Ukrainian intelligence sought confirmation last fall that Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) officers overseeing the occupation of Kherson were staying at a small hotel on a back street in the southern port city.
That task was entrusted to Dolar: which is the code name of a civilian who secretly passed coordinates and information about enemy operations in Kherson and the surrounding area, said the operative.
Reuters conducted extensive interviews with Dolar and two other members of the underground partisan network in Kherson, after the city was conquered in early November.
Their stories provide a rare glimpse into how information and sabotage operations are coordinated with Ukrainian intelligence services behind enemy lines. Such operations are carried out in other parts of Ukraine.
Although Reuters could not independently confirm the credibility of the specific events described by the interviewees, two US officials told the agency that such operations, carried out by covert intelligence operatives, former soldiers and amateurs, contributed to the faster withdrawal of Russian troops from Kherson - which was one of the biggest blows for the Kremlin in the war that will have its first anniversary on February 24.
Dollar, who declined to be identified by his full name for security reasons, said he was driving past the Ninel Hotel - Lenin in reverse - with his wife, who is also part of the network of operatives and goes by the name Kosatka, which means killer whale in Ukrainian.
Since they regularly saw armed operatives in front of the hotel, the couple was convinced that FSB officers were stationed inside. Dolar said that he conveyed his observations by text message to his contact person in the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU).
Ukraine's SBU and Russia's FSB did not respond to Reuters requests for comment on Dolar's story or other Ukrainian partisan operations. The Defense Ministry also did not respond to requests for comment, according to Reuters.
Before dawn on October 5, a large explosion rocked the hotel, Ukrainian media reported, and regional lawmaker Serhi Khlan said, who wrote on Facebook that two FSB officers and seven Russian military officers were killed.
"I received a text message that read, "Look at the situation with the Ninel Hotel," recalls Dolar. “I went there and reported: There is no more Hotel Ninel”.
Reuters could not confirm the content of the text message. Dolar and other partisans claim that they regularly delete correspondence and posts on social networks for security reasons.
Dolar and Kosatka received decorations from then-Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov with expressions of gratitude for "cooperation with the armed forces," according to a photo dated Dec. 1 seen by Reuters.
Marta and Kolija, the other two members of their four-member cell, were also decorated by Reznikov, Dolar said.
When asked about resistance operations in the occupied territory, an official from Ukraine's Main Intelligence Directorate (GUR) said that "the local population is providing support," declining to provide more details about specific activities.
Operations aimed at Russian security personnel and aimed at disrupting their plans are taking place throughout eastern and southern Ukraine, which is under the control of Russia and its allies, several Ukrainian and Russian officials, as well as a number of members of partisan cells in Kherson, told the British agency.
The Institute for War Studies also claims that Ukrainian partisan warfare is being waged in Melitopol, Tokmak and Mariupol in the south and in Donetsk and Svatov in the east.
Serhij Gajdai, the governor-in-exile of eastern Luhansk province, which has been under Russian control since last June, said that partisans there are carrying out sabotage operations and attacks on suspected Russian collaborators.
In an interview on January 23, he said that the partisans were responsible for the recent attack on the railway used by the Russian army to transport soldiers and equipment. He declined to give further details for security reasons, and Reuters could not independently confirm the involvement of partisans in the attacks.
Captured partisans
Risking arrest, interrogation, torture and death, partisans in Kherson displayed Ukrainian blue-and-yellow colors on trees and sent Russian positions on Google Earth and other online maps to Ukrainian security officials, Dolar said.
Vitaly Bogdanov, 51, a member of the regional council, said that during the eight-month Russian occupation, he collected and sent information to security forces in Kiev that was later used to open investigations into suspected collaborators of enemy forces.
"We were able to open a very large number of criminal cases," he said. He declined to provide further details as investigations are ongoing.
Kolya, an experienced hunter who knows Kherson's rural areas, gathered information from local villagers, including an elderly woman who counted Russian convoys while milking a cow.
Kolija, who is part of a four-member cell from Kherson, said that their superiors asked him not to use firearms because information is more powerful than weapons.
Other partisans took up arms.
Alexei Ladin, a lawyer in Crimea, told Reuters that he was representing two Ukrainians captured there and accused by the FSB of violent attacks against Russians.
Pavlo Zaporozhets served in the Ukrainian army from 2014 to 2017, and joined the Ukrainian GUR intelligence service during the occupation of Kherson, Ladin said.
A native of Zaporizhia was arrested in an attempt to attack a Russian military night patrol and is facing a life sentence on charges of international terrorism, Ladin said.
He said that Zaporozhets is in a detention center in Simferopol and that he and his client had a preliminary court hearing in the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don via video link on February 2. The court ordered that Zaporizhia be transferred to prison in Rostov, Ladin said.
In the FSB report, which Reuters had access to, the 31-year-old man from Zaporozhye was arrested in Kherson by FSB members on May 9 while carrying two grenades and two improvised explosive devices.
Zaporozhets told investigators that he had been contacted by a person from Ukraine's GUR codenamed Optium and that he had agreed to carry out orders for 30 hryvnias ($000) a month, according to FSB documents.
Ladin claims the FSB report is based on his client's testimony while he was being tortured during interrogation and showed Reuters a copy of a handwritten note from Zaporizhia dated last August in which he described being beaten and subjected to electric shocks while in custody. .
Although some details from the FSB report are correct, Ladin claims that the FSB falsely accuses Zaporizhia of deliberately targeting civilians as well as the night patrol. The military action should have been carried out during the curfew in order to avoid civilian casualties, said Ladin.
Ladin said that the "optimal solution" would be to exchange Zaporizhia and another client, Jaroslav Žuk - who was arrested in June in Melitopol and accused of activating an improvised explosive device - for Russian prisoners of war held by the Ukrainian army. Žuk denies that the targets were civilians, Ladin said.
The FSB refuses to recognize Zaporizhia as a Ukrainian soldier so that he can be exchanged, stating that it cannot determine the authenticity of the document presented by the defense confirming his status, Ladin said. In the case of Žuk, Ladin said that his client is a combatant according to the Geneva Convention, the FSB refuses to grant him such status.
Escape from Kherson
Dolar, Kolija and Mart - another member of the cell - said they felt obliged to resist the Russian takeover of Kherson because there was no organized defense of their city when the Russians attacked on February 24 last year.
Dollar and Mart's first attempt to confront Russia, according to them, took place on May 1, when they drove a truck full of concrete blocks onto the Antonovsky Bridge, the main entry point into the city, with the aim of slowing Russia's advance.
They returned because they feared that the occupiers were already in the city, they said.
Dollar considered his options: organizing a civil disobedience movement, taking up arms, or gathering information.
Friends put him in touch with an SBU officer. Dolar and Kolija, who are old friends, agreed to collect and send information about the Russians and to build a network of retired police officers, former SBU members, retirees and others, they said.
Kolija, an experienced hunter who knows Kherson's rural areas, gathered information from local villagers, including an elderly woman who counted Russian convoys while milking a cow.
In between scouting, the pair met with sources at a coffee shop to gather information.
During the summer, a farmer gave Kolia the positions of a Russian rocket launcher known as Point-U near the village of Muzikivka, about 12 kilometers north of Kherson. Dollar says he passed on that information.
A member of the Kherson intelligence cell told Reuters that his superiors asked him not to use firearms because information is more powerful than weapons.
The next day, the farmer informed Kolija that there was only a hole left where the launcher used to be, Dolar said. Reuters could not independently confirm that the attack had taken place.
Dolar's wife, Kosatka, recruited her network of informers, he said. Kosatka declined to speak to Reuters.
Airport
At the same time, Mart was conducting an independent intelligence operation, visiting people living near Kherson International Airport in Chornobayivka on April 10 and asking them in person and via Telegram correspondence to send him information about Russian troop movements. His five-man cell was called Miami. Mart claims to have deleted correspondence with cell members.
In March, Russian forces established a headquarters inside the three-kilometer airport complex, which Ukrainian forces have repeatedly bombed.
Kiev claims that a large number of Russian soldiers were killed, including at least two generals, while aircraft and ammunition depots were also destroyed. Moscow withdrew heavy military equipment from the airport in October.
As Russian losses mounted, some members of the cell recruited by Mart became overconfident and exposed themselves to greater risks, Mart and Dolar said.
When the Russians arrested four members of the Miami cell at the end of August, Mart feared they would betray him. Reuters could not determine what happened to the arrested cell members.
Mart fled to the village of Vasilievka in Zaporozhye province, where the only checkpoint where the Russians allowed Ukrainian civilians to cross into Ukrainian-controlled territory was located, and then headed for Kiev.
Despite the liberation of Kherson, Dolar said that he and Kosatka will continue to help the resistance forces until Ukrainian troops return Crimea, where the couple has an apartment.
"For me, the end of the war will be when I return and move into my apartment again," he said.
Prepared by: N. Bogetić
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