© Dave Sanders for The New York Times
Russian intelligence services have sharply stepped up building websites and social media pages that impersonate Ukrainian state bodies and media, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) warned. Moscow uses the fakes to spread disinformation and to steal personal data it can turn into spy recruitment. The SBU says it has already blocked dozens of clones of its own brand.
The fake sources serve Russian psychological operations and disinformation campaigns, the SBU said on 28 September. Their aim is to destabilize the situation inside Ukraine and damage its position abroad. Russian intelligence also uses them to extract Ukrainians' personal data, the agency said.
Alongside its full-scale invasion, Russia wages war on Ukraine in the cyber domain and through espionage and sabotage. Every agent Russia recruits inside Ukraine can help steer missiles and drones onto targets, and the SBU keeps catching such recruits.
Russians often hack the accounts of users who subscribe to the fake pages and messenger channels, the SBU found. They then use the stolen information for recruitment operations and to collect confidential data.
Moscow is most interested in the combat and operational work of Ukraine's defense and security forces, the agency said. The SBU's cybersecurity department found and blocked more than 50 resources that copied the agency's own branding and positioning.
The fake pages are not Russia's only digital tool. Earlier in September, Anthropic said it had caught Russian spies running a campaign against Kyiv on its Claude AI chatbot.
The SBU urged citizens not to follow suspicious links and to rely only on official sources. Anyone who sees a dubious web address, or gets a message from someone posing as an SBU officer, should call the 1516 hotline, the agency said.
The SBU's own reports from the past week show what Russia's recruits are tasked with. A mobilized soldier allegedly recruited by the FSB, Russia's Federal Security Service, tried to direct a Russian missile strike on his own unit in Kharkiv Oblast, the SBU said. His repair battalion restores Ukrainian drones.
A Lviv Oblast resident who worked at a drone production site in western Ukraine was allegedly recruited to guide a missile strike on it, the agency reported. The strike was meant to disrupt the steady supply of strike and reconnaissance drones to Ukrainian troops, the SBU said.
A court also sentenced a 17-year-old agent of Russia's military intelligence (GRU), exposed in November 2024, to 10 years in prison, the SBU announced. She tracked Ukrainian air defenses in Chernihiv Oblast under the cover of taxi rides. She talked to her GRU handler through an anonymous messenger chat.
Russia has quietly started a new round of mobilization and plans to bring in more North Korean troops, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said. He cited a new report from Ukraine's military intelligence. The same day, the Kremlin published a decree enlarging Russia's army for the fourth time this year.
Zelenskyy spoke in his evening address on 28 September, after a briefing from Ukraine's military intelligence (HUR).
"In effect, the Russians have already begun additional mobilization—they are increasing the number of people they recruit through various means," he said.
Moscow also plans to recruit more foreigners, Zelenskyy said. He urged the governments of countries whose citizens Russia recruits to counter it, and said Kyiv would inform each of them.
Ukraine says Russia has been losing soldiers faster than contract recruitment replaces them. If so, an unannounced call-up lets the Kremlin refill its ranks without a formal draft. ISW says Putin may hold off on such a draft until he sees whether his strikes work. Ukrainian intelligence had expected Russia to announce a mass mobilization after this month's State Duma elections.
More than 8,000 North Korean troops are currently on Russian territory, Zelenskyy said. Pyongyang is selecting another 10,000 for training and deployment to Russia, he added.
Russia is paying, among other things, with technology, according to Zelenskyy. North Korea has launched production of Shahed-type attack drones with Russian technical support, he said.
That is a step beyond what Kyiv reported in June 2025. Moscow and Pyongyang had then only agreed to start preparing such production. In August, Zelenskyy warned that Russia could receive up to 50,000 North Korean troops.
Putin's decree sets the authorized strength of Russia's armed forces at 2,441,630, including 1,550,500 military personnel, Vedomosti reported. The decree gives no reason.
The order adds 15,500 troops and is the fourth such increase this year, Euronews said. Since March, the combined increase has reached 47,860 soldiers. Putin's 2022 "partial mobilization" decree also remains in force, the outlet noted.
In early September, Putin claimed that reports of a coming mobilization were "complete nonsense" and "an information attack on Russia." Russian officials gave similar assurances days before the 2022 call-up.
Ukraine's military and foreign intelligence had earlier said that Russia's General Staff prepared a scenario to mobilize 600,000 people over 2026 and 2027, 300,000 each year.
© Lucas Foglia for The New York Times
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