How Ukrainian computer geeks use a dating scam to make gullible Russians pay for war

The Monetary Army can earn between £78 and more for each scam, the average is £100, but Arthur said the most a man has ever been stolen was £19,000. Some of the money goes to support the Ukrainian military, but most is used to pay staff. Arthur earns £1,575 a month from this job.

Others work part-time for the Cash Army or whenever they need extra money. A 29-year-old woman from Kharkiv named Yana, who did not want to give her last name, works for the scam in the winter, when it is harder to find work. She says she looks for “idiots” who fit the scam.

The men Yana meets are often workers, police officers, Russian soldiers or students at a military academy. The latter tell Yana that they are going to war and ask questions like “Will you wait for me?” Of course she will, Yana replies.

“They said, yes, we are heroes, but I didn’t really steer the conversation in a political direction. I wasn’t interested in talking about politics.”

Sometimes the men Yana dates try to call her supposed date or ask for explicit pictures, while others send their own explicit pictures. “There are idiots everywhere. But if you block them right away, what good are they?” she laughed.

Yana was first introduced to the currency army by Arthur in the summer of 2022, shortly after the Ukrainian military managed to expel Russian troops from the Kharkiv region.

Before the war, Yana says she never imagined being part of a plot to rob Russian men. However, the 29-year-old, who remained in Kharkiv throughout the war, witnessed the constant attacks on her city and the brutal murder of her fellow Ukrainians in Vladimir Putin’s war.

Since then, Yana says, she has enjoyed cheating on Russian men. Smiling, she says: “Since they made so many mistakes, I didn’t feel guilty.”