Former Russian citizen and ex-spy Aliia Roza recently broke her silence about how she conducted sexpionage as a seduction agent for the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) in a new podcast To Die For.
She is likely the first person to publicly discuss how the Russian spy service trains “seduction agents” and about their “training, techniques, targets and missions”, according to Fox News Digital and Deadline.com
“It’s been over two decades that I’ve stayed silent. But for a few reasons, I couldn’t keep my silence. I couldn’t live with this pain anymore, even though I’ve been through all this trauma. … If it was not me [speaking out], then who would speak out?,” Roza was quoted as saying by Fox News Digital.
Roza tells during the podcast episode how she fled Moscow with her young son because she wanted to give him a better life.
“The biggest achievement of my life is becoming a parent. I wanted to experience that. I wanted to create a family. I wanted to have kids. And I was not allowed to do that. And then I realised, ‘Wait a minute. I live only one life. I don’t want to spend my life sacrificing for something I don’t believe in anymore.’ That was the moment when I looked for possibilities to escape,” she explained.
Born into a Kazakh-Tatar family of a high-ranking military officer in the Soviet Union, Roza was involved in a special government program for children of high-ranking officers.
She wanted to pursue a career in fashion design but her father, who served as a high-ranking officer of over 45 years, said that she had no other choice other than attending the special government program.
She explained that she was taught different things like martial arts and other strenuous physical activities from a very early age. She was also taught to toughen up mentally and was told to never give up and be vulnerable.
“I learned you cannot give up, you cannot be vulnerable, you cannot be weak, you cannot cry,” she said.
She would find out later that she was made part of a sex program. She was chosen from a pool of 350 students to participate in a top-secret program developed by former KGB psychologists and high-ranking officers.
She was taught there how to use seduction and persuasion to get information from enemy targets.
Roza explains that her work was not merely sex but more related to the art of communication and seduction. “We’re taught how to dress up, how to put on makeup, how to present yourself, how to speak with your targets, how to make your targets believe in you and trust you,” she said.
She said it is more about understanding the “perspective of men and what exactly they want” and “about the psychology of people, of criminals, of men”.
She says seduction can begin with a general compliment. “It has to be something really specific and appropriate from that moment. This will make people really attracted to you. They’ll start to like you. And when you know how to lead a conversation, people will become very open to you,” she said.
She says that the game begins when sex techniques were introduced. “And there are the sex techniques. This is really hardcore. But it’s making your target become obsessed with you. That’s a completely different game,” Roza said.
It was only after several years she understood that she was “brainwashed” as a “master manipulator”.
“I was made to believe that I was a hero fighting against human and drug trafficking, saving all of these underage kids that were … kidnapped from their families,” Roza said, speaking of parents coming to her department begging for help.
She said despite her low salary, as little as $100 a month for a six-day working week, she kept doing it because of her patriotism.
“I felt patriotic. I felt like a hero saving someone’s life. And I felt very powerful. I felt that nobody could do anything to me. I was sacrificing my body doing all these missions. So, I just detached my emotions from my body. At the end of the day, when I saved someone’s life, I felt good about it,” she further added.
She said that she noticed how she never questioned herself for going through sexual abuse and even rape in the hands of men she was supposed to trap. She said that a former FBI agent told her that she was being sex-trafficked herself.
Neil Strauss, author of “The Game” and “The Dirt” a book about rock band Mötley Crüe, who is the creator of the podcast said that he did not believe Roza’s story first but after extensive research he found it difficult to ignore her claims.
“I only covered the story of Aliia’s time in Russia. There are very intense experiences, trauma, PTSD. … It goes in a place no one expects,” Strauss was quoted as saying as Fox News Digital.
“I remember the first time I was introduced to Aliia over dinner. When she started speaking, everyone stopped what they were doing. They only listened to her. She held the floor for the rest of the meal,” he further explained.
He said that he realised that there was a story here that needed to be told.
Roza has not returned to Russia for more than a decade and has assumed a new name. She fled to Los Angeles after she fell in love with a man she was meant to gather intelligence on, according to the New York Post.
Roza feels she was “used” by the Russian government even though she was working to stop human and drug trafficking as a spy. “I saw all these other female agents who reached a certain age, like 56. They were so miserable, so lonely. They were not allowed to have private lives. They couldn’t have families. … I couldn’t allow that to happen to me,” Roza, who now gives tips to women eager to boost their self-esteem on Instagram and boasts over a million followers, said.
The makers of the podcast hope that it will encourage other former female spies to come forward. “I think a lot of people don’t understand what it’s like for a woman growing up in the Russian military intelligence community, the lack of rights, the lack of agency, the abuse and horror that goes on there,” Strauss said.