Fast kill but also long game: Russia is using AI-generated women and long conversations to lure Ukrainian soldiers to their deaths

Russia is using AI-generated women to lure Ukrainian soldiers to their deaths. The fabricated profiles are one of three versions of a "honey trap" scheme Russia has escalated this year, and Ukraine's military counterintelligence has foiled more than 50 such attempts in 2026, said Artem Dekhtiarenko, spokesperson for the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU).

In an army of more than a million, six soldiers have been killed this way, cases Dekhtiarenko called isolated but real, and Russia will spend months grooming a fake romance for a single one of them. It has revived a classic Soviet tactic, but not to compromise soldiers as the KGB once did. The aim now is to kill them and to spread the panic that makes the war feel uncontrolled.

The scheme runs in three versions

The first relies on technology. Artificial intelligence can now generate a woman's photos convincingly enough that, without close analysis, it is hard to tell whether she exists, Dekhtiarenko said.

The second uses real women living in occupied territory who work for Russia's services.

The third, and rarest, uses women on Ukrainian-held ground who agree to help and are eventually caught.

"There is an inevitability of punishment," Dekhtiarenko said, adding that the SBU and police will detain every agent, and the sentences are severe.

Russia plays the long game

The traps are not always quick. Russia wants to recruit, use a target, and move on quickly, Dekhtiarenko explained, but investigators have logged correspondence that spanned months of steady messaging before the strike. That patience is itself a warning to soldiers, he added, and reason to watch such contacts carefully.

The killings aim to sow panic

Asked why Russia would spend so much on a single soldier, Dekhtiarenko said the goal is psychological: to sow panic, destabilize, and make the situation look beyond Ukraine's control.