Ukrainian serviceman didn't hand over spy Kardash to SBU because he fell in love. But she described him to her handler as "my loser"
How sex and journalism became weapons in the hands of a KGB agent — TSN learned about the path of Belarusian spy Inna Kardash in Ukrainian structures.
The loudest spy scandal of recent times is the use of sex by a Belarusian special services agent to recruit a combat unit commander.
Kardash, an agent of the State Security Committee of Belarus, was caught red-handed at the headquarters of one of the HUR units, TSN.Tyzhden reported.
«Clear large eyes, slender figure, pleasant voice. This beauty is a spy with 10 years of experience, tough, shameless, adventurous. TSN managed to obtain exclusive footage of the arrest: her companion is still resisting, he doesn't fully realize what happened. She calmly observes everything, knowing that she can no longer escape. Her game is over,» the publication reports.
Inna Kardash, who had been watched by SBU officers for many years. But she knew how to be careful, clean up all evidence, often change numbers, destroy phones. She only agreed to personal meetings with handlers abroad. And she used her feminine charms to the fullest for intelligence work.
And yet, how did a citizen of Belarus manage to reach leading politicians, commanders of military groups, diplomats from various countries? And finally, get a job in the State Security Service?
«The Main Directorate of Intelligence, I wouldn't say it's the heart and soul of Ukrainian defense. But there is a great state secret there that she wanted to get to. And that's what's really interesting. I understand that at that stage, it was a great success for the Belarusian KGB that she was able to remain unnoticed for so many years and get so far,» says Ivan Stupak, a military expert and former SBU officer.
Gets her own driver and moves into the head's office
2016, Minsk. A meeting of the Trilateral Contact Group. There, former President Leonid Kuchma met with Russians through European mediation. It was there that Inna Kardash, a young Belarusian journalist, was introduced to the head of Ukraine's leading news agency.
His name — «guru of Ukrainian journalism, editor and intellectual» — is not mentioned for ethical reasons. But, it is likely Oleksandr Martynenko, the long-time head of the Interfax-Ukraine news agency, who died in 2024.
He asked to pay attention to the young woman, to help with work. She was 25, he was 55. Kardash was already a KGB agent. According to legend, she was an opposition journalist, so she fearlessly collaborated with Ukrainian media, reporting on life in Minsk.
In 2020, she covered large-scale protests against Lukashenka.
Eventually, Inna moved to Ukraine because, as she said, she was in danger in her homeland. And she called her friend and the caring head of the influential news agency.
Inna Kardash's career sharply ascended at the news agency. The girl arrived from abroad, got a job as a journalist in a country whose language she did not know.
And, despite this, she almost immediately got her own driver, lived in a separate house, and most importantly, moved from the general newsroom, where all journalists sat, to the head's office. Colleagues say that sometimes they couldn't approach him for advice on something because she was always nearby and always listened to everything.
Inna regularly met with the country's leadership at unofficial meetings, traveled abroad to international conferences, and communicated with diplomats as an agency correspondent until her patron's death.
The spy paid special attention to Chinese diplomats. Such activity by the Belarusian woman attracted the attention of officers from the SBU's Department for the Protection of National Statehood. This Belarusian woman was too active, had too serious a list of contacts, and potential access to confidential information.
«She used this job and the connections of her colleagues from this media outlet to expand her own contacts among Ukrainian politicians, military personnel, and foreign diplomats,» said SBU spokesman Artem Dekhtiarenko.
As part of the criminal investigation, SBU investigators began to closely watch and listen to the suspicious woman and discovered a huge double life in her activities.
«I just prefer the role of a spy disguised as a journalist. That's true. I'm really good at extracting information,» she said in an intercepted phone conversation.
The Belarusian KGB sent her a significant sum of money to buy her own house in Kyiv and gave her a new task: to integrate into the International Legion to gather information about its fighters. Information that could cost many lives.
«The surname, first name, patronymic, date and place of birth of people fighting in these units, to find out later — that's a matter of technology — who are the relatives in Minsk, Grodno. Brest or Voronezh, to find these people and pressure them. And the main thing for Russians and Belarusians was to understand the channels of how foreigners are being taken out of the Russian Federation. Russians were very interested in this entire route. So that these channels could later be broken,» says expert Stupak.
The channel did not show these frames for ethical reasons. How the spy used sex to recruit a combat unit commander.
A serviceman who spent several years on the front line could not resist the alluring Belarusian woman. He fell madly in love with her, she sensed it and began to recruit him, the channel reports.
«No one forces you to do anything. At all. If you don't want to, you don't have to. This isn't the KGB, it's much higher! This is how it works! There is experience and support from the first person in our country. These are unique things,» Kardash said during the recruitment of Ukrainian servicemen.
It was sex, according to special service officers, that became the young spy's main trump card.
Regarding this recording, the man insisted that he did not hand Inna over to the SBU because he fell endlessly in love with her. Inna herself, in correspondence with her handler, called him nothing less than "my loser."
In the final stage, Inna's task was to integrate into the Chinese embassy and learn everything about Ukrainian-Chinese relations. The Belarusian KGB carefully instructed her on how and whom to approach, what to ask. And yet, Inna Kardash's ultimate plan was to get a job in Ukraine's Main Directorate of Intelligence. And SBU officers, along with their own security, allowed her to do so. Because they also know how to play spies.
«SBU and HUR officers began a prolonged operational game with the Belarusian agent. This allowed not only to document her every step but also to regularly disinform the Belarusian special service through her. In particular, the forces of the foreign special service were reoriented to copy supposedly secret information that was controlled and circulated around the spy,» noted an SBU representative.
Eventually, Inna Kardash was detained, and she is now in a pre-trial detention center.
Ivan Stupak believes that the Belarusians will try to exchange her. Moreover, he is confident that upon her return, she will receive awards and become a national heroine in Belarus.
The SBU says it's too early to talk about that; the main thing is that the Belarusian Mata Hari failed her mission, she will no longer recruit anyone or harm Ukraine. And she simply won't break another life. The veteran who was the last to fall under her charms still doesn't believe she could do that to him.
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