✊ Ukraine's most valuable agent, it turns out, wore a Russian uniform and helped kill more than 300 Russian soldiers The Wall Street Journal tells the story of Lev Stupnikov, a young lieutenant who served as the communications chief of a battalion in Russia's 36th Motor Rifle Brigade. It was his mother, an opponent of Putin and the war, who encouraged him to cooperate with Ukraine. In February 2024, she contacted Ukrainian blogger Dmitry Karpenko, asking for help getting her son to desert. For weeks, Stupnikov passed the coordinates of Russian troop concentrations to Ukrainian intelligence. But he didn't stop there. He also disabled surveillance cameras and interfered with Russian drones during operations. In July 2024, he defected to the Ukrainian side, handing over a phone containing passwords that allowed Ukrainian forces to access live feeds from Russian drones and cameras for several more months. His mother and younger sister later left Russia. His wife, however, stayed behind and publicly called him a traitor. Now the former lieutenant, whose intelligence helped kill hundreds of Russian soldiers, serves in the Russian Volunteer Corps and fights against his former brigade.