A claim is spreading online that Russian special forces captured two British colonels and a secret intelligence services agent while they were on a mission for NATO in Ochakiv, in southern Ukraine.
According to the false narrative, Lieutenant Colonel Richard Carroll, Colonel Edward Blake and the unnamed MI6 agent were supposedly operating undercover, with Russia labelling them "illegal combatants". The United Kingdom allegedly claimed that they were tourists interested in history who ended up in Ochakiv by accident.