Agent Sveta: A Documentary About a Unique GUR Operation

March 30, 2026March 30, 2026

Agent Sveta could easily pass for a Hollywood blockbuster — except it’s a real story. In this documentary, warriors from the GUR* special unit “Shamanbat” reveal for the first time the details of a years-long intelligence operation inside temporarily occupied Enerhodar.

For three years, right under the noses of the FSB and Rosgvardiya in the satellite city of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, “Sveta” operated — a Ukrainian intelligence asset with a Russian passport. Under the guidance of her handlers, she tracked collaborators, military leadership, depots, and occupation force headquarters. Every object she identified became a target for Ukrainian strikes. The former agent describes her work:

I simply carried what they told me from one point to another. I walked through the places where something needed to be seen or checked. I reported what I saw — where the equipment was parked, where soldiers were gathering, where they showed up most often.

One day, at the entrance to Enerhodar, Russian forces detained her and threw her in a basement. Interrogations produced nothing — she never gave up her connection to the Ukrainian side.

After her release, “Sveta” immediately reported the interrogation to her handlers. The “Shamanbat” unit started planning an evacuation mission the same day. Intelligence officer “Trykutnyk” — the operation commander — recalls:

The reconnaissance group received orders to plan, assemble, and equip with special means. The guys who were offered this job didn’t even ask whether they could refuse. Everyone understood: there was a woman out there who had done an enormous amount of work, and she needed help.

Two Days to Get Her Out

The rescue operation ran for two days. The special forces unit moved by water and land to the outskirts of Enerhodar, met “Sveta,” and brought her back to Ukrainian-controlled territory.
“SID”, commander of the assault group that extracted the agent, shares the moment it ended:

When we had already driven a bit further, to safer ground — and when she met in person the case officers she had been corresponding with for three years — she recognized one of them by voice. They embraced. And that’s when we exhaled and understood: mission accomplished.

The work of “Sveta” and hundreds of other Ukrainian agents on temporarily occupied territories — all operating under GUR direction — once again shows the Ukrainian capacity to resist and fight back. Operation commander “Trykutnyk” puts it simply:

We never abandon people who trusted us — because these are our people, who worked for three years. I wouldn’t call it protection. I’d call it simply human — one person helping another.

“Agent Sveta” is the kind of story that reminds you what this war is actually being fought for. The film is in Ukrainian, but English subtitles are available.

*GUR (Ukrainian: ГУР) – the military intelligence agency of the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine.