Atesh: the secret movement that spies on Russia's activities in Crimea

“I had a feeling someone was watching me. My heart was pounding.”

A man, whom we call Agent One, takes photos crouched in some bushes.

He tells us that he is part of a group called Atesh, a word that means fire in Crimean Tatar.

And through a messaging app, he describes his secret life to the BBC: spying on Russian forces in occupied Crimea.

“For probably two weeks, I mentally planned how and what I would do,” he says. “I planned the route, the main backup, what I should say in case they see me.”

Agent One is thorough. Take multiple shots from multiple angles.

But it is dangerous and potentially deadly work. On one occasion, moments after investigating a site, he noticed a group of Russian military personnel nearby.

“[Ese] “It was a terrible moment,” he says. “I managed to lean over [junto a] a car and pretended I had a problem with the tire.

“Miraculously, they just ignored me.”

Atesh says he collects information on Russian military movements, mainly in Crimea, but also in other occupied areas and even within Russia itself.

Agents say their information has helped high-profile Ukrainian attacks in Crimea, such as those against a Russian landing ship and submarine (the Minsk and Rostov-on-Don) and an attack on the Sea Fleet headquarters. Black Russia in September 2023.

More recently, Atesh said he had carried out reconnaissance work this week after a Ukrainian attack on a possible radar station in Yevpatoria.

Military bloggers in Russia dismiss this network as an Internet invention of Ukrainian intelligence, designed to exaggerate resistance levels.

However, Russian media also report that Atesh is a terrorist organization banned by the Kremlin.

“Not all Crimeans are zombies”

Through messaging apps and a group administrator, the BBC spoke to five men who say they are active Atesh agents, including one who claims he is currently working for the Russian military.

While their accounts cannot be independently verified, a senior source in Ukraine's intelligence and defense services told the BBC that the testimonies are credible.

The agents say they are willing to talk to us because they want to show that there is an active resistance movement.

“Not all Crimeans are zombies and are willing to resist even under conditions of total censorship,” Agent One notes.

The Russian soldier the BBC spoke to, Agent Five, knows that his double life is dangerous.

“The stakes are high: no one wants to go to jail.” Those arrested face charges of treason and long prison sentences.

“Everything must be approached carefully and using your head. Errors in this type of activity are simply unacceptable.”

Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula in March 2014, eight years before its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Ethnic Russians now make up the majority of the population, but significant Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar minorities remain.

The BBC contacted Atesh directly and spoke to an official based in unoccupied Ukraine.

The men did not reveal their identities due to the risk of arrest.

“Russian special services are constantly trying to identify partisans,” Agent Two tells us.

He hides the work he is doing even from his closest family.

“We cannot throw ammunition at random”

These men say they began conducting reconnaissance work because of their opposition to Moscow's actions.

They tell us they provide information on air defenses, depots, military bases and soldier movements, sometimes monitoring sites for weeks.

Agent Two says he is not paid for his work, but he is reimbursed for expenses, such as gas.

Our main contact, the manager, would not comment on how the group is financed, except to say that there are “several” sources of income.

A different body, the National Resistance Center, operating under the Ukrainian Special Operations Forces, is openly funded by the government and works with Atesh.

He insists that Atesh is not a propaganda construct and that the information is of great value.

“An attack with missiles like Storm Shadow or Himars is very expensive,” says its spokesman, who covers his face and uses the pseudonym “Ostap.”

“We cannot afford to drop munitions randomly like the Russians do. We have to verify the information we are getting.”

Agent Two describes how he drove more than 100 kilometers to inspect a military site. He walked “for a long time” before finding a gap in a fence.

He made his way through it to collect photographs and information about military vehicles.

“It's exciting,” he notes. “The adrenaline increases with incredible force in those moments.”

In the following days, he learned that a successful attack had been carried out in that area.

“That's the moment I'm most proud of,” he says.

Expel Russia from the Black Sea

Kyiv sees major strikes on Russian military targets in Crimea as a key part of a counteroffensive that has failed elsewhere, especially on the war front.

The peninsula has great strategic importance, as it is essentially an “unsinkable aircraft carrier,” says retired Ukrainian Navy captain Andriy Ryzhenko.

Based in Crimea before the annexation and now in Kyiv, he says Russia uses the peninsula to “project power” from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean and Atlantic.

That has forced Ukraine to create a new sea route to keep grain ships away from the peninsula, after Russia withdrew from a deal to allow shipments.

However, satellite images indicate that the Ukrainian attacks have caused Russia to move assets from occupied Sevastopol to the Russian port of Novorossiysk.

For Atesh, the threat of infiltration by pro-Russian agents is very real, in a murky world of agents and double agents.

“We try not to reveal strategic plans to agents who risk being captured by the FSB,” our contact says, referring to Russia's Federal Security Service.

“A person only knows what he needs to know”

A third agent tells us that “filming the military of a country that is at war is suicide,” but the risk is justified by Russia's “criminal war.”

“If they catch me, I will face the FSB basements and [de ser] a 'traitor' to the Homeland.”

But, along with risk, also comes the possibility of reward.

“We often see the fruits of our labor,” says Agent Four. “When the [sitios] “Russian soldiers are attacked and only ashes remain.”

Sometimes it's just a quick photo or two. Other times Agent Four observes areas for an extended period.

“To know all the patrol routes, find out where all the exits and entrances are, what equipment is on the territory or what exactly is stored in the facility.”

Each man tells us that he works alone and only contacts a “curator” to whom the information is passed.

Atesh emerged as a network after the full-scale invasion of Russia in 2022 and is not remotely the only resistance organization in the occupied zones.

It claims to be a grassroots movement that emerged from a small group that now numbers “in the thousands.”

An “oath” posted on the Telegram messaging app in September 2022 read: “I swear by my blood and soul” to be faithful to the Atesh movement and “fight for the Ukrainian state.”

There are reportedly strong links with the peninsula's Turkish-speaking Crimean Tatar population, although representatives of that community the BBC spoke to said they did not found Atesh.

The group regularly posts about their work on Telegram, including uploading photos.

While the movement appears to primarily provide logistical information, partisan activists also claim to have carried out violent attacks, such as the deaths of 30 Russian soldiers at a military hospital and a car bomb attack in Russian-occupied Kherson.

The official we spoke to admits that they are interested in publicizing the group, to recruit more agents and make the Russians nervous.

But everyone the BBC spoke to says their priority is ending the Russian invasion and its occupation of Ukrainian lands.

Agent One states that Crimea lives in “terrible conditions” of propaganda and control.

“But I am absolutely sure that we are gradually getting closer to the liberation of Crimea.”

Additional reporting by Anastasiia Levchenko and Hanna Chornous

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JESSICA PARKER – BBC NEWS, KYIV