Volunteer Purishev traveled to Moscow following threats from the FSB regarding his son and has since gone missing
According to Ukrainian volunteer Mykhailo Purishev, Russian intelligence agencies tried to recruit him by threatening to draft his 18-year-old son into the Russian army and send him to fight against Ukraine. In an attempt to save his son, Puryshev voluntarily flew to Moscow on August 17, after which he stopped responding to communications.
According to the volunteer, Russian intelligence agencies demanded that he cooperate and gather information about foreign military personnel in the Ukrainian Defense Forces, the deployment of Ukrainian units, and, in particular, the “Azov” unit.
The blackmail, according to Puryshev, began on July 16, 2026. His 18-year-old son, Oleksandr, who lives in Russia, called his father and said that some people had come to see him and wanted to talk.
After that, a man’s voice came over his son’s phone, saying, “How would you feel if your son were standing in front of these people?”
The Russians, as Purishev claims, demanded that he purchase a separate phone and SIM card and hide them. At the right moment, he was to get in touch with his handlers.
They also urged him to resume his volunteer work and maintain his social media accounts as if nothing had happened.
In total, there were five phone calls. The Russian side asked when Purychev would be able to return to his volunteer work, inquired about his health, and asked about the location of the Ukrainian unit. The last conversation took place on August 3, after which communication continued via text messages.
The volunteer repeatedly tried to get his son out of Russia. Oleksandr had been living there with his mother since 2016. After the full-scale invasion began, Puryshev feared that once the boy reached the age of majority, he might be drafted into the Russian army.
Eventually, he decided to travel to Moscow on his own. Puryshev flew from Turkey to Sheremetyevo Airport, expecting to be detained during passport control.
“He’s my child. I can take responsibility for him myself,” the volunteer explained his decision.
The plane carrying Puryshev landed at Sheremetyevo in the morning of August 17. Since then, he has not been in contact, and his friends have no information about what has happened to him.
Mykhailo Puryshev became known for his volunteer trips to occupied Mariupol in 2022. In a red minibus, he made six trips to the city and, by his own estimate, helped evacuate about 1,000 people.
During one of these trips, Puryshev was detained by Russian military personnel and interrogated under torture.
After Mariupol, the volunteer continued to help the civilian population in frontline cities. He organized “resilience centers” in Bakhmut, Avdiivka, Vuhledar, Kupiansk, Druzhkivka, Kostiantynivka, Kherson, and Huliaipole.
“Ukrainska Pravda” reached out to the Security Service of Ukraine for comment but had not received a response as of the time of publication. Human rights activists familiar with the situation are trying to find a way to help Puryshev.
At the same time, it is important to note that the information about the actions of the Russian special services is based on the testimony of Puryshev himself and his friends; there is currently no independent confirmation of all the circumstances of the situation.
This was reported by “Ukrainska Pravda” journalists who spoke with the volunteer and his friends on the eve of his trip.
As a reminder, law enforcement officials have already identified seven members of the illegal armed group “Bezler” who are suspected of torturing a Ukrainian volunteer. The woman, who was assisting the military and evacuating civilians from the combat zone, was abducted by militants from the Luhansk region and illegally held for over three months in occupied Horlivka.
A Polish volunteer and administrator of the organization Razem dla Ukrainy, Marek Rusek-Wolski, who since 2023 had regularly delivered humanitarian aid to residents of frontline territories and participated in the evacuation of the bodies of the deceased.
