A young Russian student detained by intelligence officers at Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport has revealed how he spent more than a year pretending to cooperate with the FSB while secretly feeding his handlers false information — before escaping the country with evidence of their recruitment methods.

The student, identified by the pseudonym Ivan for safety reasons, shared his account and a cache of text messages and recordings with Politico, "Hvylya" reports. His ordeal began in 2023 when he was pulled aside after landing on a domestic flight. Two men in civilian clothes, accompanied by uniformed officers, confiscated his phone and passport.

The agents confronted Ivan with an organizational chart bearing his name and photograph alongside those of acquaintances from Vesna, a pro-democracy youth group that had helped coordinate anti-war protests. They showed him excerpts from a Telegram chat that had been deleted after a Russian court labeled the organization "extremist" in December 2022. The ultimatum was blunt: become an informant or go straight to prison on charges carrying a 15-year sentence.

Ivan agreed on the spot but had no intention of following through. In the weeks that followed, his mental health deteriorated sharply. He began flunking classes and withdrew from social life. Eventually, he confided in Alexander Kashevarov, a Vesna activist living abroad — one of the very people he had been told to spy on. Together they devised a plan: Kashevarov would feed Ivan either false or harmless information to pass to his handlers while Ivan secured travel documents.

In early 2025, Ivan fled Russia via a circuitous route and reached Spain, where he is currently awaiting asylum. Remarkably, his handlers appeared not to have realized he had left the country. "You're starting to wear me out. You never pick up the phone," the first agent wrote five months after Ivan's departure. "Don't force me to come find you." Only months later did the officers seem to connect the dots. "Why did you go abroad?" the second agent demanded. "You'd better call me real quick." After that, the line went silent.

Ivan said he holds no resentment toward those who, under similar pressure, comply and become informants. "It's foolish to expect everyone to be a hero," he said.

"Hvylya" also reported on how Russia's wartime prison recruitment may destabilize the country's postwar future.