed for selfish motives and in the interests of the aggressor state.
Law enforcement is also identifying other participants in the crime — people who created the fake account, conducted the correspondence, controlled the executor’s actions, and transmitted instructions to him.
Russian special services use addicts and teenagers
Nikita Orlivovsky’s story is not an isolated case.
Ukrainian law enforcement agencies are investigating a series of similar crimes in which Russian special services used fake female accounts, online dating, and poisoned alcohol.
Executors are often sought among young people, drug addicts, or participants in closed Telegram channels related to drug distribution.
They are offered small sums of money, narcotics, or promised a simple task without serious consequences.
A person may be instructed to pick up a package, buy a bottle, add an unknown substance, or deliver a ‘gift’ to a specified address.
However, in fact, they become participants in a murder organized by Russian special services.
In one of the officially confirmed episodes in the Zhytomyr region, a 17-year-old girl was detained.
According to the police, she received a substance, presumably methadone, through a parcel locker, after which she added it to the serviceman’s alcohol.
When the man lost consciousness, the girl left the apartment.
Investigators believe she received the assignment from a representative of the Russian special services.
Love created as a tool for murder
NAnews — Israel News draws attention: the main danger of this scheme is that it outwardly does not resemble a military operation.
There are no armed saboteurs, explosives, or noticeable surveillance.
There is ordinary correspondence in Telegram.
There is a young girl who asks about life, talks about her fears, and speaks of love.
There are photos created by artificial intelligence.
There are video calls, talks about a shared future, and the promise of a quick meeting.
And then there is a gift, inside which is a deadly substance.
Russian special services use the most personal human feelings as part of a killing technology. They study a person’s loneliness, hopes, and emotional weaknesses, and then turn them into a tool of war.
These are not random crimes by individual executors.
It is a system where some people create fake profiles and communicate with the future victim for months, others obtain drugs and prepare poison, others deliver the package, and Russian curators observe the result from a distance.
The dirtiest side of the Russian war
The murder of Nikita Orlivovsky shows another side of Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Russian special services are ready to use everything: teenagers, drug addicts, artificial intelligence, dating sites, human loneliness, and love.
For them, there are no moral boundaries.
They valued the life of a 23-year-old serviceman at five thousand hryvnias, a bottle of alcohol, and several months of deceitful correspondence.
Nikita called the girl ‘Dear’, made plans, and believed he had met a close person.
But behind the photos and confessions were Russian curators who were preparing his death from the very beginning.
This is what the dirty war of Russian special services looks like: they not only kill people but also deliberately destroy trust between people, turning love, friendship, and human closeness into a weapon.