Ukrainian Intelligence successfully recruits Russian officer who helped to move 11 other soldiers to Ukraine
The Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry has carried out a successful special operation codenamed "Barynya", which resulted in the recruitment of a Russian regular military serviceman. Details of the operation were revealed by Andriy Yusov, a representative of the Military Intelligence Directorate, as reported by Ukrinform.
"As a result of the Barynya special operation, Lieutenant Danilo Vladimirovich Alferov, a regular Russian military serviceman, defected to the Ukrainian side. Since June 2023, he had actively collaborated with the Security and Defense Forces of Ukraine and the Main Intelligence Directorate. Alferov had convinced and voluntarily transferred 11 Russian servicemen into captivity in several groups. When Alferov's life was at risk, Ukraine conducted a special operation to safely bring him to Ukrainian territory," said Yusov.
According to him, Alferov was brought to the territory under Ukrainian control by the Ukrainian Special Operations Forces. The Russian serviceman himself got in touch with the Ukrainian military through the "I Want to Live" project.
"The Ukrainian side offered me to find Russian military servicemen willing to surrender as prisoners under the 'Wish to Live' program. During our cooperation, I managed to bring three groups of soldiers into captivity. When I began to be suspected, I informed my overseer from ‘I Want to Live' that I was leaving. Upon arriving in Ukrainian territory and meeting the Ukrainian Special Operations Forces, I went through all the procedures prescribed for Russian military personnel who surrender as prisoners," Alferov added.
On August 23, it became known that the Military Intelligence Directorate, in collaboration with the Ukrainian National Guard, "relocated" a Russian Mi-8 combat helicopter with cargo and important documentation to an airfield in the Kharkiv region. The preparations for this operation took six months. Maxim Kuzminov, the pilot who cooperated with the Ukrainian side, along with his family, is currently in Ukraine, while other members of the crew were killed.