Wives of Russian pilots duped into posing for fake calendar in mini skirts and medals

A Ukraine hacktivist group duped the wives of Russian pilots into posing for a fake calendar to reveal the identities of their husbands.

Published on: Oct 25, 2024, 13:34:10 IST

By Sanya Jain

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A Ukraine hacktivist group duped the wives of Russian pilots into posing for a fake calendar to reveal the identities of their husbands. In what The Times described as an “audacious coup”, the members of a volunteer-based, international intelligence community called InformNapalm got dozens of wives to pose together wearing their husband’s medals.

Russian pilots' wives were tricked into posing for a fake calendar shoot. (InformNapalm)

The group posed in front of a Russian fighter jet wearing their husbands’ medals. Most wives chose to dress up in mini skirts and high heels for what they believed was an initiative to boost the morale of their husbands fighting in Ukraine.

Why InformNapalm tricked Russian wives

InformNapalm tricked Russian wives into posing for a fake calendar last year to identify the members of the Russian regiment that bombed a Ukraine theatre where civilians were sheltering.

The group claims that Sergey Atroshchenko is the Russian commander of the regiment that destroyed a theatre in Mariupol in a 2022 airstrike. Atroshchenko, commander of the 960th Assault Aviation Regiment of the Russian Federation, bombed a theatre in Mariupol where civilians were sheltering.

The cyber resistance group hacked his email address and accessed his personal information in retaliation.

A member of InformNapalm then got in touch with the commander’s wife, Lilia Atroshchenko, by pretending to be a colleague of her husband’s. They asked her to arrange a photoshoot with the wives of the unit.

Lilia Atroshchenko agreed, thinking she was organising a calendar photo shoot to boost the morale of Russian pilots in Ukraine. The result was a photograph that shows a group of wives posing in their husbands’ uniforms, decked out in their campaign medals. This allowed the Ukrainian hacktivist group to identify other members of the Russian regiment.

According to The Sun, InformNapalm passed their findings to investigators at the International Criminal Court in the Hague.

(Also read: Priests, worshippers throw chairs at each other during 6-hour fight inside Ukraine church. Video)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sanya Jain
Sanya Jain is an Assistant Editor with Hindustan Times Digital. She has nearly a decade of experience in covering offbeat stories that speak to the everyday experience - from viral videos to human interest copies that spark conversation. Her interests stretch across business, pop culture, social media trends, entertainment and global affairs. Before joining Hindustan Times, Sanya spent two years with Moneycontrol and five years with NDTV. She holds an undergraduate degree in English literature from St Stephen’s College, Delhi, and a master’s in journalism from the Xavier Institute of Communications, Mumbai. Sanya has a sharp eye for spotting emerging trends and looking for newsworthy angles to elevate viral posts into meaningful narratives. She was the first one, for example, to cover Narayana Murthy’s remark on 70-hour work weeks that sparked a national conversation. She is equally at ease writing about business leaders as about the common man, about issues of national importance and memes that amuse social media. Sanya enjoys speaking with content creators, newsmakers and entrepreneurs to transform everyday moments into engaging, slice-of-life stories that resonate with readers. When she is not working, Sanya can be found curled up with a good book. Born and raised in Lucknow, she has spent the last several years in Delhi. She is deeply interested in animal welfare and now spends a lot of her time running after her destructive orange cat.Read More

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