Russian women accused of involvement in foreign recruitment for Ukraine war now fight in Storm Z unit

Elena Smirnova and Olga Shilyaeva, Russian women who deceived Cuban and Sri Lankan citizens into fighting against Ukraine, have now signed contracts to serve in the Storm Z unit, allowing them to leave pretrial detention.

Back in August 2023, two 19-year-old Cubans, Alex Rolando Vega Díaz and Andorf Antonio Velázquez García, told a U.S. blogger of Cuban descent in an interview how they came to Russia for work but ended up signing military contracts and being sent to war against Ukraine.

They said three women — two Russians and one Cuban — had lured them into the fight. Journalists identified the women as 41-year-old Elena Smirnova, 40-year-old Olga Shilyaeva and 37-year-old Dayana Díaz Echemendía.

Smirnova had spent most of her career in tourism but starting in 2023 began using social media to recruit Cubans and Sri Lankans seeking work, offering them contracts with the Russian army.

The likely recruitment scheme involved Smirnova covering a foreigner's flight, travel, lodging in Russia and related expenses, with the recruit repaying her after signing the contract. She would make a copy of the recruit's bank card and recoup her costs from their first payout.

But some recruits later refused to repay Smirnova, complaining they had been tricked into war because they did not understand what they were signing. Others said they did not receive full reimbursements, suspecting Smirnova and similar recruiters skimmed money for themselves.

By late April 2024, several Cubans filed police complaints in Russia, leading to Smirnova's arrest on theft suspicions and placement in pretrial detention.

Her lawyer, Sergei Poselyagin, said his client had sent more than 3,000 foreigners to the war in Ukraine and called her arrest the result of a "conspiracy": the mercenaries complained under pressure from undercover officers, according to him.

The other recruiter, Olga Shilyaeva — wife of a soldier — met Smirnova in May 2023 and agreed to assist her. A friend of Shilyaeva's told journalists that Shilyaeva initially did not know about the deception of foreigners, handling only family matters for mercenaries, but later learned they were unaware they had to go to war and repay part of their money.

"As long as Elena was alone, it was an idea to help Cubans, but when Dayana showed up, it became purely about the money," the friend said.

Dayana Díaz Echemendía, 37, moved to Russia no later than 2021. She sells soap products on a Telegram channel called "Soap Flowers in Ryazan." When contacted by journalists, she denied recruiting foreigners for the war against Ukraine.

Investigators also learned that another likely recruiter is Oleg Koveshnikov, who appears to have worked with Smirnova from the start and continues to enlist foreigners in the Russian army for profit.

Smirnova and Shilyaeva are now fighting in the Storm V assault company of one of the brigades in Russia's 1st Tank Army. According to Smirnova's lawyer, she "accepted as a given the inevitability of a long prison sentence" and wrote to the investigator asking permission to serve in signals intelligence units as a translator.

Shilyaeva's sister wrote that she was sent from pretrial detention to the war "deceptively," and once in the army ended up in the "Zaitsevo prison" — a nickname for a basement torture site in Russian-occupied part of Ukraine's Luhansk Oblast where refuseniks and wayward soldiers are held.

A friend of Olga's said she believes the criminal case against her and her deployment are revenge by the military for helping some Cubans challenge their unlawful discharges from Russian forces.