Evidence

Multiple independent Ukrainian outlets — Ukrainska Pravda and The Kyiv Independent — reported on this story in mid-to-late August. According to these reports, Ukrainian volunteer Mykhailo Puryshev said Russia's FSB used his 18-year-old son (who lives in Russia with Puryshev's ex-wife) to blackmail him into cooperating, prompting Puryshev to travel to Moscow on August 17. Ukrainska Pravda subsequently reported on August 19 that Puryshev posted a video saying he was safe and no longer in Russian territory. The claim's account matches these reports closely, though the claim's use of 'she' is a pronoun inconsistency (Puryshev is male, referred to as 'he' in all sources found), likely a garbled paraphrase or single-word error introduced somewhere in transmission of the claim rather than a substantive factual dispute. No fact-checking organization (Reuters Fact Check, AFP Fact Check, Bellingcat, or EUvsDisinfo) appears to have published a dedicated fact-check on this specific claim; the underlying story rests primarily on Puryshev's own statements (Instagram posts and video) as relayed by Ukrainska Pravda and Kyiv Independent, without independent forensic verification of the FSB blackmail claims themselves.