Chatting, flirting, raping. The Dark Side of Warzone Dating. How Russian Military Personnel Exploit Teenagers in the Frontline Zone

Over the three years of the war, the territories of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region occupied by Russia have turned into a zone that the Russian military themselves call the „wild west.“ They behave accordingly there. For instance, they actively meet Ukrainian teenage girls, start relationships with them, and at times even pay them for sex. At least one such case, as Verstka found out, could have ended with the rape of two schoolgirls.

To read future texts, follow us on Telegram

The names of minors and some interviewees, as well as the names of settlements, have been changed at the request of the subjects.

In late June of this year, 14-year-old Alina from Lugovoe in the Zaporizhzhia region went to spend the night with her older sister in the neighboring village of Lesnoye to see a local dentist the next day. Her 15-year-old school friend, Rita, who is a year ahead of her in school, lives in the same village. In the evening, Alina and Rita were walking around the village when a civilian car with military personnel stopped next to them. Two men invited the schoolgirls to have a drink and the girls agreed. They were taken to an abandoned site in Lesnoye. There, in a camper van, Alina was raped by one of the military men.

A week later, the teenagers went to the men’s house again: they wanted to get revenge. This time, the same military man who had abused Alina raped Rita. This is the story the girls told their relatives.
As would be revealed later, after the incident, one of the schoolgirls ended up with the rapist’s bank card, they had been in contact with the military men before the incident, and such encounters are not uncommon in the Zaporizhzhia region.

“We live in the Special Military Operation Zone”

Alina’s family lives 15 kilometers from the line of combat contact. “We live in the Special Military Operation zone now,” the girl’s mother, Maria, tells Verstka, “Every day we are under drones, every day.” The woman is a single mother to two children: Alina has finished the eighth grade, and her older brother is graduating from school this year and will enroll in a military college. Maria works in the village and is studying to be a manager by correspondence at an institute. The family’s income is small, just over 30,000 rubles (approx 320 EUR).

Despite the shelling and difficult conditions, the woman does not want to move. “This is my home, my roof over my head. Some people have a chicken, a duck, and someone has planted a garden. So everyone tries to save where they can,” she says.

Rita’s family is supported by her single father, Mikhail (her mother died of cancer several years ago). He lives with three children and works at a bakery. “The father is alone, there is no mother, and he is with two children, essentially, with three, because I am with them, plus I also have a child,” Rita’s older sister, Lyubov, tells Verstka.

According to Maria, Rita’s father is a binge drinker, but several fellow villagers did not confirm this information to journalists. One of them noted that the man drank several years ago, most likely due to his wife’s death. An anonymous Verstka source at the local school claims that Mikhail does not drink and takes active part in raising his daughter. And Lyubov adds that the man is stressed by the rape and his daughter’s chronic illness. “He’s already very soft-hearted,” the girl notes.

According to Verstka, last school year, Alina lived with her older sister in Lesnoye, Rita’s village, which is closer to the school. In late 2024, the schoolgirl moved back to her mother’s in Lugovoe, and her behavior “changed for the worse”: the teenager was more often seen in the company of military men.

“A Predicament”

The rape of the schoolgirls in Lesnoye was reported to Verstka by relatives of both girls, and a police source confirmed the reports. The relatives tell similar versions of what happened but differ in the details of what preceded it.

Rita’s sister, Lyubov, told Verstka that the schoolgirls knew the military men and had communicated with them before the incident. The girl told her relative that the men gained the teenagers’ trust by lying that they knew Maria, Alina’s mother, well.

“They started spinning yarn there. And the girls believed it,” Lyubov recalls. “They just drove them home [the first time they met], these girls.” According to her, at first they just chatted and texted.

During the next meeting, the schoolgirls went to the servicemen’s home to drink alcohol. Rita has a correspondence with these men. Lyubov claims that Alina deleted all messages from the chat with her friend that showed they planned to go to the militarymen. “The girls have no brains. They were told it’s better not to talk to them and not to get in cars, that is, not to get into such predicaments. You understand, these are men; they can be different. The situation can also be different. But these two silly girls took them at their word [that the men knew Alina’s mom],” Lyubov says indignantly.

According to Maria, only Rita was texting the military men. “First she wrote [to the military men] from Alina’s phone, then from her own phone,” the woman claims. While talking about the rape, she emphasizes her daughter’s friend’s role in establishing contact with the Russian soldiers.

“They were walking on the streets, a car drove up to this Rita, and the men said, ’Let’s go for a ride.’ Alina said, ’I don’t want to,’” Maria says. “And Rita told her, ’Why are you being difficult?’” Alina eventually agreed because she “didn’t want to be a black sheep.”

“When my Alina was being raped, Rita was drunk in the car; she supposedly felt unwell. And my child [afterward] sat next to Rita to take her home until she came to,” Maria recalls her daughter’s story. Verstka was unable to speak with her daughter.

A week after the incident, the schoolgirls went to the military men’s home again. “When I went there, I didn’t know what I would do to them, but I wanted to get revenge,” Maria recounts her daughter’s words. Lyubov believes that Alina wanted to film the military men harassing them. Rita’s sister did not specify what the schoolgirl planned to do with the video.

Alina’s mother noted that her daughter’s personality is as combative as hers. “She also has an explosive character. She’s like a tomboy. She’ll always stand up for herself to the end,” the woman added.

Alina did not end up filming any video: she spent some time in the company of the servicemen and then went home. Rita, as Maria recounts her daughter’s words, stayed behind. Her friend did not see what happened to the girl afterward. It was Rita’s sister who told Verstka that Rita was raped that evening; this crime was also confirmed by a local police source.

Maria blames Rita for what happened. According to her, Alina is a “girl from a good family” who fell under the influence of a friend from a “bad family.”

However, the woman later said that the real initiator of her daughter’s communication with the military could have been a third schoolgirl—at the time, 15-year-old Nastya from Lugovoe. This is a friend of Alina and Rita, who likely provided sex services to the military. “All this comes from Nastya,” says Maria. The same name was mentioned by a Verstka source from the teenagers’ school.

“Bad Influence”

Nastya is also from a dysfunctional family; according to Maria, she has six brothers and sisters. Her father died, and her mother works part-time for a local farmer. Maria notes that the woman lives on child benefits and drinks a lot. A resident of Lugovoe who spoke with Verstka denies that the woman has a drinking problem but confirms that she is raising «many children»—four or five. Despite the family’s difficult financial situation, Nastya was often seen at school with expensive “new things.”

“She bought herself an iPhone, and a tattoo machine, and energy drinks, vapes, and clothes,” says Alina’s mother. According to her, Nastya was a bad student, often skipped school, and slept with military men for money. For this, she rented an apartment in the village, where, according to Verstka, Rita and Alina also came.

By the age of 15, the schoolgirl had already been pregnant twice. The first time, at age 14, she had an abortion; the second time, in ninth grade, she decided to keep the child. However, she first wanted to terminate the pregnancy and even went to a local doctor. This is how the information reached the police.

According to a Verstka source, it was then that the security forces found out that unknown military men were renting an apartment for Nastya in the urban-type settlement where the school is located. Police began an investigation, interviewed neighbors, and wanted to question the father at the station. While he was being taken to the station in a police car, a drone hit the vehicle, and Nastya’s father died.

“My dad died in the war, and from that moment on, I can’t stand military men. That’s why I haven’t had and won’t have a military boyfriend,” Nastya wrote to Verstka. She denies providing sex services to military men.

At the same time, the schoolgirl admitted that she is currently pregnant, but by a civilian. This “civilian,” judging by social media, is 27-year-old Vladimir. He leaves compliments and words of love under Nastya’s photos on VK (Russian social network), and the girl reciprocates. On his page are photos of Russian military personnel. The phone number of the man, which Verstka found, is saved by other contacts as “Maga commander.”

The schoolgirl is due to give birth this fall. According to a source from the village, after the incident, the girl left Lugovoe for Berdyansk. The schoolgirl stopped answering Verstka’s questions and blocked the journalist on VK.

“You know nothing about her”

Alina and Rita did not immediately tell their relatives about the rape. Rita’s sister noticed “minor changes” in the girl’s behavior but attributed them to PMS or “just a bad mood.” Alina’s mother, a week later, noticed bruises on her daughter’s legs. “She had bruised bones on her hands, and there were still finger marks and bruises on her leg,” Maria recalls. That’s when the schoolgirl admitted that a military man had raped her, and her mother went to the police to file a report.

Upon hearing this, Rita, along with her father, also went to the police. Relatives of the schoolgirls told Verstka about this.

After the reports were filed, both were sent for a medical examination. The forensic expert confirmed to Maria that her daughter was not sexually active before and that the bruises on the schoolgirl’s body corresponded to the time of the incident. However, the doctor refused to issue a conclusion about rape because more than seven days had passed, and no traces of the rapist’s biological material remained. But he did say that Rita changed her testimony right there in his office.

“Since you are the mother of the victim, I will tell you: the girl is a sly one. She came in and immediately confessed that there was no rape, that she had been sexually active for a year,” Maria recounted the forensic expert’s words.

The woman does not believe that Rita was actually raped. According to her, investigators said that in her correspondence with the military men, the schoolgirl said she voluntarily wanted to have sex with them.

Maria provides another argument in favor of this version—Rita had a T‑bank (a Russian bank formerly known as Tinkoff Bank) card registered to one of the military men. The man gave it to the teenager after the rape. Maria and Alina saw this card in the girl’s transparent phone case when all three were being questioned at the Investigative Committee in Berdyansk. Maria emphasizes that at that moment, the card had not yet been handed over to the investigator.

Rita’s sister, Lyubov, confirmed that the man did indeed give the card to the schoolgirl. “But the fact is, she didn’t take it. After everything that happened, the military men were going to drive her home. This man put the card in her bag as a sign that she had spent the night with him. But when Rita filed the report, she gave this bank card to the Investigative Committee,” Lyubov explains. She added that the girl had not spent any money, and the card itself was “empty.”

Rita refused to speak with Verstka. At the time of the journalist’s last conversation with her sister, the results of her tests were not known. But according to Lyubov, Rita did not give “voluntary consent” to sex. If the tests confirm the abuse of the schoolgirl, the family will hire a lawyer. “This is not normal. Something needs to be done about this,” she says.

The military men from Lesnoye were caught in early July. The local military police informed Maria, who asked to “annihilate” the detainees or send them into a frontal assault. “I told you, short and clear, that I need two corpses, because there is no just punishment for this during wartime,” she recalls her reaction. “I didn’t want a trial for them; my child’s psyche was broken.” But the military police insisted on the legal procedure, and the next day, Maria went to the department in Rozovka to file a report. There, she met Rita and her father for the first time since the incident.

“Don’t you want to explain anything? Aren’t you ashamed?” the woman says to the girl.

“Do you think you know everything about my daughter?” Rita’s father replies to her.

“No, you know nothing about her, you have no idea who is standing in front of you,” Maria says indignantly.

“A Family Man”

The detained military men turned out to be two officers with 20 years of service each—Soltan Gasanov and Dzhanibek Dzhanburshiev from the 38th brigade. Lyubov confirmed that one of the military men was named Soltan. Both women identified him as the girls’ rapist; Dzhanibek allegedly did not interfere but also did not participate.

Verstka found the phone numbers of both men in data leaks. Gasanov is saved by other contacts as “Sergeant” and “Warrant Officer,” while Dzhanburshiev is saved as “Comrade Warrant Officer.”

Dzhanibek Dzhanburshiev is 37 years old; he was born in Kazakhstan and lives in the Amur region in the Russian Far East. The man hardly uses social media, so there is little public information about him. On his wife’s old page, there are family photos with a daughter. The child is now 14 years old. Verstka showed Maria photos of the men. The mother of the affected girl confirmed that she saw both military men during questioning.

“This man [Gasanov], at the time all this happened, had just returned from vacation. He’s 40 years old; he’s older than me. He has a family,” Maria says.

Soltan Gasanov is 39 years old; he is originally from Dagestan. One of his fellow servicemen told Verstka that Gasanov is a “good person and commander.” The information that Gasanov is in the military was confirmed to Verstka by two of his acquaintances. In 2021, the man’s Instagram had a photo of his Mercedes with a geolocation of Ekaterinoslavka. According to data leaks, Gasanov lives there.

The man actively uses social media. On Instagram, he posted photos with his wife, teenage daughter, and son, as well as quotes like “He who doesn’t give a fuck is invulnerable” and “Many girls will meet the new year without their boyfriends because the boyfriends will be with their wives.” His page has now been deleted.

The military men and the girls’ relatives met during questioning at the military police in Rozovka. There, the men presented their version of events. “They say that the girls went to them on their own, that they forced them, that they came and wanted all this. But the girls say something completely different,” Lyubov says.

Verstka managed to speak with Gasanov himself. The man said that he and Dzhanburshiev had been communicating with Alina and Rita for at least 10 days before the very meeting after which a report was filed against him and his fellow serviceman. They first met the schoolgirls on the street, believing they were ready to meet them because they “were acting provocatively.”

“The car is driving, and they turn around, laughing. Do you understand what ’acting provocatively’ means? That is, they are attracting attention to themselves. They’re not just walking down the road; they’re turning around, looking, laughing, pushing each other, being a bit playful,” he says. The military man wrote his phone number on a slip of paper and handed it out of the car. Alina took it, and that same evening she allegedly texted the man.

Gasanov confirmed that he had sex with two schoolgirls—first twice with Alina, then once with Rita. According to him, there were a total of three meetings. However, the military man denies raping the teenagers.

“The very fact that there was a rape can be disproven even by the fact that they repeatedly came to us,” the man says. According to him, Alina said she would be 18 in two months, and Rita was supposedly turning 17 soon. Gasanov admitted that the military men did not ask the teenagers to show their passports.

The man explained the signs of violence on the girl’s body by an “unknown serviceman” who allegedly tried to rape the schoolgirl before she met Gasanov. According to him, this happened at a “Voentorg” (military goods store), where Alina works part-time. Maria told Verstka that her daughter was employed but did not specify where. On her VK page, there is a photo of her in front of military gear.

The man also said that he sometimes gave Alina money for pocket expenses, up to 10,000 rubles (approx 105 EUR), for instance, for a manicure. After this, Gasanov says, Rita also began to hint for gifts.
“She was showing me a black dress [on her phone], like, ’I had this dress, and I burned it up.’ Now I don’t have a dress,” the military man says. “I started to realize she needed money.” According to him, that’s when he gave her his card.

Gasanov regrets that he “gave in to weakness” and decided to have sex with the schoolgirls. At the same time, he emphasizes that age doesn’t matter to him, but he is ready to be punished for not looking at the girls’ passports and “thoughtlessly engaging in a relationship.” The man clarified that he was “released” because he is cooperating with the investigation. He did not specify his status in the case. He explained Alina’s report by saying the schoolgirl “was jealous” of him with Rita.

Verstka was unable to reach the Berdyansk Investigative Committee. Dzhanburshiev did not respond to the journalists’ questions.

“The Fiancé”

“Hi,” Alina writes about a month after these events in a local Telegram dating group. In this chat, men, mostly military personnel, actively respond to the girls. They offer to meet and get to know each other. Sometimes, the chat includes offers like these:

“Hello, looking to meet a girl for dates, will pay for any whim 😁”

“Good afternoon, looking to meet a woman for dates, will pay 💵💵💵”

“Good morning, looking for a girl for infrequent meetings for a fee”

As several locals told Verstka, including school teenagers, military men most often meet people through the “People Nearby” function on Telegram or through the “Dayvinchik” dating app. “Military men don’t differentiate—whether the person in front of them is a schoolgirl or an adult girl,” 15-year-old Alexandra explains to journalists.

Liza from Mariupol says that some contract soldiers try to hide their identities. They arrange to meet, come in civilian clothes, and then invite them to rented apartments for a drink. When she was 17, she went out with a soldier, but then the man started inviting her to a rented apartment. “I quickly pretended that my friend was calling me, called a taxi, and left that person,” she recalls.

Maria, who goes to school not far from Alina and Rita’s school, also knows about such relationships. She says that during the summer holidays, one of the schoolgirls, aged 14–15, was actively communicating with a military man, sometimes meeting him. Later, it turned out that he was buying her nude photos from the girl.

“Many of my peers are talking to military men, almost all of them with military men, well, most,” 14-year-old Katya tells Verstka. She goes to school in a neighboring village and has been talking to military men for a long time. Katya has a “soldier friend” who introduced her to a 28-year-old serviceman named Sergey. “I saw my Sergey and thought: a cute boy. And we met.”

For a while, they communicated on Telegram via text messaging and video calls: “I immediately told him my age. He said, ’It’s nothing serious, I don’t want anything like that; I just want to chat, I’m bored,’” the schoolgirl recalls.

After several months of this communication, Sergey and Katya started a “relationship.” According to the schoolgirl, Sergey is very caring—he often comes to see her as soon as he has free time, brings sweets, and also constantly texts her at night if Katya can’t sleep. Periodically, Sergey rents houses and apartments by the day, where they spend the night together. In a conversation with Verstka in late July of this year, Katya said that the couple was planning a vacation soon, a joint trip to Berdyansk. Sergey is paying for the trip.

After finishing the ninth grade, the schoolgirl plans to move to her fiancé’s hometown—the Bryansk region in Western Russia, with her mother’s permission. “She knows I’m going there; she’s going to give me permission to live with him,” the girl explains.

At the same time, the man will continue to serve, and Katya plans to live at his home. She even has plans to meet Sergey’s child from a previous marriage. And she adds that the military man “definitely doesn’t communicate” with his ex-wife.

“The Boots are a Ticket to Life for Them”

Several Russian military men in the Zaporizhzhia region with whom Verstka spoke noted that they have almost no time to meet girls in person. “What girls, what relationships. I’ve been living in a trench for a year; we only dream of girls,” says a military man named Alexander.

Serviceman Denis, who is near the villages of Lugovoe and Lesnoye, told Verstka that sometimes local girls reported contract soldiers to the military police when they tried to meet them. Then they were allegedly sent to a “pit.”

Two servicemen from the occupied part of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region admitted to Verstka that they know of cases where military men start relationships with teenagers. “The girls are everywhere here, without men; they want to fuck, they want money. So they talk to them,” says one of them, Pyotr. “The boots are a ticket to life for them. How many of them even get married later to get the fuck out of here.”

Pyotr himself has met girls aged 14–16 at checkpoints. “They’re local wenches; they’ve got titties, butts, everything is fine. They brought us cigarettes and alcohol. We socialized,” he recalls. According to him, many teenagers near the front are left to their own devices—their parents either drink or work a lot and don’t watch their children. “After school, they come to us; it’s fun for them, and for us too. That’s how we hang out,” the man explained, adding that in the frontline areas, there are many groups and chats where servicemen text with local teenagers.

Another military man from the Zaporizhzhia region sent the Verstka journalist links to groups where he and his fellow servicemen look for girls. These are mostly resale chats called “Barakholka” (Flea Market). They also use dating apps with geolocation. According to Pyotr, his fellow servicemen “are on them 24/7.” “Some [girls] fuck for money. And some are looking for love,” Pyotr explains the girls’ motivations in the chats and apps.

A military man with the call sign Batman confirmed to Verstka that girls in the Zaporizhzhia region “are very willing to meet.” “Because we supposedly have a lot of money, and it doesn’t depend on age at all,” he explains. Batman himself dated a minor for eight months. He claims that at the time of the relationship, she was 16, and he was 19. They broke up because her “requests became not cheap ones”: the schoolgirl asked him to buy her an iPhone 16 ProMax. “When I said I didn’t have the money, we would fight, like she would say, ’You’re getting 200,000 (approx 2100 EUR, an average monthly salary of a Russian military man) and can’t buy one?’”

Some of these connections end up like Katya’s case—with plans for a shared life. For example, a fellow serviceman of Pyotr’s from Kurgan took a 16-year-old girl from the Zaporizhzhia region home with him and plans to marry her. The couple met in a chat. A fellow serviceman of Batman’s also found a girl in the region, then was wounded, went for treatment, resigned from his contract, and moved to her village in Zaporizhzhia.

When asked by the Verstka journalist where the military men find the time for relationships with locals, Pyotr said that he had free time for this last summer when he and other military men were in rear camps for three months and traveled around the villages. He recalls that the military men would “give” the girls money for new clothes and a “beautiful life.”

“Why are they immediately called prostitutes? It’s just that we don’t mind, and they enjoy it. We are like cool, adult guys to them; we know everything, we can do everything. They are drawn to people like that,” Pyotr added.

A serviceman named Vasily was the first to text the Verstka journalist. The man found her on the list of participants in a dating chat for the district in the Zaporizhzhia region and decided to get acquainted. After Vasily’s message, the journalist offered him a chance to comment. The man is located not far from Alina and Rita’s villages. He said that “in some positions” in the rear areas, teenage girls “almost purposefully” go to the military men to their dugouts to offer their sex services. “War is always chaos and disorder,” the man added.

Pyotr is not bothered that he and his fellow servicemen sleep with teenagers. “It’s you civilians who might be bothered by something. Nothing bothers us anymore. It’s a thrill for them; it’s a thrill for us. What law? This is the wild west here. They can annihilate you or throw you in the basement, but for real screw-ups. If you fuck a woman and she goes and writes a report to the police—nothing will happen. If you’re a smart guy. Women here can’t be trusted. How many times have they filed reports, but it all gets hushed up later with the commander and the MPs (military police),” the military man claims.

“Couldn’t get through”

According to Verstka’s sources, “everyone knows” that in the frontline zone of the Zaporizhzhia region, Russian military men enter into relationships with schoolgirls. They explain it as a difficult age. The Verstka journalist asked Mikhail if he knew that Sveta was communicating with military men before the incident. “You know, they’re in their transitional age now; they don’t tell their parents anything. The scariest thing is that parents don’t know anything and won’t find out until… well, you understand,” he answered.

A source at Nastya, Rita, and Alina’s school, as well as a source in Lugovoe and an inspector for minors’ affairs in the district, said that the authorities were aware that Nastya was meeting with servicemen but could not stop it. “I never got to see her [Nastya],” said the inspector for minors’ affairs, who until recently worked with children from Lugovoe. He could not reach the schoolgirl’s family because there was no communication in the village due to shelling. The girl’s mother did not come to the school. One of the villagers told journalists that there has been no cellular service since February due to drone flights. “Everyone is afraid for their lives: right now, social services and no one will come,” he added.

As for Alina, the inspector knows that she communicated with military men and had conversations with her about it. The school also noticed that she was meeting with adults. According to the inspector, when the investigation into the schoolgirls’ rape began, the PDN (Department for Minors’ Affairs) and social services did not go to Lugovoe due to the shelling. The inspector was present during the questioning of Alina and Rita. “Maybe they wanted to grow up, so they joined all kinds of adult groups,” he explains the teenagers’ motivation. The local social welfare office did not answer Verstka’s call.

“I’ll buy a motorcycle”

In late July, after a three-week absence from social media, Soltan Gasanov reappeared online on VK—under the new name “Boomer Boomer” and without photos. A little later, he would change his name to Dzigaro Kano, and on Telegram to Slevin Kelevra, and close his Instagram. And on August 15, in a chat for sex workers in Rostov-on-Don, he asked, “Is anyone in Berdyansk? Or maybe a Berdyansk Telegram channel?”

Around the same time, Alina and her mother came to the investigator in Berdyansk—for an interview and to resubmit materials to the forensic expert. It was there that it was revealed that Rita had changed her testimony, and now it coincided with the words of Gasanov and Dzhanbashiev: supposedly the sex between Gasanov and Alina was consensual, and the schoolgirl had lied about her age, saying she was 17.

According to Maria, Rita withdrew her rape report. Her relatives deny this. But they will no longer go to interrogations—they don’t have the money to “throw it to the wind.”

“Everything went wrong for me somehow,” Rita’s father tells Verstka. According to him, at the same time as the investigative actions, the schoolgirl was hospitalized with a head tumor. After the operation, he was informed that the growth was benign.

A few days after this conversation, a message from Rita appeared in one of the Telegram chats in the Zaporizhzhia region: “I’ll buy a motorcycle; send me your options in DMs.” And in late August, the schoolgirl wrote in her channel:

“When people ask me how I’m feeling, everyone always gets the answer ’normal,’ or ’I’m fine!’ But no one knows how I’m really feeling!!!!….”

Authors: Anastasia Korotkova, Alexandra Illarionova
Illustrations: D.D.

Verstka is an independent Russian publication , we do not have a single investor either in Russia or abroad. Your donations are very important for us, they allow us to maintain our independence and continue our work—honestly and professionally. Support Verstka Media →