"The FSB is blackmailing me": how Russian secret services tried to recruit a volunteer through his son, and why he decided to go to Moscow to save him
Mykhailo Puryshev, a volunteer who is well known in Ukraine for repeatedly travelling to besieged Mariupol to evacuate families, flew to Moscow of his own accord on 17 August 2026. He says he did so because he was being blackmailed: Russia's Federal Security Service, the FSB, had threatened to conscript his son into the Russian army and send him to fight against Ukraine unless Puryshev agreed to cooperate.
Shortly before his departure, Ukrainska Pravda managed to speak to some of Mykhailo's friends, and to Mykhailo himself. The volunteer was already outside Ukraine, in Poland, when our conversation took place. Here we tell his story in his own words.
It was the middle of summer 2026. The paperwork was almost complete. Mykhailo Puryshev, a serviceman who was close to being discharged, was doing household chores at his home on the outskirts of Kyiv. A year of military service was behind him, as were his health problems, although he was still feeling the effects of the two heart attacks he'd suffered. Just a few more documents to get hold of, and he could go back to volunteering.
Suddenly a call came through on Telegram. It was his son Oleksandr. Mykhailo hadn't seen him for more than four years. He was an adult now – 18. Mykhailo would probably have struggled to recognise him if they met. Oleksandr sounded anxious.
His son's frightened voice came down the phone. "Dad, there are some people here and they want to talk to you."
Mykhailo ended the call and rushed to find a second phone. Another call came through from his son's number. Mykhailo started recording. A man's voice came down the phone, speaking in Russian.
"Good afternoon, Mikhail [Mykhailo in Russian – ed.]. You understand who you're talking to. The equivalent of your 'security service'. Let's be friends, Mikhail. If you don't want to be friends… you help the military, don't you? How would you feel if your son were on the other side, up against those people? Who matters more to you, Mikhail?"
At first Mykhailo didn't know what to do. If they'd called from an unknown number, he could have sworn at them and hung up. But they were calling from his own son's number. That meant these people were with him and had him under their control. He had to figure out how to save him. How to save his son from the FSB.
Family in Russia and blackmail using his son
Mykhailo had divorced long before the full-scale invasion. His ex-wife took their two children – a son and a daughter – and moved to Russia. She had lived in Pskov since 2016. From time to time, his son would visit him in Mariupol. Father and son travelled around the country, ate hot dogs at petrol stations, stayed in good hotels and went to amusement parks. Oleksandr was interested in programming and computer games and dreamed of studying abroad. Russia's invasion changed everything.
Father and son began to talk less often. Mykhailo didn't want to put Oleksandr at risk unnecessarily because of his volunteer work. So Oleksandr was usually the one who called. He told his dad that the other kids at school didn't talk very nicely about Ukraine or Ukrainians. It seemed the invasion was forcing him to grow up too fast.
It was obvious that the Russians would draft his son into the army as soon as he turned 18. Mykhailo tried several times to get him out of Russia. First he attempted to enlist the help of his ex-wife: he tried to persuade her to sign some documents so that their son could fly to see Mykhailo's brother in Canada. But she refused. Then he tried to do it secretly, through acquaintances and friends. The plan almost worked, but at the last moment Oleksandr said he couldn't go through with it: if he fled to Canada, his mother would be very upset.
Then, on 16 July 2026, came the call mentioned at the start of this article.
The man from the "equivalent of the security service" who had suggested that they "be friends" was in fact issuing a direct ultimatum: either Mykhailo helped the Russians or his son would be sent to the front lines. Mykhailo was warned that if he tried to tell anyone about the conversation or attempted to get Oleksandr out of Russia with the help of relatives, the threats would quickly be carried out. But if their "friendship" worked out, they assured him they would help arrange Oleksandr's studies, possibly even abroad. They even promised to provide money for his education.
The Russian asked whether Mykhailo was in contact with his ex-wife and why their relationship was so strained. We do not know the details of Mykhailo's family life, but the man from the "equivalent of the security service" guaranteed that he could sort that out too. He promised that the next call would come from his ex-wife's number. They also said they wouldn't bother him too often: twice a month max.
"I felt dirty," Mykhailo recalled. "All sorts of ideas kept running through my head about how to sort this out. I cried. I wondered what to do. I was worried about my son, afraid they might have locked him up somewhere. He was frightened. Those people who'd come to see him weren't friends; they'd come to scare him. I think he was terrified."
The second time the Russians called, it was via Telegram from an unknown number, and they were excessively polite. Even when Mykhailo became emotional, they said calmly: "We're speaking to you politely, aren't we? And I know a lot about you. I respect you. And I'm speaking to you respectfully."
The unknown caller told Mykhailo to buy another phone and a new SIM card and to find a good hiding place for them. When the time came, he was to make contact.
The subsequent conversations, if they can be called that, became more specific: the Russians explained what they expected from the cooperation they were proposing. They wanted information about foreign military personnel serving in Ukraine's defence forces and the locations of various units. They were particularly interested in Azov.
"Has something happened to you? Why are you so sad? Why are you off social media? Why aren't you posting anything?" asked the unidentified caller who wanted to "be friends".
Mykhailo didn't know what to say. He couldn't swear at him. Nor could he directly refuse to cooperate. After all, the Russians were holding his son hostage. Mykhailo didn't know what had happened to him, where he was, or what conditions he was being held in. He didn't even know whether his son was free. The Russians desperately needed Mykhailo to go back to his volunteering and his social media as though nothing had happened.
"I've just gone through the military medical board and I'm waiting for the paperwork. I'm being discharged," Mykhailo explained. "And technically, I'm supposed to be at my permanent duty station. So just to avoid any questions, I'm staying at home, not really going anywhere, and I won't be posting anything until I have the documents."
The Russian kept asking when Mykhailo would be able to return to volunteering, because it was "very, very necessary" that he do so. This time, however, the conversation was more friendly than businesslike: the man from the "equivalent of the security service" seemed to have changed tactics and was trying to act more casually, asking about the weather, Mykhailo's health, relationships, women. And, almost in passing, he asked where Mykhailo's unit was currently stationed.
Mykhailo gave a vague answer: "Somewhere in the east."
There were five calls in total. It was becoming clear that the Russians were losing patience and were no longer prepared to believe that the military medical board bureaucracy could take so long. They demanded that Mykhailo go back to his volunteering and finally begin cooperating with them.
The last conversation took place on 3 August. After that, they communicated only by text. Mykhailo even deleted the text messages to make it look as if he really was interested in cooperating with the Russians.
The decision
Meanwhile, a plan was taking shape in his mind. Mykhailo spoke to various people who suggested different ways of resolving the situation, including physically getting Oleksandr out of Russia.
But putting other people's lives at risk was unacceptable to the volunteer, as was forcing his son to take such a risk. Mykhailo decided to fly to Moscow and sort it out once and for all.
"Everyone's worried about whether I'll be all right. But if someone else got my son out, wouldn't they have a family too? Of course they would. This is my problem. I've tried to solve it. There is no option in which no one suffers. This is my child – I can take responsibility for him myself. I believe this is the best option there is," Mykhailo explained.
All this time he kept on trying to contact his son, but there was no answer. Then, around the beginning of August, his ex-wife called relatives and repeatedly urged them to tell Mykhailo not to try to contact Oleksandr.
The unknown Russian man who had "wanted to be friends" kept promising to arrange a conversation with Mykhailo's son. At one point he even suggested meeting in person, saying that Mykhailo could travel to Russia via a third country such as Kazakhstan. To convince him that he had the necessary connections, the man even promised to make sure that no stamp showing that Mykhailo had crossed into Russia would be put in his passport. But Mykhailo never once got to hear his son's voice.
"It was difficult," he said. "I considered different ways of solving the problem. Some of them wouldn't have been ideal for me. How long can someone who's had two heart attacks survive in captivity? Not long, I don't think. But there is hope that perhaps things will turn out differently.
I always say that wherever I've been and whatever I've done, I've always put my faith in God. Because there was no logic to any of it. Let them do whatever they want. My son will stop being of interest to them. There'll be no one left to blackmail me with, and nothing to blackmail me over. There will be no reason to waste resources."
Eventually Mykhailo travelled to Poland and on to Türkiye. On the Turkish coast, he bought a plane ticket to Sheremetyevo airport in Moscow. His plan was to arrive at the airport and be detained at passport control.
"I've left a video explaining everything. I wanted people to understand me. Parents will understand why I did this. If they're decent, proper parents, borders won't matter to them. Parents will go and get their children, whatever the cost," Mykhailo said.
He said that just before the flight, he'd finally felt a sense of relief. Suddenly he remembered how much he'd loved swimming in the river as a child. He used to jump in off a dam. It was incredibly scary. But once you'd taken that step, there was no way back. All you could do was plunge into the water and swim...
From entrepreneur to volunteer
We can't know exactly what Mykhailo was feeling at that moment. But he certainly knew who he would be dealing with and what those people are capable of. After all, he had first-hand experience of dealing with Russian occupying forces in Mariupol in 2022.
The Russians were interested in Mykhailo Puryshev for a reason. He was one of the few volunteers who had managed to get into Mariupol during the occupation and evacuate people. He later continued helping civilians evacuate from frontline cities, including Kherson.
Before Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Mykhailo did not consider himself a volunteer. He lived in the city and ran several businesses, including an IT company and a nightclub. On 24 February 2022, he took his family and relatives to safety in Ukraine's west, bought a red Mercedes minibus, painted "Volunteer" all over it and drove back to Mariupol. He managed to get into the city on 8 March. He was lucky: at the time, he didn't understand the immensity of the risks he was about to face.
Mykhailo made six trips to Mariupol in all. He brought aid into the city in his red minibus, and on the return journey he took families with children out. There were no humanitarian corridors, so attacks would be going on during the evacuations.
On subsequent trips, other people Mykhailo knew also went with him in their own vehicles, which meant they could rescue more people. By his estimate, around a thousand Mariupol residents were rescued during the spring of 2022. The volunteer's trips were reported on by Ukrainian and international media outlets, including Euronews, Fox News, CNN, the Ukrainian public broadcaster Suspilne, 1+1, NV and local outlet Mrpl.city.
Getting through the Russian checkpoints wasn't easy. The Russian occupying forces thought Mykhailo was either insane or a spy. They would search his vehicle thoroughly. Eventually they began to recognise him. They thought he would either be killed by Russian artillery or accidentally shot by his own side. During one of his trips, a shell landed near his minibus, damaging the bonnet and blowing out one of the side doors.
His final trip to Mariupol was in May. Mykhailo had learned that there might be children inside the Azovstal steelworks, so he decided to try to rescue them. He took two megaphones in addition to his usual humanitarian supplies. He planned to drive around the plant and broadcast a recorded message offering evacuation. Mykhailo hoped that by doing this, he would be able to locate civilians who were sheltering from the constant bombardment alongside the Ukrainian troops.
This time, however, he failed to reach the city. During his previous trip he had been threatened by so-called militants from the "DPR" (the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic) at one of the checkpoints. They said that if they saw his Mercedes again, they would put him in a basement and either keep him prisoner or shoot him.
Mykhailo was detained at a checkpoint near Mariupol. His vehicle was confiscated and he was taken away for interrogation. There were a lot of people in the building where he was held. They were all taken away to be interrogated. They were tortured too. Electric shock was the main method.
There was one incident that Mykhailo is unlikely ever to forget. One of the prisoners was tortured so brutally that he could literally no longer walk. He was dragged bodily into the room.
"The guy had left the room on his own two feet, but when he came back, they had to drag him in," Mykhailo recalls. "People immediately started looking for ways to help him, searching for painkillers. The stench of burnt skin was overwhelming – they'd subjected him to such severe electric shocks. It felt as though human life meant absolutely nothing there."
But the collaborators were the most brutal. At times they were even more vicious than the Russians. In their eagerness to prove themselves useful to the Russian occupying forces, they could torture prisoners in an attempt to extract information that did not even exist.
The Russians laughed at Mykhailo's determination to reach Azovstal. When they realised that he was completely serious, they asked him how he could possibly imagine doing it. Eventually, during one of the interrogations, Mykhailo was released. The Russians even returned the red minibus he'd arrived in. On the way to Zaporizhzhia, he managed to evacuate two more families with children. He called the other volunteers and advised them not to travel to the city any more: it was becoming too dangerous.
But that wasn't the end of his volunteer work. Mykhailo spent some time delivering humanitarian aid to Kyiv and Kharkiv oblasts after they had been liberated. During one of his trips to Kramatorsk, he came up with the idea of setting up invincibility centres – heated premises stocked with food and power banks to assist people facing hardships due to power cuts – for both military personnel and civilians. Water was a major problem in frontline cities: people had been unable to wash properly for months.
The first invincibility centre was established in Bakhmut. A well was drilled in a basement, and a filtration system enabled up to 1,000 litres of water an hour to be pumped through it. People started coming to the pink basement – Mykhailo and the other volunteers painted the centres pink – to wash themselves, do their laundry, or pick up toys that the volunteers had left there for the children.
This was also how they found families with children who were reluctant to leave. Mykhailo and his friends would keep track of them and try to persuade them to evacuate. Sometimes they succeeded. Similar invincibility centres were later established in Avdiivka, Vuhledar, Kupiansk, Druzhkivka, Kostiantynivka, Kherson and Huliaipole. The most expensive one cost just over half a million hryvnias (about US$11,100). Eventually the Russians began bombing the centres. They claimed on Russian television that the volunteers were "helping the Nazis".
The volunteers suspected that local collaborators were helping the Russians locate the basements equipped for washing and doing laundry, as they would enter the premises and film them. They managed to catch one of these "helpers" red-handed, and several others were caught later.
Mykhailo officially registered his volunteer organisation, naming it Unity of People. Some members of the team decided to enlist in the Ukrainian Armed Forces, and he joined them. He wanted to keep an eye on his friends.
But after suffering two heart attacks and related health issues, Mykhailo was deemed unfit for military service – he was having to take four different medications every day to keep his condition under control. He returned to his home near Kyiv, where he was finishing up the paperwork and planning his next volunteer projects, when on 16 July, he received that phone call from the FSB.
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Mykhailo Puryshev landed at Sheremetyevo on the morning of 17 August. He has not been in contact with anyone since. His friends have no information about what has happened to him.
Videos continue to appear on Mykhailo's social media accounts, but he said that his team would handle all communication from then on.
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P.S. Ukrainska Pravda has contacted human rights advocates who are aware of Puryshev's situation and are trying to find ways to help him.
UP also requested comment from the Security Service of Ukraine, but had not received a response at the time this article was posted.
P.P.S. During our conversations with Mykhailo and his friends, we expressed concern about his decision and warned him about the possible risks. However, it was clear from our conversations that unfortunately, Mykhailo was not going to change his plans.
Stanislav Kozliuk and Yevhen Buderatskyi
Translated by Myroslava Zavadska and Tetiana Buchkovska
Edited by Teresa Pearce